You'll soon be reading an editorial I wrote in 4WD&SU about how great North American vehicles are, including their warranties. I stand behind what I said about those vehicle's quality, but the warranties aren't so great any more.
GM just announced their "Total Confidence" warranties for many new vehicles. The details are:
"General Motors will warrant powertrains on 2008 and newer: Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, GMC and Saturn passenger cars, light duty trucks or vans for fully backed, 5 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first. This warranty will have no deductible, starting from the original in-service date of the vehicle, for warrantable repairs which are required as a result of defects due to material and/or workmanship to the Powertrain components as listed below:"
There's then a list of what's covered in the powertrain.
This sounds great, but as I've recently found, all OEM dealers (not just GM dealers) are getting many warranty claims "charged back," meaning the manufacturers don't pay them for warranty repairs already performed. This means dealers are getting wary about performing warranty work.
So, the OEMs can say what they want about better, or extended, warranties, but those warranties aren't worth the paper they're written on if dealers won't honor them. Also, the fine print remains as it has been for years on warranties, pretty much saying the only parts not covered are the parts you need fixed.
The other problem we now run into is that with the recent rash of announced dealer closures, there are vast areas of the U.S. that won't be serviced by an OEM dealership. For example, Chrysler has announced the closure of all their southern Utah dealerships. This means that even if a warranty claim is honored, many won't be able to get their new vehicles repaired locally, making the trip to a dealership a one- or two-day ordeal.