The Cartier Guarantee
One summer forty years ago when I was young, slim and rich I took a holiday to eat at all the Michelin 3 star restaurants in the south of France. Driving back to London in my new Rover 3500S I stopped in Lyons for lunch. It was the 9th September 1972. I went into a tobacconist (in those days I smoked imported Pall Mall King Size unfiltered) to buy my fags and noticed a display of really smart cigarette lighters, or briquets as le patron amusingly referred to them.
“Those are agreeable,” I drawled languidly.
“Oui, m’sieur, zay are from ze maison Cartier! Vairy nice, wiz a Lifetime Guarantee.”
“Oh well, they must be worth whatever you’re asking for them then. I’ll have a couple.”
Actually I only bought one. It cost £60, which equates to about £600 today, and very posh it was too.
I used it daily until I gave up smoking in 1986, after which time it languished in a drawer, along wiz its Lifetime Guarantee.
Then a dozen or so years later I went on holiday to Cuba, where smoking is compulsory. Being by now very much poorer I soon realised I couldn’t afford couple of Cohibas a day so gradually I descended to dragging on nasty little cigars, to wit Café Crème Blues.
The other day I was rootling through a drawer when I came upon my old Cartier lighter, still in its original packaging. To my surprise it didn’t light first time. So on May 16th this year I took it back to Cartier in Old Bond Street.
“Certainly sir, that’ll be £25.”
“But … but …” Maybe I’d misread the Lifetime Guarantee. Oh well, plenty of time to argue once they’d fixed it.
They rang the following week. “We have to send your lighter to Switzerland. Will that be all right, sir?” I had no problem with that.
I was walking past Old Bond Street in early July when it occurred to me I hadn’t heard from my friends at Cartier. So I detoured into the shop. The man was most apologetic. “We should have sent you a letter,” he explained, “and as we hadn’t heard from you we were awaiting your instructions. I’m afraid it will be £95.”
Sharp intake of breath from elderly, overweight, impoverished fotoLibrarian. But the comforting thought of the Lifetime Guarantee was still nestling at the back of my mind.
On July 20th I had a letter from Cartier informing me they were waiting for my instructions to commence work on my “timepiece”, and attaching an estimate for £345.00.
My jaw hit the desk. The estimate consisted of:
• Diagnosis
• Disassembly of lighter
• Cleaning of mechanism
• Cleaning the inner and outer body and cap
• Lubricating the sliding elements
• Replacement of the mechanism or gas tank
• Change the flint
• Re-assembly of lighter
• Filling the gas tank
• Function test
Right! Time to hunt down the Lifetime Guarantee, I thought.
And I found it. In French, it reads
Tous les acheteurs du Briquet CARTIER-PARIS bénéficient de la Garantie Illimitée.
and by my schoolboy French that means
All purchasers of the CARTIER-PARIS lighter benefit from the Lifetime Guarantee.
Triumphantly I telephoned Cartier. “Ah, but Sir, in this case the Guarantee does not apply. It only applies to defective elements, not to repairs.”
“But that’s crazy!” I expostulated. “If it says Lifetime Guarantee, and it doesn’t work, you should fix it!”
“Regrettably, Sir, you are now a fat old fool, not the gilded youth what purchased this lighter from us, so we have annulled your guarantee.”
Well they didn’t say this in so many words, but it was very much the interpretation I put on the honeyed syllables dripping through the earpiece.
I tried being reasonable. “Look, could you look into this for me? After all, I bought the thing with a Lifetime Guarantee and I simply assumed that meant what it said.”
They called me back later. “We have checked, Sir, and that is the price. Would you like us to go ahead?”
“Yes, go ahead and send it back to me unrepaired,” I answered glumly. There is no way I could or would ever spend £345 to repair a cigar lighter.
I can’t force them to live up to their guarantee. But I would have thought there was a certain pride in the House of Cartier, and they would honour their written obligations. I should have bought a Zippo.
Perhaps Cartier ought to adapt the slogan used by my friend Michael Cader for his influential publishing newsletter, Publishers’ Lunch: Published Daily. Except When Not.
Cartier’s version need hardly change: Guaranteed For Life. Except When Not.
July 27th, 2012 at 15:55
Great story, well told. Outrageous and shameful behaviour from the House of Cartier. You did fill it with fuel didn’t you? 🙂 Can’t go wrong with a Zippo though, has to be said.
July 28th, 2012 at 19:36
How about trying the Head Office in France – especially given your ‘high-media-profile’, they wouldn’t want you to use to give them bad publicity, would they???!!!!!!
If that doesn’t work, I could try some ‘Mediation’ for you!!!!!
July 29th, 2012 at 03:20
The little shits! Merde! And I remember that lighter, but not the Rover. Absolutely take it to the top. If Snap-on-Tools can do it, so should Cartier.
July 29th, 2012 at 16:50
Gwyn, shall I give this as a warning to my 2 youngest to give up smoking? Ah well, since they have access to zippos, praps not……
READ THE SMALL PRINT, SWEET COZ!
April 29th, 2013 at 11:46
OK, Cartier has redeemed itself. I wrote to the managing director more in sorrow than in anger that the great house of Cartier should not be honouring its promises, or appearing to attempt to wriggle out of them.
I received a fulsome apology and the charges were withdrawn. Four months later I received my lovely lighter back. And it’s working fine, thank you very much.
M Cartier, you are hereby forgiven.
November 8th, 2013 at 09:29
Why can they give you a lifetime guarantee and then not honour it? No wonder you were so outraged, I would be too. Most lifetime guarantees aren’t worth the paper they are written on it seems.
May 31st, 2015 at 20:11
This identical process happened to me about thirty-five years with my Cartier Santos watch here in New York. I too sent a letter to Paris headquarters (the folks in NYC told me that Paris had ordered the end of “the lifetime guarantee.” My reward for my protest was an agreement to “service without charge” one more time, but never again, as well as a ridiculously large bottle of Cartier men’s cologne.
May 31st, 2015 at 23:17
One more time? A lifetime guarantee now means the same as a life sentence — out in 10 years. But at least you and I won our cases, and I trust we’ll fight the next time!