Why does it matter who owns a piece of equipment 1st, 2nd or 3rd if it’s still in warranty to get coverage? Warranty coverage to the original owner only is a way out.
Let’s apply the Golden Rule.
You are a manufacturer of an expensive piece of merchandise that costs a lot to fix. Someone calls you up because it broke and wants you to fix it. They are the 3rd-hand owner of the item.
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They can’t tell you when it was originally purchased and have no proof of how old it is.
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They can’t tell you its history of how it has be used (and abused).
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When you ask them if they’ve been using the item as proscribed in the user’s manual or in ways that voids the warranty, they say, “What manual?”
Would you fix it for free?
I am a guy who builds and warranties computers
If a customer could tell me who the original owner was I can ID the machine and if it was in warranty I would probably cover it. even if say they banged around a desktop and trashed a hard drive, I can still RMA the drive and get zero complaint from manufacturer of drive. For me its worth it to make a warm fuzzy and keep the person for the virus cleanups and inevitable things that come up.
If they were using it as proscribed in the manual then I would assume the warranty would be void anyway. (proscribe means forbid).
Owning up to quality through the warranty period is the bottom line on products sold to the public or transferred vs trained/licensed individuals.
In the case of multiple owners, most people keep items (computers, cars or whatever) for the relatively short warranty coverage period. Each time it changes hands, it is exposed to a more potential abuse and/or problems that could result in a warranty claim. Also, as shady as it may be, multiple owners also can be a sign of a defective product that just keeps getting passed along.
In the case of products with longer than average standard warranties, it is common for coverage not to transfer beyond the original owner. It’s a marketing gimmick. A perfect example is the warranty coverage on all new KIA and Hyundai vehicles. The entire car (bumper-to-bumper) has a 5-year/60,000-mile Warranty and the Powertrain (Engine, transmission, etc) is covered for 10-years/100,000-miles. They refer to it as “America’s Best Warranty” in their ads and sales literature.
But that only applies to the original owner. If the original owner sells the car, the Powertrain Warranty drops down to 5-years/60,000-miles. Of course, many (MOST, actually) people who buy these cars aren’t told about that so they see the long warranty as something that will increase resale value if they want to sell prior to 10-years or 100,000 miles!
When the 10yr/100k Powertrain Warranty was originally introduced on Hyundai and KIA vehicles, most of the cars were NOT the kind that you’d want to keep for 10years or drive for 100,000 miles. They counted on that- the fact that a signifcant percentage of people wouldn’t keep the car for anywhere near the warranty period and when they sold or traded it, the warranty was no longer valid…
As for computers, I have been a loyal customer of the Dell Latitude line for the last 10-years and the warranty coverage is one of the main reasons. All upper-level Latitude models have a standard 3-year Warranty. By upper level, I’m referred to the E4000 and E6000 series, as well as the D600/D800-series before them. I usually keep one for the full 3-years and then some (just retired an E6400 that had been used daily as my primary system for work and home and it was 4.5yrs old). It actually still works very well except the WiFi died about a year ago and replacing the motherboard would be the only way to fit it…). But I’ve had a few others that I decided to sell during the 3-year Warranty and as long as I submit the buyer’s name/address/email to Dell, the warranty has always transferred! I even had one that I bought for the original owner when it was less than 1yr old and I wasn’t crazy about the display quality, so I sold it to the third owner when it was less than 18 months old and the warranty transferred to owner number three without the slightest issue!
Dell has made more than a few piiece of shit computers and caused a lot of folks to have an extended-stay in DELL HELL! (Note- first Studio laptop model, the 1535, was a first-class ticket to DELL HELL and I almost stopped doing business with them even on the business Latitudes over the 1535 I bought when they first came out in 2008). But at least they don’t screw their customers out of their warranty coverage!
I wish I could remember the brand, but I once owned a piece of music equipment (it was electric guitar related) that had an honest-to-God “transferrable lifetime warranty”. Didn’t matter how old it was or how many owners it had had, if it broke, they’d fix it for free.
Warranties are essentially a marketing tool, designed to increase sales. They are a financial agreement between the manufacturer and the person who bought the product. Those who did not make the initial retail purchase did not increase sales and have no agreement with the manufacturer. In other words, the warranty is not about the product, it’s about the buyer.
You’re seeing the warranty as a guarantee of quality and it really isn’t. The warranty is a contractual agreement between the purchaser and the company. Contracts are not normally transferable and warranties go so far as to expressly state that the warranty cannot be transferred. In this sense, it’s like any other contract, and how many of those are transferable? I can’t transfer software licenses, cell phone plans, life insurance, leases… the list goes on and on. You don’t have the right to transfer their contractual obligation to another person.
At least you don’t have that right without a provision allowing it. I know the windows on my house have a 50-year warranty that transfers to one new owner of the home. So it isn’t impossible to do it this way, they just have to want to. As others have said, it’s a marketing gimmick and so “want to” for them translates to “will increase sales.” When I bought the windows, it was common to flip and trade up houses, so you can see why the transferability might be a selling point.