I find it quite amusing that some people put such stock and importance in frame warranties. For a start you’re asking a company to warrant a piece of equipment that is going to be heavily used, abused and stressed.
They only have your word that you have used the frame within the limits of its design and have fitted parts correctly and designed to work with the frame.
On top of this nearly every single FS frame these days is made from Aluminium, a material that is fairly brittle and fatigues quite rapidly.
Now here’s two interesting examples of the value of warranties for you. The rear mech hanger failed on my Litespeed road bike, the frame was aluminium and the mech hanger didn’t fail as it should have and it trashed the rear dropout as well.
The frame was in warranty but Litespeed’s warranty on that frame was repair or crash replacement. They refused to repair it and instead offered me a cost price Ti frame which was ludicrously expensive.
My mate has a Cove Hummer (Ti frame), which was made by Litespeed. The downtube cracked beneath the gusset and Cove said they’d get it fixed. Six months later he got the frame back, all repaired and as good as new – but in the meantime he was without a bike and six months is way too long to wait in my book (and his as it turned out).
While I’m well aware of Orange’s reputation, I have no more faith in them than I do in an any other frame manufacturer on the planet. However, at least they’re based in the UK and I can talk to them direct rather than a bike shop or distributor that doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on and probably doesn’t care.
As for the price of Orange bikes. I can only go on the decision I made last year and that was between a Turner Five Spot and a Five, I walked away with a good few hundred quid stashed in my back pocket and a nice shiny Five…..oh and I only had to wait three weeks rather than three months for the frame;-)