In their infinite wisdom....

Phreakish said
No mfg cares about warranty. It's just another peice of advertising.
If you ever try to invoke it, you'll have to pay shipping or restocking or some sort of fee that will be 2/3 the replacement cost.
Or they just won't honor it and will weasel out based on any number of exclusions.
This is partly because cheapskates will run trash oil filters or junk oil to save $10, and then figure "warranty will replace it", and so abuses like that become prevalent enough that manufacturers just say "to ehll with our customers, they're morons" and partly because it's just cheaper to say "no".

You nailed it though - people will always go with the cheaper option and feel like they got a deal - anyone making higher quality will only ever get about 10% of the market if they're not super competitive on price.

I knew a guy associated with Gopher when it was in business. We were discussing parts quality and he laughed that a Gopher rebuild was junk but a rebuilt Gopher was a pretty good motor. What?? He said that the quality of parts like bearings, rings, valve train parts, etc. that Gopher used were middle to lower quality. Other than fitting, all Gopher cared about was how much the part cost and if it could make it through warranty. The machining though was first rate. His take was you get a Gopher rebuild, disassemble it, throw all of the bearings, rings, lifters, camshaft, camshaft, etc. away and reassemble it with quality parts....you've now got a good motor. Take it for what it is worth.