Power Tool Warranties

For years now, power tool manufacturers have held fast the "Industry Standard" 1 year warranty. Well, that isn't the case any more. In fact, 2, 3, and even 5 year warranties are offered by many of our manufacturers now. But are they pulling a fast one here?

While I generally agree that the longer warranties provided by Makita, Bosch, Hitachi and Milwaukee are a nice step in the right direction, they're also not really doing much for the customer. It is true that they're giving a warranty that is longer, but it doesn't cover anything more than manufacturing defects. Normally, when you see something that isn't being manufactured properly, the problem will show up within the first few uses. If it doesn't show up then, it probably won't show up for a very long time.

The only time we see failures after 12 months with any consistency is one of two cases.

1) There is a recall about to happen / has recently happened.
2) The breakdown was from wear and tear or abuse, not from a manufacturing defect.

So on the surface the longer warranties look great. But when you dig a bit deeper, there's not a whole lot of substance to them. It's just another game of chess, and we're being treated as the pawns. Even so, I don't think they should get rid of the longer warranties. I'd just like to see them start to cover a bit more.