That is an absurd analogy. Apple hasn't said what the specific underlying cause was, or how exactly it was rectified in October of 2020. They just said very quietly (the program's page is buried) that they had a problem and arbitrarily drew a dateline in the sand to minimize the cost of making it right. Since there's no way for you to know the manufacturing date without just taking Apple's word for it, we're just at the mercy of a company that would be more than happy to have us say "oh well" and throw another $250 at a high margin, short-life product. Gross.
I took my defective Airpods in today and had the worst experience I've ever had with Apple. They took them in the back, tested them and agreed that yes, these are defective for all the reasons covered in the program, but they were "manufactured in November of 2020", one month to the day before they were purchased. So I was basically told that the only remedy was to double down and pay $180 for replacement buds which would immediately be out of warranty since the serial number is tied to the case, not the buds. Absolutely ridiculous. There is however a second remedy, which is to never buy Airpods again.
This company has changed. I've easily spent well over $20k on Apple products over the years and never had an issue getting help for issues with much more expensive and lower margin products, especially when the company had acknowledged manufacturing defects. I was more than happy to pay a premium for these products because the value of the customer service and support that had historically been unmatched. Apple is sadly just a money vacuum now.