On 2006-08-14 00:34:22 +0100, "The3rd Earl Of Derby" said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2006-08-14 00:17:19 +0100, "The3rd Earl Of Derby"
said:

Erm! have you tried their site.

Service/warranty registaration.
http://www.makita.com/

That's the U.S. site

UK site is www.makitauk.com

Whats that go to do with it? the warranty is the same ie 1 Year. :-)

Some manufacturers offer different warranty periods in different
theatres of operation. Terms and conditions certainly vary in
accordance with local law, custom and the market situation.

First time I've heard that before? as far as the warranty concerned you
can't give a warranty of 1 year in one country and have a warranty of 3
years in another country.

Absolutely you can.

One example came from a European Directive on the subject which
required statute of limitations cover for products sold to consumers of
a minimum of two years.

This didn't directly affect the UK, which has 6 years, but other EU
countries had all sorts of different arrangements.

Consumer groups in several countries, notably Germany, seized on the
ambiguity in the wording of the Directive and pushed for a minimum of 2
year *warranty* which is not the same thing at all.

Thus, there is a situation where some manufacturers are offering two
year warranties in some European countries and one year in others.
Other manufacturers, in order to reduce complexity with logistics have
gone for two or even three years across Europe.

A similar situation exists in the United States. It is typical to
offer a one year (or whatever) warranty, and to then have a clause
accepting different state-by-state conditions (and there are).

In the end, it's all about cost and market perception.

The quality manufacturers will not have a high return rate because of
the engineering design and quality of materials used. Hence you see
Festool, Metabo and now Bosch (professional) offering 3 year
warranties. The extra two years is provided when you send in the
registration card.

The volume Chinese manufacturers have a set of terms and conditions
with the retailers which may allow a certain return rate of faulty
product, or not. The volume retailer offers his two or three year
warranty. It's then a question of risk. At one end, the retailer
takes all the risk, paid for out of margin, and dumps any returns in
the skip. At the other, he returns product to the manufacturer (or
verification of return from the end user) and returns still go in the
skip.