Extended Warranties???? Off Topic....

[Larry Michel]

Hi,



I'm buying my wife a different minivan. Its got more bells and whistles than I care to think about working on. I'd be interested in your opinion on extended warranties. I plan to keep this van 5 years. Its got 20K on it now, I'll run til at least 100K, I'd like to cover it to at least 75K. Any plans better than others? Its a Pontiac Montana SV6, std 3/36 factory coverage for now. I'm intereded in covering major stuff, over $500 a shot. That power sliding door just sounds expensive to work on.



Thanks, Lar

 

[Thomas Rogers]

My experience driving a mini-van with an extended warranty wasn't good.



Figure out what you would spend on an extended warranty, put it into a savings account (even if only mentally), and then use it IF you need to make repairs down the road.



Chances are you won't need to make the repairs, or if you do, you will have some lead time and options when the repair needs come up. One option will be to NOT repair the vehicle and just get something else.



Don't think you are buying an extended warranty for "piece of mind", because 9 out of 10 claims against a warranty will be the most nerve racking hassle you have ever been through.



TJR

 

[Larry Michel]

Thanks, I'm not usually a fan of ext. warr. either. I don't usually spend this much money. I'm tempted to run the factory warranty out and see where I stand from there. I'll get tons of junk mail between now and then wanting to sell me warranty anyway.



Lar

 

[D Knx]

Larry, I'd just see how she did with the current coverage. If there's 16k left on the original warranty run it out.



Triple A offers great extended warranties and so does one of the site sponsors here. With all the new fangled stuff on vehicles these days it's almost like getting into the cockpit of an advanced spaceship. You want to get familiar with how everything operates. And unless your up-to-date on all that stuff you may want to consider it.



Did about $2500 worth of repairs on the wife's dodge last year and it only had 90k on it, would have save $1250-1500 had I got the warranty from AAA.



D-

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Deryck said:

Did about $2500 worth of repairs on the wife's dodge last year and it only had 90k on it, would have save $1250-1500 had I got the warranty from AAA.

I haven't had a Chrysler vehicle yet that hasn't cost about $1,000 per year, each year, on average for repairs after 50K miles.



As such, I wouldn't own another, or at least not another past 40k to 50K miles.



TJR