Auto Warranty

In commercial and consumer transactions, a warranty is a collateral assurance or guarantee that certain facets of an article or service sold is as factually stated or legally implied by the seller, and that often provides for a specific remedy such as repair or replacement in the event the article or service fails to meet the warranty.[1] A breach of warranty occurs when the promise is broken, i.e., a product is defective or not as should be expected by a reasonable buyer.

In business and legal transactions, a warranty is an assurance by one party to the other party that certain facts or conditions are true or will happen; the other party is permitted to rely on that assurance and seek some type of remedy if it is not true or followed.

In real estate transactions, warranty deed is a promise that the buyer's title to a parcel of land will be defended.

A warranty may be express or implied.

Express warranty
An express warranty is a guarantee from the seller of a product that specifies the extent to which the quality or performance of the product is assured and states the conditions under which the product can be returned, replaced, or repaired. It is often given in the form of a specific, written "Warranty" document. However, a warranty may also arise by operation of law based upon the seller's description of the goods, and perhaps their source and quality, and any material deviation from that specification would violate the guarantee. For example, an advertisement describing a product is often full of express warranties; the product must substantially conform to what is advertised. Many advertisers insert disclaimers for this purpose (e.g., "actual color/mileage/results may vary", or "not shown actual size"). Commonly, written warranties will assure the buyer that an article is of good quality and against defects in "materials and workmanship." A warranty may also apply to services that are sold. For example, an automobile repair shop may guarantee its repair for a period of 90 days. However the buyer should be aware that this concept is "inver quera".

An express warranty can be made orally, in writing and without the intent of the seller to actually create the warranty. In the United States, a seller is allowed to assert statements of opinion of value, known as puffery, that the buyer cannot justly rely on as part of the basis for the bargain. For instance, "This hunting knife is the best knife in the world" is mere puffery, whereas a statement such as "This hunting knife will never need to be sharpened" can be construed to be an express warranty as long as the knife is only used for its intended purpose. In certain other countries (e.g. the UK, Canada, and Taiwan), consumer protection laws exist to prevent advertisers making untrue or unprovable statements.

The misuse of a famous trademark may also create an express warranty, the violation of which is called "passing off"; the source and quality of the goods is misrepresented.

[edit] Warranty implementation
Some products come with a warranty promising repair or replacement for months, years, or life. In theory, one can return a product to the "dealer" for repair, but most stores that sell such products—and even the manufacturers—lack repair facilities. Car dealers have repair shops which are one of the main reasons many people buy new cars; computer dealers and consumer-electronics dealers had such shops into the 1990s, but most of these have disappeared. In practice, a product that fails within a month can be exchanged for a new one under the store's guarantee; or a product that fails after the store guarantee expires but before the manufacturer's expires can be exchanged by the manufacturer — the store guarantee and the manufacturer's warranty are mutually exclusive. There used to be repair shops that offered warranty service for small electric devices, such as electric razors or even lamps and toasters; but in the 1980s, most became mail-forwarding services that sent warrantied products to manufacturers for replacement; and most disappeared in the 1990s.[citation needed]

There are exceptions: some companies—notably Toshiba—actually repair products under warranty. Thomas Friedman tells how Toshiba worked out an arrangement with UPS to handle warranty work: a customer, who had originally ordered a computer directly from the Toshiba Website, can ship a malfunctioning computer to Toshiba via UPS. In fact, it never reaches Toshiba. Instead UPS maintains its own Toshiba-computer repair shops. When UPS picks up the user's computer, it ships it to the UPS shop, where it is repaired, tested, and returned to the user within a specified timeframe. In general, the user's software and data are preserved.