Extended Warranty on VW?

Yes I do and I didn't even purchase the car from my dealer. My daughter works at a Toyota dealer and when the GLX came in I purchased it along with Toyota's 2/24,000 warranty. She also purchased a 99 1.8t last year and got the same warranty. Well here's what we did that only cost her the $50.

Timing belt update kit front wheel bearing + alignment valve cover gasket and cam adjustor gasket Auto trans pan gasket + fluid Few others I can remember and the bill was for about $1200

Not to bad for a $750 buck investment is it and Dad got paid to work on the car. How many Dad's can say that!(lol)

My $600 extended warranty (which was easily rolled into my lease payments) just paid for an $850 repair bill on my New Beetle. Get the warranty.... these VW's are quirky. I don't know about you, but I find it hard to come up with nearly $1000 every time my check-engine light comes on! My car is 28 months old and I've had more than $6000 worth of work done on it!!!!

Get it and you won't regret it. How much is your peace of mind worth?

TOE

Well of course it's just insurance! If everyone got out of insurance the same amount or more than they put in, non of us would have insurance because they wouldn't exist. And why do we care who the "winner" is if they pay for my repairs as contracted? You get exactly what you pay for. Pay $1500 for a warranty that covers nothing and it's your fault. Mine covers *just about* everything, including interior plastic pieces. You wouldn't drive your car without collision/injury insurance, would you? Most of us can't afford to pay out-of-pocket for a collsion on our new cars any more than we can easily pay out-of-pocket for a whole new electrical system in a 1.8T Jetta that burned out at 24,001 miles. Part of being able to afford to own a car is the proper protection, not how much you have in the bank. I do quite well leasing 2 brand new VW's and owning a third Cabriolet. But I wouldn't want to have paid that $850 repair bill last month! I'd rather they take it from me $14/month in my warranty payment as a fixed cost. Now *that's* smart ownership....

TOE

So if I can't afford a major loss on my house, I have no business buying one? Or health insurance? Or, or, or? Duh.

My Passat is a wonderful car and I love driving it. It is not the most reliable car on the road; I've already had more problems (excluding normal wear items) in three years and 50,000 miles than I had on my Toyota Camry in 8 years and 125,000. And the extended warranty on my Toyota even paid off when I had an axle bearing problem and the value stems started leaking at 70,000.

Yes, extended warranties are insurance and most people pay more for them than they get back in repairs. Most. You are paying for peace of mind and the cost of peace of mind is reduced with every repair. By that I mean if you pay $1,000 for a warranty and have "only $500" in repairs, that peace of mind policy really cost you only $500.

For example, I paid about $1200 for a warranty that matched my 10 yr /

I think part of the equation is what people notice and have fixed. I think I notice a lot. I'm sure a lot of other Camry owners would not have noticed the noise that turned out to be a axle bearings nor would they have noticed or done anything about that puff of blue smoke that pointed to leaking valve stems.

Now my Dodge Caravan extended warranty was a great deal since it paid to replace damn near every part on that car. I expect Dodge lost a lot of money on their extended warranties since almost all Caravans seem to have all the problems mine did (it covered struts, two water pumps, one radiator, one A/C compressor, a leaking A/C line, head gasket and finally a whole new engine (though I think the engine might have come from the standard 7/70 drivetrain warranty). The transmission was overhauled in the first year after about 10,000 miles. And that's just the stuff I can remember.

In the 40 years I have owned cars, not one of them would have benefited by one of these profit centers. That does not prove a thing. However I can safely say that no agency, salesman or dealer is going to sell something that is going to cost them more than they charge for it.

Not really, because like all insurance policies, the cost of extended warranties is based on actuarial tables that predict the likelihood of insurance payout. The rates are set based on the actuarial tables so that the "house has an advantage," i.e., so that the insurance company is likely to make money.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that the insurance company will make money underwriting an extended warranty or any other insurance policy, in the aggregate. Some policies will lose them money, some will make them money, but in the end they are for-profit companies and must make a profit in the aggregate, just as casinos must make a profit for their shareholders even if they do occasionally pay out large sums of money.

From the consumer's point of view, the important thing is not whether the insurance company makes a profit. After all, VW makes a profit when you buy the car in the first place. Perceived value is everything: is the item you purchase, whether it is shaving cream or a Caribbean vacation or an extended warranty, worth the cost to you? Many factors must go into the answer, including psychological ones such as your peace of mind. Arguing whether any good purchased is "worth it" is often a losing proposition, because everyone has different meanings of "worth it."

As an example, if you spend $32,000 on a VW, you might get into an argument with a person who only buys good used cars of any make. For you, buying a car is about performance, enjoyment, and maybe even image. For the other person, it's about spending as little as possible to obtain reliable transportation - it may even mean not buying a car at all, but riding public transit.

Well of course. Duh. And here I thought that all the insurance and car companies were losing money by selling extended warranties. Come on, give me a little credit. The comment was at the end of my message, so presumably you read the rest of it! My point was not that you get more in repairs than you pay. It was that each repair that is covered lessens the cost of the peace of mind insurance against the really big disaster.

But back to the comment about the Dodge. That model Caravan turned out to be a real stinker from a repair standpoint. But who knew it would be that bad. After all, the're guessing about future problems with a model as well as we are. From what I've read and heard from friends and colleagues, any one of them would have beaten the $500 it cost me for the extended warranty. Knowing what is now known of the reliability of that vehicle, would you write an extended warranty for it for that price? Not unless you're crazy.

Here I too thought that you thought this. I apologize.

I've never bought an extended warranty on anything except a notebook computer about 10 years ago. [Never made a claim on it.] So far, I've never regretted not buying one.

The issue isn't so much whether "insurance" is or isn't a good idea in general or whether the insurer makes a profit (of course, they need to do so), the issue is value. From what I've read, most extended warranties are bad values. That doesn't mean that all of them are. An analogy can be made with life insurance. Most cancer, accidental death, and whole life -- and some term policies -- are bad values while many term life policies are excellent values. The same applies to financing. The lender surely will want to make a profit at your expense, but some lenders are a ***lot*** less costly.

It's fairly easy to compare car loan and term life insurance rates. In the case of term policies, there are companies that do a good job of getting good values to the customer. Loan rates are also pretty easy to shop. Are their **reputable** companies that do the same for extended car warranties? I seriously doubt that the car dealer is a good source.

I agree with "tf". I've never bought one myself, except once for a real POS used 1986 Corvette that I bought in 1990. The engine failed - camshaft broke (don't ask). Of course, the warranty people tried to weasel out of it. The agent told me, "We only pay for a rebuilt engine. If you pay 50% of the cost, you can have a new engine." I told him I'd bought a used car and I was perfectly happy having the used engine replaced by another used engine.

Here's a link to a typical "bumper to bumper" extended warranty contract (I hope you don't have to be a AAA member to access this link).

On the other hand, as "tf" pointed out, value is everything, and perhaps the thought of a failed ECU or climate control head unit (all covered in the above referenced warranty) is enough to get some people to pay for the warranty.

warranties?