I'll say! Some great stories here. Nice to know......

Yes, the Martin lifetime warranty is indeed a wonderful thing-unless you live outside America where you only get a year and at the discretion of the local distributor.

It was like pulling teeth to get them to do warranty work for my 74 D35.
I am the original owner and had the paperwork to prove it.
They told me that the lifetime warranty had changed and they wouldn't do the work I needed. I pulled out my (original) copy of "The Care and Feeding of Martin Guitars" (or some such thing) and quoted the specific terms of the agreement to the woman. She was impressed that I "still" had a copy of the agreement and finally authorized the work. It took me a number of emails and phone conversations to work it out.
Afterwords, everything went as smooth as ice.

You dont become the benchmark with lousy guitars, and you don't last 175 years without good service!

Great stories!