BMW finally offers five-year warranty

BMW Group Australia has today announced that it will move to offer a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty on all new BMW, Mini and Motorrad vehicles sold from October 1 2022, backdated.

Until now, BMW has offered only a three-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, falling well behind many mainstream manufacturers now offering five, seven and even 10-year warranty coverage.

Indeed, BMW has also lagged other premium importers including Audi, Genesis, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, all of which now offer a five-year/unlimited-kilometre deal.

Speaking to GoAuto at the launch of the new-generation BMW X1 in Melbourne this week, BMW Australia head of product and market planning Brendan Michel said the decision to move to a five-year warranty was made to coincide with the launch of the new 7 Series while also recognising Australia’s standing as a five-year-warranty market.

“There is a recognition that we’ve not had a five-year warranty market in Australia, and that transitioned over the past two to two-and-a-half years,” he said.

“We would have gone earlier, we could have gone late, but we wanted to do this to coincide with the launch of our new flagship (7 Series), which only happens every seven years.

“This is an ideal time, plus there are a lot of other new models coming into the market, and we wanted to move at a time when as many of these new models could benefit together at the same time.”

Further, Mr Michel said the inclusion of Mini and Motorrad (motorcycles) within the five-year warranty program was a “no brainer”, saying customer reaction is likely to be extremely positive.

“Once we had BMW and Mini the decision to include Motorrad, and to unify this program across all BMW offerings in Australia, was just a no brainer for us,” he said.

“We know we’ve had a very solid goodwill program where previous owners have been very well covered in their fourth and fifth year anyway, but it's not official – this is in effect factory-volume ready.”

In addition to the complementary solutions offered with the new warranty, BMW Group Australia will continue offering its range of BMW Service Inclusive (cars and motorcycles) and Mini Service Inclusive maintenance plans (Mini vehicles).

BSI and MSI maintenance plans utilise the advanced on-board condition-based service (CBS) system in which sensors and algorithms to monitor and calculate conditions in which a vehicle is used, including mileage, time since last service, fuel consumption and driving style.

The CBS system and tailored BSI plans are also in place and available for BMW’s expanding range of fully electric vehicles.

“The new warranty offering perfectly complements our extensive range of ownership benefits, making the purchase of a new BMW or Mini even more compelling while providing long term peace of mind for our customers during their ownership journey,” said BMW Group Australia CEO Wolfgang Buechal.

“We selected this time to introduce our new warranty along with the market debut of the seventh generation BMW 7 Series – a vehicle renowned for treating its occupants to peerless levels of luxury, technology and refinement.

“We look forward to introducing our new warranty and collaborating with our valued dealer network around the country to continue providing a high level of service and experiences to our customers.”

Warranty offerings by manufacturer (2022):