Holden brings back seven-year warranty

HOLDEN has resurrected its temporary seven-year warranty offer on its newest models as it tries to gain showroom traction for the new crucial imported ZB Commodore and Equinox SUV.

The offer – this time for unlimited kilometres – also includes seven years of roadside assistance on Commodore and Equinox, while seven other models – Spark, Barina, Astra, Trax, Captiva, Colorado and Trailblazer – get a five-year warranty.

Holden, which usually offers a three-year, 100,000km warranty on its new cars, is also throwing in three years of free scheduled servicing and five years of roadside assistance on Colorado, Trailblazer and all 2017-plated vehicles.

The offers – current until the end of this month unless the company decides to extend them – are similar to a seven-year/175,000km warranty campaign over the last quarter of last year when Holden pushed to end 2017 on a sales high.

As GoAuto reported this week, official VFACTS data released on Monday shows Holden’s market share slumped to a historic low of 4.9 per cent last month after selling just 4689 vehicles in February.

That tally included just 737 Commodores as it made the switch from the locally produced large car to the imported, Insignia-based version. The new Commodore was released into showrooms part-way through February, with Holden saying it expects the model to do better as the car gets into its stride.

Equinox, which is also being phased in to replace Captiva, only managed 364 sales for the month. And although the Mexican-made SUV has only been in showrooms for a few months, Holden is already making driveaway offers on the base LS manual.

Holden says the seven-year warranty is a demonstration of its confidence in its two newest recruits.

Holden executive director of marketing Mark Harland said feedback from customers and journalists who have driven it has been “incredibly strong”.

“We want more and more people to come and take a look at just how good these vehicles are and experience some of the great engineering work from our talented engineers,” he said. “Our new seven-year warranty on Commodore and Equinox shows just how confident we are.”

The only company to offer a permanent seven-year, unlimited kilometre warranty on new vehicles is Kia which took the initiative to boost confidence in its Korean-made cars.