honeybadger

Extended warranties are usually not worth it... you are basically making a gamble against the reliability of your car while they are making a gamble FOR your car's reliability


even if they end up losing... they'll probably weasel out of liability

bailey bill

I always own at least 3 vehicles; a family sedan ('05 Camry) my daily driver/work truck ('02 Frontier, and a toy (currently an '06 Enthusiast.

I average a total of 45K miles on the 3 vehicles, keep them about 5-7 years and 100K miles.

I haven't spent more than a $100 in repairs on all of my vehicles combined in the last 15 years. Why would anyone spend $1000-2000, or more, for and extended warranty?

Its likem going to Vegas. Sure, every once in a while, somebody comes away a winner. But day in and day out, the house always wins. When you buy anb extended warranty,your betting against the house. Your an amatuer laying against the pros.

bill

bill

eesnas

Well said!

I agree with everything you said, same as the guy above... I think I just needed to hear a few people with a similar outlook, and of course the fact I am new Nissan ownership so I am not sure what the real deal is. Anyways, I'm skipping the warranty and putting my dollars into other things, my general outlook is I only pay when I recieve something, I don't like to pay in advance of an assumed negative outcome, it's really like they try to sell you on fear with this stuff, the warranty company would be out of business if the majority of customers exceeded the premium cost with qualified repair work, obviosly they are in business and doing well for a reason- they are winning the bets. I also agree they will always try to weasle out of paying, seems like the criteria for coverage always has some fine print.

deathfist

your'e wrong about that.. ANY auto repair center can take care of most extended warranties. as long as they has a business license and all. my local guy, and he is also registered with AAA, took care of my deal. sometimes, and in my case, the deductible is higher. for instance, if i took my car to carmax (the place i bought it from and purchased the extended warranty from) for repair it would only cost $50.00. if i take it to a nissan dealer, yes the dealer, or any other place its $75.00.

deathfist

why would you go to vegas when you can go to atlantic city?
spend the $1,300 on grass, hookers and beer.. yes in that order...

that's why these forums are great.. no one gets upset and everyone voices their own opinion..

in my case an extended warranty seems to be a good fit for my ride... it seeems to be on the lemon side... so i guess i suqeezed the lemon upfront.

hgill

iTrader: (1)

i got it when i bought the car, and believe me, i didnt use it all. Not worth it from my point. And like its been said, it doesnt cover most things anyway. Ive put about 60K miles in 3 yrs and the only thing i changed are the battery and shocks on my trunk, which one of the guys at nissan helped me, and has Nissan paying for it this Saturday.

deathfist

bill... i too keep 3 vehicles.. a family van (5-10k a year), my 05 roadster (daily driver 30k+ year), and my '94 ford bronco 4x4 (with over 218k miles on it. i drive it less than 5 k a year).. so we have very similar habits. however i tend to keep my vehicles a tad longer than you. in the past 15 years i have gone thru a chevy camaro, a ford ranger, a mazda van, and a mazda 3 (plus the cars i own now mentioned earlier).

before i start, i need to ask you what you define as a repair. because i think that $100 figure in 15 years is way too low. do you call a brake job a repair or maintenance? are you calling repairs failures? like my tranny takes a crap? what about if the battery dies? is that a repair? how about the headlights going out? what if the a/c breaks, like the compressor dies.? i think you need to clarify this a bit more. In my opinion i believe that a brake job is a repair, especially if you need to replace the rotors; a replacement battery is a repair; replacement of airbag sensors is a repair; replacement of an oxygen sensor is a repair. i bet if you really think about it, you have spent more than a hundred bucks...

anyway, the point that i'm trying to make here is that if you really look at it and in my example with my cars in the last 15 years i have spent the following: 94 bronco bought used for 20k, 99 ford explorer bought used for 17k, 99 mazda mpv van bought used for 15k, 05 dodge town and country van bough used for 20k, 05 roadster bought used for 23k and finally 06 mazda 3 bought new for 21k... if you add it up that's about $117,000 in new/used vehicles in 15 years... if you really look at it, what's a couple more grand on an extended warranty? really now, would you ever notice the extra 2k in 15 years? that's about $133.33 PER YEAR FOR 15 YEARS...

hell i've smoked more dope in a year than the cost of my extended warranty for my z... a gram of coke used to cost $150....

and as a matter of fact, this warranty for the z is the only extended warranty i have ever purchased. my main reason for buying the extended warranty was for the fact that the z is a semi-exotic car, it was used, it had 3 prior owners, and it was my first real sports car (i mean besides the beaters i had as a kid and my 67 mustang which was super trick)... the extended warranty gave me a piece of mind..who knows what those others did to the z before me...

cya
doug

TheBroberts

iTrader: (2)

Call foresight services group, my ex-girlfriends dad owns this company, they sell the warranty to the dealer, therefore you'll get it cheaper. http://foresightservicesgroup.com/
There phone # is on the company info page, just tell them you were referred to them by Brian Roberts, otherwise they'll just tell you to call one of there dealers most likely. Cheapest price you'll ever get on a platinum coverage extended warranty.

bailey bill

1) Tires, brakes, and batteries are wear items, and not covered by warranty anyway.

2) "Repairs" means something broke, or failed to perform properly. I replace tires as needed, most vehicles during a 5-7 year span will get one one battery replacement (no I don't consider it a repair, and as I mentioned, would not be covered by warranty). And the last set of brakes I replaced was on my '87 MR2. I have never replaced an O2 sensor (its really a wear item anyway) The last clutch replacement was on a 70-something Midget, around 1985. The last tranny I broke was my Olds powered '48 Ford coupe that I owned in high school (that was almost 50 years ago)It was a '39 Ford tranny, and I replaced it about every 6 months.

The only true "repair" i can recall in the last 15 years was replacing a broken engine cover prop rod clip on my '91 MR2 turbo. The part was $1.98 at the dealership, and I simply popped the old one out and snapped the new one in. Oh, and in '92, I took my '87 Nissan truck to the shop and they replaced the fuel shutoff switch. About $150 parts and labor.

OTOH, I am very concientious about preventative maintenance. I drain and flush radiators/coolant system every 30K, change clutch and brake fluid every 30-40K, replace all drive belts and coolant hoses at 75K. 30K on conventional ignition components, and 50K for electronic ignition. Clean and lube battery terminals about once a year. I also presure wash all engine compartments once a year. I've probably replaced 2 or 3 taillight/turn signal bulbs, and probably 2 headlights in the last 15 years. Again thoses are wear items and not covered by warranties anyway.

If I ever imagined that I might have $1000 in actual repairs on a vehicle during the first 100-125K, I simply would not buy the vehicle. Note that all of my current vehicles are Japanese brands, and any one of them should easily provide over 150K of trouble-free ownership.

Extended warranties are a rip-off!

bill

bailey bill

Yhen why did you buy it? Why ould you buy a car you expected to have problems with?

Even if you do have problems, and get them covered under warranty, it s PITA to schedule the repair,. sometimes you're left on the side of the road, miss a day's work...etc.

bailey bill

Your missing a very importan part of your calculation. If you owned 7 vehicles during that time frame, its not just one warranty at $133/yr, its 7 warranties

133 X 7 $$931 per year , or 7 vehicles X $1995 = 13,965.!

And I guarantee that ALL maintenance costs, oil and filter changes, tires, batteries, cooling system maintenance, ignition components, etc, etc have not cost me $14,000 over the last 15 years.

The biggest expense I have had was rear tires on the '91 MR2 turbo, I replaced the rear tires about every 9K, at ~ $120 each. (But it was worth it!!!...best toy I ever owned)

bill
bill

deathfist

i dont think i ever said i purchased extended warranties for all my vehicles now did i??? no dont see that anywhere in my notes...this was actually the first one i purchased in my 25 years of owining vehicles. and i told you the reason why already...

as far as why i bought a car if i thought it was lemon.. no problems or any "carfax" items were disclosed to me. i didn't think i was getting a lemon when i purchased it...and no i didn't think i was buying a car i wouold have problems with...

i just had couple problems in the first 6 months, so to me it appears like a lemon...you are reading too much into my comment.

i think you need to do more preventative maintenace that i do since you live on the east coast. my cars stay in los angeles where it never snows, and only get to about 50 F (well maybe 32 F at night on a cold night). ive never had any of my cars fail where i have been stranded on the side of the road. nor it it a pain the the aze to schedule repairs. there are 5 nissan dealers and countless repair facilities within 50 miles of my house and work.

i think you also spent more than you think on your pm, tires, brakes etc. in the last 15 years. even if you replace the tires on your mr2 3 times thats at least $1,500 and brakes are at least $500... and the last time i bought tires for my z my bfg kdw2 cost $168 each.

i think you do way more preventative maintenance that you need to do, especially if you are turning cars every 5-7 years or 100k miles... on all the rides that i plan to turn over quickly, i don't even change the oil! for instance, my '06 mazda 3 was purchased new i drove it for 2 years, put 52k on it and sold it. i had to buy new tires once and i changed the oil at 10k.

and yes i have had batteris replaced under warranty (not the extended warranty).

and even if i did purchase extended warranties for all my vehicles, i still would have no complaints....

you all have a nice holiday now

meyerman

I would never but a use car with out getting the extended warranty. if f you go to the dealership twice it will ay for its self. If you are thinking on keeping the car for any period of time, get the warranty. I just sold my 2003 track with the warranty. If used the warranty twice on minor things, but it was great to have no out of pocket expense. I also still have a 1993 300zx that is still running great. I have had it for 14 years, because of the extended warranty I once had on it. The warranty paid for it self 4 to 5 times over. I now have a 2006 G35, which I am going to keep so I am getting ready to purchase an extended warranty for it.
In my opinion, today’s higher tech cars are always going to have some type off problems with them. Warranties are worth it, even if you never use them.

Get_Zwole

iTrader: (34)

i wouldnt i got the 75 k one with my silverado SS and they wouldnt fix **** the broke on it. Ill never buy an extended warranty again.

eesnas

Tough to even take the advice when the spelling and grammar is THAT bad. I'm not even one to mention spelling on a forum but there is just a point where the errors actually weaken the message of the post, this is an example of the meaning getting lost within the errors. Is your keyboard broken?

I already skipped the warranty anyways.

deathfist

where are you bill???

guess what, extenede warranty saved the day AGAIN!!

i had a torn motor mount..found during regular maintenance...extended warranty took care of it super quick. turned out to be a $480 repair job, i paid $75 for the deductible.

so to date, im pretty close to the cost of warranty = cost of repairs gained from warranty.

one more $500 bill covered by the warranty, then i'll be in the green and ahead of the game!

so again i did not purchase my extended warranty beauase i thought my z was a lemon. i bought it because its a daily driver over 100 miles a day and i knew i would have some problems with a used vehicle down the road.......

good luck bbill

deathfist

bill guess what.. yet another repair.
the 6-cd changer takes a crap. left side audio dead.
good news, covered under extended warranty paid the $75.00 and got a new one... another $350 saved.

so looks like i finally broke even on the extended warranty. well maybe a $150 short still..but close... and i still have another 40k miles or 2 years to go. i'll top out in mileage in early 2010.

damn my ride is cursed.

deathfist

bill-- are you still there?

have another one for you... my 350z's convertible top had a big problem. Bow #2 and some rivits came apart and cut 4 holes in the top...

thanks to my extended warranty i'm out only $75.00 This repair from the convertible top specialist was $1950. Imagine that, i paid only $1500 for the warranty. With all of the other repairs i have mentioned on this post, i am well ahead now.

i think you should reconsider extended warranties...especially with a convertile!!!

bailey bill

Oh, I know exactly how much I spend for PM and wear items like tires, brakes, etc.

But I never saw an extended warranty that paid for PM or wear items.

bill

bailey bill

Oh, I'll admit that every now and then, somebody comes out ahead on an extended warranty. But obviously most do not, or the warranty provider couldn't stay in business.

A few people come home from Las Vegas with some winnings, but most do not. Overall, the house always wins. And when you buy an extended waranty, your just betting against teh house.

So thanks for everybody's concern, but I'll continue to take my chances and skip the warranty.
Like I said, if I really expected a car to need an extended waranty, I wouldn't buy in the first place.

bill