Big GOLD Egg (with photos)

WileE, no you don't have to register.  There is no legal requirement to reqister with a manufacturer to obtain warranty service.  You only need proof of purchase, i.e., a receipt.  I doubt BGE is going to start weasiling out of most warranty claims.  That would soon destroy their reputation and a big selling point of theirs. 

See section 18 of their warranty: "18. REGISTER THE WARRANTY: Warranty registration is available at BigGreenEgg.com. Failure to register the EGG at BigGreenEgg.com, or to register your purchase by other means that may be made available by BGE, will invalidate your Warranty."

I realize that the mandatory registration may not be legally supported by certain states but that is what their warranty says anyway.

I also realize that BGE might have included all the legalese and disclaimers to protect themselves from abusive warranty claims, just like most other vendors do these days. But then you are counting on the subjective review and approval process and the vendor's arbitrary decision to back your warranty claims, and this is always an iffy situation at best. The vendor could change their internal guidelines or policies at any time and switch to a more aggressive stance where they look for every reason to deny claims as a way to maximize profits and minimize support costs, and the consumers would be burned with little or no legal recourse. The warranty does still have some value and hopefully they will cover most things as before, but they do specifically list a fair amount of exclusions or parts that have much < lifetime coverage, so I personally wouldn't put that much faith in the warranty or pay extra to get it. If I could save $150 or more by purchasing from a discounter "unauthorized" dealer then I would do it in a heartbeat, or even just buy used eggs when you can find them. Just my $0.02 worth.