Warranty Direct

How about a third option? Check out membercare by AAA. They paid out over 10K on my utter dog of a Mercury Mystique. Key to picking out a warranty is what they list as not being covered as opposed to what they do cover. Good luck, Bob

I have them and have used them twice with no problems. ONce for $100 worth of car rental and another time for $800 worth of rear differential repairs. Original cost of the policy was around $1300. ANother $400 worth of work in the next couple years and I'll be even and I'll have had the piece of mind for 7 years/100K.

Sorry, but extended warranties are not need on such reliable vehicles. :-)

Actually, despite your bad experience with a particular car, it's still not a good idea to buy an extended warranty on a Japanese vehicle. Put the money in an investment instead and you'll do much better in the long term. But, hey, spend it where you like. If you like to pad some insurance executives mega-million dollar salary, have at it.

What was the problem with your Acura ? Did they help you out at all ? FWIW, Toyota sucks on "out of warranty" coverage too although most folks are lucky enough not to run into any issues.

Jimmy,

Well, I'll keep the vehicle for a long time - 'till it dies. The extended warranty is worth it for me for the peace of mind. If I never use it so be it. I don't expect my house to ever burn down either but I insure that. Once vehicle problem for a very reliable brand may not be the rule but it happens.

The Acura had scor> >

You are betting you will have problems, the warranty company is betting you won't. Like a Vegas casino, there is a house cut that is highly profitable. Overall they win, but as an individual owner you lose if you are wrong and don't buy the warranty. Most folks lose money on them, but may gain better sleep, which is why the statements that they are worthless are themselves worthless.

Some of the warranty companies themselves are rip-offs, meaning they don't pay...but that is a different issue of fraud, not the concept of an extended warranty.

There's not only fraud, there's "legal" fraud. Most folks don't read the warranties very closely and are unpleasantly surprised when a repair is not covered. Most of them exclude things like seals unless they involve "failure of another major component". So, if your head gasket leaks it's not covered. You only get a free head gasket if you break a rod, crank, bearing, etc. Accessories are not covered, electrical components, etc. Obviously nothing maint related is covered. You really have to read closely if you want to get a fair deal. I know that is always sound advice but a lot of people get suckered by a slick F&I guy.

If you can get an extension to the factory bumper-to-bumper from a company that does it right then it's a good deal.

LIke they say, to each his own. With some cars they are worth it. I know someone who has an extended warranty on a Windstar. I'm surprised the insurance company will even write one for that model.

Slightly different cost/risk ratio. My house is insured against a $300K loss for $400/year. On a car it's typically $500-1000 to insure for five years of a maximum $2k-$4k loss. I just can't see it. MHO.

Or simply misrepresentation by the person selling the warranty, which also is not an issue with the concept of the warranty, just the normal honesty issues of an unfortunate number of dealerships.

Never seen such a crappy warranty. e.g. if a crank main seal leaks it should be covered without waiting for the engine to lock up. As for a leaking head gasket, that is an emissions component, but am mystified at how that could cause a rod to brake.

The worst ones are sold directly to the consumer from a third party warranty house where the dealer is not at all involved. Even the scummiest dealer will tend to have *some* involvement with keeping customers unticked off with a warranty bought thru the selling dealer. Some states totally prohibit warranties on used cars that are not sold by the dealer and even then must be sold at the time of the car sale.

Some of the say "seals only in conjunction with repair of a covered component". What that translates to is that they will not pay to fix a seal e.g. headgasket. If you were to have a major component problem - like you break a rod - they will pay for a headgasket as part of the rebuild. They are specifically trying to avoid paying for *leaking* headgaskets, main bearning seals, drive seals, etc. It's worth checking when you buy. Read the fine print.

Some... some of those are actually good, but they tend to be expensive.

Agreed.

Really? I would not think it would be legal to prohibit the sale of warranties unless they were fraudulent. Of course, insurance is highly regulated in some places because it's such a sleazy business. Is there any sales profession with a worse sales reputation (next to the car sales guy) than the insurance salesman ?

Better yet, don't buy one that doesn't spell out the specific components covered. For example, a head gasket is a pretty significant component in an engine and would cause an emissions warranty issue immediately. Whereas a valve cover gasket seal is trivial other than stinky.

Third party warranty direct sell have the worst record of business abandonment as well as customer satisfaction complaints. And are not even legal in some states.

Yes. Computer salesman.

In California, extended service warranties and such are treated as insurance and regulated by the Dept. of Insurance... which can exclude any company from doing business in the state.

Hydraulic-lock a cylinder?

Regards,

Jim