Reporter Zhou Ju
"I bought your car because of the lifetime warranty." For bulk consumer goods such as cars, this sentence is the common sentiment of many car consumers.
In recent years, in order to increase market appeal, the commitment to lifetime warranty has been extended from the old joint ventures of fuel vehicles to many independent brands and new energy vehicle companies such as Chery, Xpeng, Lynk & Co, and BYD. For car companies, lifetime warranty is like a reassurance in the fierce competition. It has won a lot of favor from consumers and has become one of their sharp weapons in competing for the market.
However, when there is a real problem with the vehicle and the owner walks into the 4S store with high hopes, he is often greeted with a basin of cold water.
On the third-party complaint platform, there are many complaints about the failure to honor the lifetime car warranty. The reasons for rejection are varied: it may be because a maintenance is overdue, it may be because of a "timing belt not replaced" that has no causal relationship with the fault, it may also be because of a form that was never told to be filled out, or even just because the 4S store where the car was originally sold has closed down – the promise of a lifetime warranty is like a piece of waste paper, easily torn up.
Reasons for rejection of insurance abound
By sorting out the complaint cases, the reasons why car owners are denied lifetime warranty by car companies can be summarized as follows.
One is to forcibly bind the lifetime warranty with maintenance services, which is currently the most common reason for rejection of warranty. Car companies require car owners to have their cars maintained at designated 4S stores and within specified mileage. Once violated, the lifetime warranty rights will be invalidated. "My car suffered two serious gearbox failures. The gearbox assembly was replaced for the first time. However, two years later, dangerous faults such as locking in D5 and no forward power after reversing occurred again. I went to a 4S shop for repairs, but they said that I did not perform maintenance at their shop as required and said that the lifetime warranty clause could not be used and they would not provide free repairs." Mr. Li, the owner of a domestic B-brand car, said.
Mr. Wang, the owner of an L brand car, was busy at work and exceeded the specified mileage during a maintenance. Although the 4S store maintenance record of the entire six years and 110,000 kilometers was perfect, he was told that the lifetime warranty rights were permanently invalidated just because of this "overdue period". In addition, some car owners failed to replace the timing belt as recommended by the after-sales staff of the 4S store, and their turn signal repair requests the following year were rejected on the grounds that they were "out of warranty."
According to Article 32 of the "Regulations on Responsibility for Repair, Replacement and Return of Household Automobile Products", the premise for operators to be exempt from liability is damage caused by consumers "failure to use, maintain, and maintain in accordance with the instructions for use." However, the above-mentioned car owners said that neither the oil maintenance nor the timing belt had any causal relationship with the failure – this was an exemption from their own responsibilities under unreasonable conditions and was suspected of infringing on consumer rights.
Another way to deny coverage is to tie the lifetime warranty to the insurance business. Some car owners complained that when their vehicles had quality problems and needed repairs, dealers refused on the grounds that "car damage insurance was not purchased at the 4S store." This kind of forced bundling of insurance using warranty as a bargaining chip is suspected of violating the provisions of the Consumer Rights Protection Law prohibiting the setting of unreasonable conditions and increasing consumer responsibilities.
What's more, the scope of the lifetime warranty is vague at the time of sales, and when problems arise with parts, they begin to unilaterally limit the scope of the "lifetime warranty".
A car owner of a new energy B brand said that when purchasing the car, the manufacturer clearly promised a "lifetime warranty on the battery cells." However, when the fault of the collection cable in the battery pack caused the vehicle's EV to be limited, the manufacturer argued that "the collection cable does not belong to the battery cell" and refused to repair it free of charge. The car owner asked in confusion: "Without the collection cable, how can the battery cells be monitored? How do they work? This is clearly the 'nervous system' of the battery cells!"
Similar situations are common: the vehicle seat slide is damaged, and the manufacturer says "it is an accessory and not covered by the vehicle warranty"; the driving recorder is damaged, and the 4S store says "the recorder is not covered by the claim." When faced with these sudden “professional explanations”, consumers often find themselves in a dilemma where it is difficult to provide evidence and have no way to appeal.
There is also a type of warranty refusal due to omissions in the pre-sales and after-sales processes. An L brand car owner said that before transferring the vehicle from a company in his name to an individual, he repeatedly called customer service to confirm that the lifetime warranty rights were valid. After the transfer, he discovered that the original delivery specialist had forgotten to fill in the crucial "vehicle beneficiary" form, causing the lifetime warranty to disappear out of thin air. Another domestic B-brand car owner said that the 4S store where he bought the car closed down shortly after buying the car, but no other 4S store contacted him, and no one told him what to do next. It was not until he went to another 4S store for maintenance that he was told that because he did not renew the warranty at the 4S store, the lifetime warranty rights were gone.
Some car companies seem to use lifetime warranties as short-term marketing tools, playing a game of blurring time. A joint venture car company released a lifetime warranty policy in October 2025, promoting that the first car owner can receive it for free. However, some car owners said that after purchasing the car in February 2026, they were told that they could not enjoy this benefit because "the activity ended on December 31, 2025." The car owner checked all public information and found no expiration date or notice of the end of the event. This kind of operation of "sometimes selling, but not after paying the money" makes car owners feel deeply cheated.
Lifetime warranty reduced to marketing gimmick
Why has the lifetime warranty, a promise that should be the "ballast stone" for brand reputation, become a "stumbling block" on the road to consumer rights protection?
First of all, for many car companies, "lifetime warranty" is essentially a marketing strategy. In the early stages of vehicle sales, this commitment can greatly eliminate consumers' purchasing concerns and enhance brand premium and market competitiveness. However, as vehicles age, vehicle failure rates increase and maintenance costs accumulate. When "warranty" changed from "marketing cost" to "real liability", some car companies began to find ways to set up obstacles, trying to exclude most car owners from the warranty through strict additional conditions.
At present, whether it is the complete vehicle warranty or the three-electricity warranty launched by car companies, they have formulated elaborate restrictive clauses, keeping consumers on the verge of "default" forever. For example, some brands require maintenance intervals of "transmission oil must be changed within 2 years", "annually or 10,000 kilometers", or all recommended replacement parts must be replaced, etc. In reality, any tiny movement may become a switch that triggers "out of warranty".
Faced with endless "word games", consumers are usually stuck in the dilemma of providing evidence. Although the policy stipulates that "damage caused by failure to maintain is exempt from liability," the definition of "caused" is often left to the unilateral judgment of the 4S store. When consumers question whether the two are unrelated, they need to provide proof themselves. However, in the face of complex automotive technology, individual car owners can hardly afford the high appraisal costs.
Secondly, regulatory policies lack mandatory standards for the scope of “lifetime warranty”. The current law stipulates the basic rights and interests during the validity period of the three guarantees. However, the law does not provide a mandatory definition of the "lifetime warranty" launched by car companies, which parts are specifically included and what circumstances are exempt. This gives car companies a lot of room for "explanation".
With a high degree of freedom, car companies can even choose which models to provide lifetime warranties and which models not to provide them. Some car owners reported that 24 models released by a certain brand have a lifetime warranty for the entire vehicle or three electric vehicles. The extended range version and 26 pure electric versions released at the end of 2025 also enjoy a lifetime warranty. Only the 25 pure electric versions sandwiched in the middle have been "selectively forgotten." This kind of "new and old standards" approach does not directly violate the contract, but it greatly hurts brand loyalty and the emotions of old users.
Furthermore, current policies and regulations do not provide sufficient supervision and punishment for “formal clauses”. Although the Consumer Rights Protection Law and its Implementation Regulations clearly prohibit unfair standard clauses, in actual implementation, there are often more mediations on a case-by-case basis and fewer administrative penalties. The cost of breaking the law is far lower than the cost of fulfilling warranty commitments, leading some car companies to go to court with consumers rather than happily fulfill their commitments.
Competition in the current auto market is becoming increasingly fierce, but "lifetime warranty" should not be a piece of pie offered by auto companies to consumers, nor should it be just a marketing gimmick. Change requires the joint efforts of many parties. On the one hand, car companies need to show sincerity, launch high-quality products and fulfill their lifetime warranty promises. On the other hand, regulatory authorities should also issue detailed guidelines on the "lifetime warranty" promise as soon as possible. For consumers, when purchasing a car, in addition to paying attention to "whether there is a lifetime warranty", they should also pay attention to "under what circumstances is it not guaranteed" and fix the evidence in writing.
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