"Limited lifetime warranty" - gimmick?

[Nervous]

I put a question mark at the end, but I am sure it is. Want to hear your opinions, guys. I just came back from AutoZone (Laurel, MD). I was looking for a rack & pinion and I heard that AutoZone and AdvanceAutoParts now selling racks with "limited lifetime warranty". Ok, rockauto.com sells the same brands of racks significantly cheaper (even with adding shipping both ways), but they don't give that kind of warranty, just a 12 mo for ATSCO / A1 Cardone and 36 mo for Beck & Arnley. So, I decided to ask, what exactly the terms of the warranty are. The guy at the counter told me "lifetime warranty that product doesn't have manufacture defects". I asked: how exactly will be determined is it manufacture defect or not? If I bring the leaking rack back in 2 years after the purchase - is it covered? The guy became very nervous and, seems to me, angry. He didn't reply to me directly and just disappeared and in 2 minutes the manager of the store appeared. I asked him the same questions. He had better self-control, but his answer was no, it is tear-and-wear. Ok, what if I bring it back in a year? He looked very uncertain, loged on the computer, started to read something. His reply was - maybe. I tried to figure out the period of REAL warranty, when I can replace it w/o problems and basically failed. THEY DON"T KNOW! How ridiculous is this?
I am going to repeat the same experiment in AdvanceAutoParts, but I think I already know the result. Well, seems to me there is no any reason in buying parts in these shops, when rockauto.com and many other internet shop exist, even though they do not provide "limited lifetime warranty".
What do you think, guys?

[zythr]

Funny to me. Though can't blame the auto parts area. Rack and pinion can be a high wear item what with it getting jostled around hitting bumps, not to mention turning and steering. These guys really want you to buy from them and not the competition.

[fenixus]

yeah, basically all Limited Lifetime Warranties are covering hidden factory defects and not the normal wear & tear (very wide term)...
under same LLW warranty I returned to autozone used 3x Bosch Spark Plug wiresets (stay away from those!) for gen4 camry. the last one i returned for a refund (i was very pissed off at that point) and they accepted it in second store (first one denied refund, so i took exchange and returned that to another store LOL).

autozone also sells struts (e.g. Gabriel for my gen4) which supposedly come with same LLW, but in the end they wouldn't replace anything i guess (normal wear) if strut was banging ... it would work though it the thing snaps in half or so (factory defect).

Some people who know how to "negotiate" may have better luck with getting free replacements under LLW and so on, all depends on how good (or pissed off) you are in explaining things to the person behind the counter

I bet average Joe never uses LLW.