Back in 1963 when Chrysler Corp began the five year/50,000 mile warranty, it was just on the drive train. It included the engine, transmission, drive shsft, resr axle. The clutch on the manual transmission equipped cars was not included. Alternator, brake components, fuel.pumps, etc. were not included.
This warranty added very little to the cost of the car. Failures in the drive train are described by.the negative exponential distribution. Most of the failures in the the drive train occur within the first fee months or a few thousand miles after the vehicle is put in service. Originally. new car warranties were for 90 days or 4,000 miles. Most drive train failures would occur in this time period. It didn’t cost Chrysler much to extend the warranty for the drive train to 5 years or 50,000 miles. Also, the quality of the Chysler products had been greatly improved for the 1963 models.
Plus as vdc mentioned, post cards to insure maintenance at the dealer. A win win as we business folks say. Not much in cost, more business for dealerships, bragging rights, etc. my folks bought a 66, 68, 72, and last a 78. Can’t remember which had the warranty.
As long as the customer brought-in maintenance receipts from other shops, the folks at the dealership were obligated to sign/put their business stamp on the cards. Of course, many people did go to the dealership for service, but after a couple of negative experiences with their service department, my father began taking the Plymouth to the local Esso station for service.
The curmudgeon at the dealership squawked, but we got him to sign/stamp the cards. He offered to mail them for us, but because we didn’t trust him, we mailed the cards ourselves.
The only repair that our '63 Plymouth ever needed was replacement of the distributor drive gear. This took place w/in the warranty period (probably ~30k miles), but the repair at an indy shop in Gatlinburg, Tennessee was so cheap that my father didn’t even bother trying to be reimbursed by Chrysler.
Warranties on most items are to catch defective components when the item is initially put into service. I bought a 1965 Rambler Classic 550 (bottom of the line in 1965. The car had 7000 miles. I got the balance of the 2 year/24000 mile warranty.
After the first tune-up (spark plugs and distributor points and condenser) by the Rambler dealer, it ran worse than before. It stumbled on acceleration. The dealer kicked the float up on the carburetor which cured the acceleration issue, but the gas mileage was terrible. I also discovered that thecm dealer had blocked off the PVC system. I made repeated trips to the dealer during the warranty period without much luck. After the warranty expired, I took the Rambler to a shop that specialized in tuneups. That shop bored out the jets on the carburetor. It accelerated well, but the engine was running too rich. It would foul up the spark plugs and thecm gas mileage was terrible. A service station mechanic replaced thecm carburetor. The Rambler ran a little better, but it didn’t accelerate well. I was a low level instructor at a university and money was tight. I was headed back for my second round of graduate school and didn’t have the funds to buy a newer car.
What saved thecm day was a senior colleague at the university who owned a gas station. I was eating lunch in the faculty dining room and this colleague was at my table. He was bragging about the great mechanic he had at his gas station. I brought up the problem with my Rambler. I made a bet with my colleague: If his mechanic could fix my car, I would buy lunch for this colleague for a week. If he couldn’t fix the car in the service station, but convince me that he had diagnosed the problem, I would buy lunch for my colleague for a day. If his mechanic was as stumped as wvery other mechanic, the colleague was to buy my lunch for a week. There were other people at the table and the bet was on. I took the car to my colleague’s station. I got a call at work after dropping off thecm car from the mechanic. He asked if he could remove the fuel pressure regulator that had been installed along the line to try to fix the problem and return everything to factory specified settings. I told him he had permission to do anything he wanted. When I picked uo the car, the mechanic said to drive it around the block before paying the bill. I took the Rambler out and it ran beautifully. I asked the mechanic what he did. His answer: “I put in new points and plugs”. I replied, “Everyone has done that and itvm didn’t help”. The mechanic grinned and said, “Well. I did do one more thing. The timing marks were off, so I set the timing by feel”. This mechanic could listen to an engine, put his hand on the engine and hear and feel if the ignition was in time. The bill was $14.75. I spent more on lunches for .y colleague paying off the bet.
The Rambler got me through my doctoral work and a couple of years beyond. The money I saved by not buying a newer car allowed me to make a down payment on a house.
The Rambler did have a defect from the factory that seemed hard to pinpoint.
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Chrysler had some serious reliability problems in the late 50s.
Part of turning that around was one of the reasons the slant-6 drivetrain was so reliable.
And I understood their introduction of the 5yr/50K mile warranty was part of standing behind that that turn-around.
Actually I had th3 same timing issue with my olds diesel. The guy I went to was an olds mechanic at an indi shop. He always set the tjiming at the mark according to the factory service manual. When I needed a new pump again I went to a diesel truck repair place. He set the timing beyond the mark. He said the book was wrong. I couldn’t believe the added performance it had. So I learned to not always trust the service manual or a certified factory mechanic.
Later in life I ran across an old guy on a farm. The dealers sent their diesel problems to him to correct. He explained what changes he made to factory and that diesels had to breath. He’s dead now but so is my diesel, but I’m not.
They comply with federal emissions requirements, aftermarket shops change the “tune” to suit their performance interests. Advancing the injection pump timing was a common modification.