Lifetime Warranty

Freddie decided to use my lovely new red cell phone for a chew toy today. I rescued the phone but didn't realize until too late that the back cover had come off of it and that Freddie was cutting his teeth on it.


I'm taking the phone to Verizon tomorrow, but I don't think it's guaranteed against puppy teeth. They don't give you a lifetime warranty on cell phones.

A lot of products do give you a lifetime warranty, though. Look at a series of these TV product ads, whether for the latest way to clean your floor or the newest doodad to make your kitchen time easier, remove unwanted hair, or to punch sparkly thingies into the material of your leather jacket.

Nine time out of ten, in addition to giving you an extra "whatever" with an additional $30 value item absolutely free, yours to keep whether you want the original product or not, they all tell you that the product has a lifetime warranty.

I want to know what a lifetime warranty is.

Is it MY lifetime? Will they replace a defective item any time between now and my death? If it's my lifetime, can this warranty be transferred to my children upon my death?

And if it's not MY lifetime, than whose? Is it the lifetime of the company which makes the item? How do you determine the lifetime of the item itself? Or is it merely the lifetime of the job of the person you talked to on the telephone.

Has anybody ever tried to cash in on a "lifetime warranty" 10 years after you purchased the handy dandy chop-o-matic?

These are the kinds of issues that keep me awake nights, well, these and wondering what the puppies are going to chew up next.

When we bought the Pergo, it didn't come with a lifetime warranty, but with a 25 year warranty. If we bought the next most expensive brand it came with a 30 year warranty. I told the salesperson that I was 63 years old and that a 25 year warranty would be sufficient!

I decided to do a Google search on "lifetime warranties" and found some interesting stuff.

Something called the X-Arcade comes with the "industry leading lifetime warranty." It reads, "The X-Arcade™ is built to be bulletproof, and so is the warranty that comes with it. Xgaming's Lifetime Warranty covers your X-Arcade™ for LIFE. It’s that simple. No gimmicks, industry leading warranty.

This is a game. An arcade game. And not only does it give you a lifetime warranty, but it's also bulletproof. No wonder I don't go to arcades. Too damn dangerous!

The Kingston corporation offers lifetime warranties on memory modules including ValueRAM, HyperX and Kingston system specific memory, Flash memory cards (e.g. Secure Digital, CompactFlash, MultiMediaCard, SmartMedia) ATA Flash, and Linear Flash; memory expansion-boards, networking adapters; routers, hubs and switches without cooling fans (excluding the power supply), Flash adapters and microprocessor upgrade products. This is good to know because I have Secure Digital cards and a couple that aren't working. If I could remember where (and when) I bought them, it appears I could have them replaced. Damn. I should have planned ahead. But again, there is that "lifetime" name. The camera that I first bought the cards for no longer exists. Does this invaludate my lifetime warranty?

The Aquasana Pure Water System gets a little more specific. It gives you a lifetime warranty for as long as you own the system, without exception. One would assume that you could pass along the lifetime warranty if you sell your house and have all the documentation to give to the new owners. Will this be honored indefinitely, or do they eventually figure out that you must be 100 years old by now and get suspicious?

There is a line of Calphalon bakeware that offers a lifetime warranty (but it's voided if you put your bakeware in the dishwasher).

There is a pool table company that offers a lifetime warranty for the lifetime of its owner (finally--someone who defines "lifetime"). So if you're going to buy a pool table, buy it in the name of your infant son!

Droll Yankees have a bird feeder with a lifetime guarantee that will repair or replace any part of your bird feeder if it is damaged by squirrels.

A jeweler offers a lifetime warranty on all its rings. (How many things can go wrong with a ring?)

A camping supply site offers a lifetime warranty on its bags and defines the warranty thusly: Our products are covered under warranty, to the original owner, for the lifetime of the product. Product lifetime varies due to normal wear. The product's "lifetime" specifically refers to the life of the product, or at such a time that, through normal use, the product can no longer function for the specific purpose intended. (Or in other words, "lifetime" means however long we decide it means!)

We seem to be comforted by the notion that an item has a lifetime warranty. I suspect that the reason why manufacturers are so ready to offer them is that they realize that by the time the item wears out or breaks, we find it too much trouble to locate the original receipt, pay the postage to return it, and get our money back, or a replacement item.

I sure wish Verizon had a lifetime warranty, but then I suspect that I'm not going to be the first person who shows up at a Verizon office with long face, holding out a mangled cell phone and says "the dog ate my phone."