Honda (and Toyota) sell a lot of cars thanks to an image (popularized by the media) of making ultra-reliable vehicles.
Why then doesn't Honda give at least a 5 year, 75k mile warranty for all items outside of normal wear (tires, brakes, etc.)??????
The simple answer is that Honda doesn't do so because they feel it would cost them too much money and that competitive pressures don't require it.
Well, Hyundai is cranking up the competitive pressure big time. Hyundai has gone from having some of the worst JD Power ratings to having some of the best.
I believe that one big reason for this is that Hyundai's long warranty period puts the cost of engineering and manufacturing shortcomings back onto Hyundai instead of fobbing them off on the customers. Now Hyundai is highly incentivized to get-it-right-the-first-time instead of paying the much higher cost of fixing problems in the field.
Even much maligned GM is starting to get the picture and just bumped Buick's warranty up to 4 years/50k miles.
John