Seven-year warranty for Haval too

Haval has joined Kia, SsangYong and MG in offering a seven-year, unlimited-kilometre factory warranty across its entire model range.

However, unlike its Korean rivals and fellow Chinese brand, Haval’s industry-leading new-vehicle warranty (except for Tesla, which offers and eight-year/160,000km warranty) is a part-time sales incentive that ends on December 31.

Like many long vehicle warranties, it’s also only applicable to private buyers (not business, rental or fleet purchasers).

Albeit for a limited time, Haval’s extended warranty is the latest to be introduced in the Australian automotive space, where Volkswagen announced a five-year/unlimited-km warranty earlier this week.

As with Haval, the German brand’s longer warranty is valid only until the end of 2018, although at least Volkswagen says it is considering making it permanent.

If it does so, Volkswagen would match the five-year warranties of Ford, Holden, Mazda, Honda, Renault, Skoda, Peugeot and Citroen.

It would also leave Nissan and market-leader Toyota as the only top-10 mainstream brands without a five-year warranty in Australia’s increasingly competitive, declining and now fully imported new-vehicle market.

Indeed, Kia has said it will consider extending its coverage to an unprecedented 10 years, as it offers in the US, if other brands match its pioneering seven-year warranty in Australia.

Hyundai is also considering a seven-year warranty to sweeten its retail deals – up from its once-benchmark five years.