Anybody buy extended warranties on their vehicles?

[Titan]

A long time ago, when I bought the Valk, I bought some kind of extended warranty on it. Turned out that I never needed it.

Recently I bought a 2004 Mercedes e320 that is obviously out of warranty. It has 41,000 miles on it and seems to be in perfect condition. I have 90 days to buy an extended warranty package which pretty well covers it from end to end for $2,000.00.

I never have bought a used car until this one and I'm used to having warranties. But I really don't feel like I need it and don't want to spend 2 grand on it.

Any advice?

[chip]

A few years go the wife and I bought her a Honda Element to haul the service dogs around while training or to the Vet. Ugly car but perfect for that job. We bought it through our Credit Union, who offered an extended warranty. The Honda had only 19,000 miles on it. (I said no thanks, I'm not worried about it breaking down I know about Hond's quality.) The gal closing on our loan says If you never use the warranty you get 100 percent of your money back after you hit 100.000 miles and the warranty expires. So I bought into it. 1600.00 . My wife Gayln puts right at 100 miles a day on her car just to and from work. So here I am just a couple of years later with an unused warranty and a car with 103,000 miles on the Honda at oil change time. So I call the warranty co. they tell me to take the car to a notary to confirm that it has over 100,000 miles on it. Which I do ,a few days later I receive a notice that they were not required to refund my money ! I had to have the notary confirm the fact that I had passed 100,000 miles but no more than 100,100 miles and that since my vehicle had 103.000 miles they were not obligated to refund my money. WTF you get to invest my cash longer than agreed on and now you are not obligated to refund my money? That's correct sir she says. So I dig out the recite from the warranty purchase and there it is in the finest print on the back of the purchase agreement. She was correct. It had to be varified within 100 miles after 100,000 I was and am still pissed. Glad I never had to try and collect from them on any type of repair. Never again.........Now this was my experiance and others may have had good experiances but not me.

[Tropic traveler]

Two things that are useless on a Valk {or most any Honda bike} are oil dipsticks & extended warranties. Bought one for Kim's 2005 Shadow 750 when new, over 30K on the odo & nada has gone wrong. Waste of money.
As for the Merc.... remember in Germany, Mercedes are as common & pedestrian as Chevies. Over here they are for some reason held in higher regard. Oh yeah, the parts cost a lot more here.

[fudgie]

Are you sure its out of warrenty?  ??? If its a certified Mercedes then the warrenty should be good till 100k. If its not, go get a certified one or the extra warrenty. Better to have it and not need it, esp with them cars.

Dad got a 08/09 this fall from chicago. Its certified with 40k on it. 2 weeks ago he had to replace the door locks on the drivers side and something else. No charge. His is also a 320 I believe.

[Magellon]

If you buy one read the CONTRACT first NOT just the Brochure. Many dealers use the brochure as a selling tool but when you need to use it, the contract is the only thing the service guy uses to get the repairs authorized, if the item is NOT in the contract the warranty will not pay for it regardless of what the salesman said yesterday or 3 years ago.

There are hundreds of extended warranty companies out there and each one may have many variations on there products. The better the coverage the more money they cost. Also beware of the famous "BUMPER TO BUMPER" statement. I have yet to see one that has that printed in it. Also look and see if there is a deductable, again the more expensive ones have a lower or no deductable. Also consider the brand of the warranty, OEM brands are safer not the "never heard of them" brands.

Good Luck

[PatrickDoss]

Extended warranties are basically insurance policies.  From companies that will do anything to not pay.  There are all kinds of fine print in the contract to indemnify them from almost all problems that are likely to occur.

If you really want an extended warranty, the best way to get one is put the money you'd spend on one in a savings account.  It'll collect interest and cover any problem that occurs, not just the ones "allowed".

[alph]

I absolutely will never buy an extended warranty plan, never.  For the same exact reason that CHIP had experienced.  It amazes me when you go to “worst buy” (aka; best buy) they always push an extended warranty on your purchase and I always ask “doesn’t the manufacture offer a one year warranty?” they say “yes” then I reply; “it’s going to be obsolete by the end of that year, so why would I need an extended warranty anyway???”

I bought a 5 year extended plan for my wife’s $500 cannon camera, one problem, you need to keep all the existing paperwork, that company needs to stay in business, and if it breaks one day after, you’re screwed.  And that’s exactly what happened!!!

[Big Tom 10628]

I bought one for my 2002 explorer, cost me $1400. Over the course of 7 years it covered about $500 worth of repairs. Did it make sense dollar wise-No. Was I happy that I had it when it was time to pay-Yes. Had I put the cash on the side to cover repairs it would have gone to pay for the Vikings that I put on the Valk.

[9Ball]

they're "sucker bets" until you need them, then they're the best money you ever spent.

[Oss]

I got the warranty during a holiday sale from directine and it paid for itself when the alternator went bad

Thats the only thing that ever went bad on the Valk so I suppose its a wash and it went bad pretty much right after I got the warranty.

IMHO unless you had a hydrolock situation I cant imagine it being a bargain

I had many repairs (tranny, engine, rack and pinions, ball joints etc) paid on the Caravans which were I think an 89 and a 95.  but I shopped and got a good one and read all the fine print before paying for it.  STill had to fight over getting OEM parts but maybe I have an edge over some being an attorney

Did not get one from the dealer I went aftermarket

[Tx Bohemian]

they're "sucker bets" until you need them, then they're the best money you ever spent.

Agree^^^

These policies are a gamble, the company is gambling you're not going to need it (which probably happens most of the time) and you're gambling that you will and then you'll have help on the repairs.
And they use that scare tactic about how an engine is $4500 and a Trans is $3500 to replace and so on.

Everybody has a story on this and here is mine:
I can see both sides. 
I have a policy on our '06 Trailblazer that we've never claimed on yet and on our '08 Silverrado that we just purchased a couple of months ago and haven't claimed anything as of yet.

However my daughter had an '02 Olds Alero that we bought a policy on and I"m glad we did.  This thing was a lemon.

It needed the whole fuel system replaced at one time! (pump, regulator, injectors, etc...) all at no cost to us (0$ deductible).

It needed the complete Steering system replaced. (Pump, sector, lines, etc..) Again, no cost to us!!

I had to replace the wiper trasmission and it paid for the parts.

In this case though it's quite possible that the mechanics at the Cadillac/Olds dealer didn't know what they were doing and probably replaced parts that didn't need it but as long as I wasn't paying for them who cares.
I even told them "Hey, if you got to replace the whole car under this policy it's fine with me!!"

This is one policy that this company lost their a$$e$ on, but I'm sure made it up on the next 100 policies they sold that nothing was claimed.

[olddog1946]

A total waste of your money...last car I bought at a dealer, the wife wanted the warranty, so we added it..two weeks later, the water pump went out..guess what , when I took it in to get it replaced they told me the warranty wouldn't cover it...even after showing them the contract and the part that said the cooling system was covered... I demanded my money back for the warranty, which I had applied to the balance due on the car..and did what I always have done..repaired it myself..

[G-Man]

When I buy them, I don't need them
When I don't buy them, sure enough, I need them.

Bought one on an oven for a tenants apt. and never used it.  Bought the same oven for another tenant and didn't buy the warranty, sure enough.....

Bought one on a 98 Altima, never used it.
Didn't buy one on a 2001 Saturn, sure enough.......

The POS Saturn scared me so much that I bought one on a 2006 Merc, so far, never used it (5 months left).  Also bought one on a 2010 RAV4 (because the F'ing Saturn messed with my head) and so far haven't used it (4 years left, we'll see).

[Jess from VA]

I never pay for any type of warranty on anything ever.  Cars, tires, electronics, appliances, etc.  I may have needed one a couple times (if I could get then to actually honor it), but mostly not.  I do my research to get the best product I can afford, and maintain it.  I am way ahead financially with this system. 

PS:   last time I tried to get Whirlpool to honor the free one-year warranty on my washer, they told me they were so backed up it would be 8 weeks minimum wait.  "Yeah, I'll just take my laundry down to the local creek and beat it on a foking rock.... you nimitoads." 

[Kaiser]

Personally, I wouldn't do it.  I've been burned too many times by shelling out extra $$$ for warranties, then not being able to get them to pay up when the time came (if it ever did).

However, keep this in mind.  Year after year, Mercedes are one of the most expensive car brands to own, repair, and maintain (maybe not your specific model, though).  Obviously maintenance items would not be covered under the warranty.  It wouldn't take a very big repair on one of these cars to easily exceed the cost of the warranty.  It basically come down to - do you think that from now until whenever the warranty would expire, that you will spend over $2K on COVERED (very important word there - which is usually translated "manufacturer defects" and does not include maintenance, damage, etc.) repairs?

I like the advice of setting aside the $2K you would spend on the policy and being your own warranty policy.  There was a saying that was predominant in another motor-related community I used to belong to that fits here.  "I am my own warranty station."

[Garland]

It's a choice between being mad at yourself for paying for a warranty that never seems to cover whatever you need it for, or being mad at yourself for not buying the warranty in the first place when something breaks. Of course, there is a chance that you won't need any service work at all, in which case you can feel smart and smug for saving your money.

[Titan]

Thanks to all of you for the great input, ideas, and personal experiences! This is just one of those things that make you think, cursed if you do; cursed if you don't.

I'm leaning to the idea of just putting the 2K in an account and letting it sit there as several of you suggested. I know the Mercedes is expensive to repair but I'm thinking that unless it's a transmission or engine most any other repair wouldn't be over 2 grand anyway. Yeah, like one of you said... if I don't buy it it's gonna be worst case!

I never buy extended warranties on inexpensive stuff. I do buy it on computers to extend the warranty to 3 years. The cost ratio isn't so bad on that.

I think I'll let the little wife make the final decision. That way she can't blame me... which she darn well will do if I make the wrong choice! 

Thanks again guys!

[bigfish_Oh]

I wish I did not have 100K mile warranty on my truck and it was a little cheaper instead, I'll know in 30K if it's OK. I want to do some mods to improve mpg, but GM will cancel warranty if any thing is altered anywhere.
   
I know a guy that lost an engine on a warranty because a welded/crimped factory hose came loose. It was considered routine maint. to replace it.