warranty vs guarantee

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Yoong Liat

#286948 Sun, 29 Oct 06 01:06 PM

Is there any difference between 'warranty' and 'guarantee'?

Yoong Liat

Joined on Mon, Sep 4 2006

Singapore

Veteran Member (5,605)

Yoong Liat

Difference between

Marius Hancu

#286949 Sun, 29 Oct 06 01:13 PM

Use only warranty on products you buy etc.

see
Post:250189

Marius Hancu

Joined on Wed, Apr 26 2006

Montreal, Canada

Veteran Member (11,616)

Philip

#287246 Mon, 30 Oct 06 05:55 AM

Marius Hancu wrote:
Use only warranty on products you buy etc.

see
Post:250189

Right! They are obviously of the same origin, but warranty is used for products (usually for a certain amount of time). However, I "guarantee" that you will like this if you try it. There may be regional differences as well.

Philip

Joined on Thu, Jun 23 2005

USA Pacific Northwest (Seattle)

Veteran Member (5,613)

If one will scoff at the study of language, how, save in terms of language, will one scoff? - Mario Pei

J Lewis

#287455 Mon, 30 Oct 06 03:33 PM

Regional differences, yes! On British products you find a guarantee, on American products a warranty (actually none of them are British or American, it depends on who writes the information sheet!).

J Lewis

Joined on Tue, Sep 5 2006

Italy

Regular Member (518)

Tam Sadek

#287480 Mon, 30 Oct 06 04:15 PM

From AskOxford.com

warranty

• noun: (pl. warranties) 1 a written guarantee promising to repair or replace an article if necessary within a specified period.

guarantee

• noun: 1 a formal assurance that certain conditions will be fulfilled, especially that a product will be of a specified quality.

Actually the error here is that most native speakers use them interchangeably and it has nothing to do with British, American or any other type of English.

'Warranty' has a time limit, e.g. for 12 months... and may be extendable to 24, 36 or 48 months for example.

'Guarantee' is to a standard of quality and is not time bound... and is non-extendable.

However, we are all familiar with 'Lifetime Guarantee' claims by manufacturers... which of course are non-extendable by their very definition...

Hope that helps...