is it worth to get an extended warranty?

[grape]

wonder if it's wise to get an extended warranty on my new subaru impreza
wagon 06- manual? it has 600 km on it.

1sourceautowarranty had quoted about $1500(USD) for 10-year term, is it
worth ? I felt that the dealer's extended warranty is a bit way too much for
me.

I am living in Toronto, Canada, bought my car from willowdale Subaru on
Yonge St.

 

[Larry Van Wormer]

wonder if it's wise to get an extended warranty on my new subaru impreza
wagon 06- manual? it has 600 km on it.

1sourceautowarranty had quoted about $1500(USD) for 10-year term, is it
worth ? I felt that the dealer's extended warranty is a bit way too much for
me.

I am living in Toronto, Canada, bought my car from willowdale Subaru on
Yonge St.

What does it cover, and what kilometre limit?

Larry Van Wormer

 

[Edward Hayes]

The factory waanty usually can be purchased throughout the 3/36000
period.

 

[Carl 1 Lucky Texan]

wonder if it's wise to get an extended warranty on my new subaru impreza
wagon 06- manual? it has 600 km on it.

1sourceautowarranty had quoted about $1500(USD) for 10-year term, is it
worth ? I felt that the dealer's extended warranty is a bit way too much for
me.

I am living in Toronto, Canada, bought my car from willowdale Subaru on
Yonge St.

I don't know if GEICO services Canada and what services are allowed
there but in some states here in the US GEICO offers a 100K miles -
unlimeted time warranty (if it takes you 9 years to get to 100K miles
you can be covered), with a precise list of what is excluded. IIRC most
cars are $40-$50 a year(? - maybe 6 month coverage). If you have GEICO
it might be worth a call.

I would be very cautious of 3rd party warranties. Some folks have been
left twisting in the wind when the warranty company went bankrupt. many
are only accepted at the selling dealership - tricky if you move. I'd
likely just put the funds a warranty would cost in the bank or in 2-3
staggered CDs. Most extended warranties are calculated to yield the
company 50% profit. And most of them 'overlap' much of the manufacturers
warranty anyway.

Carl

 

[bigjim]

Get the Subaru warranty. One big repair and it pays for itself. Subaru
has a lot of pricey parts to break. I didnt get one on my 94 Trooper
and didnt need it but I got it on my OBW. Already it paid for blown
strut.

 

[j]

Whatever you do, don't buy the warranty because the dealer's finance
guy scared you into thinking you can't live without it. Really, what
does this say about how the dealer feels about the cars they represent?
The dealer is in business to make $$$$$.

Will you need the extended warranty? Maybe. Probably not. Is this
the last car you'll ever buy? How long do you intend to own the car?
How many km do you drive per year? Do you drive hard?

I would recommend keeping your money in the bank, let it earn a little
interest, or whatever. I would be willing to bet that if you are
driving the car like a normal person, and as long you don't run the
engine without oil, you won't be likely have any signifigant repairs to
cover. At least nothing that would cost more than the warranty, thus
making the warranty completely unjustified.

 

[Frank Logullo]

wonder if it's wise to get an extended warranty on my new subaru impreza
wagon 06- manual? it has 600 km on it.

1sourceautowarranty had quoted about $1500(USD) for 10-year term, is it
worth ? I felt that the dealer's extended warranty is a bit way too much for
me.

I am living in Toronto, Canada, bought my car from willowdale Subaru on
Yonge St.

Subaru constantly bugs me to buy extended warranty. Why, because these
warranties are high profit items.
If you are afraid of a big hit or a big car repair will cripple your
personal economy, maybe they are for you, but, I prefer to be personally
insured and expect to come out ahead in the long run.

 

[Ed P]

Whatever you do, don't buy the warranty because the dealer's finance
guy scared you into thinking you can't live without it. Really, what
does this say about how the dealer feels about the cars they represent?
The dealer is in business to make $$$$$.

Will you need the extended warranty? Maybe. Probably not. Is this
the last car you'll ever buy? How long do you intend to own the car?
How many km do you drive per year? Do you drive hard?

I would recommend keeping your money in the bank, let it earn a little
interest, or whatever. I would be willing to bet that if you are
driving the car like a normal person, and as long you don't run the
engine without oil, you won't be likely have any signifigant repairs to
cover. At least nothing that would cost more than the warranty, thus
making the warranty completely unjustified.

I would second the advice, "don't buy the warranty because the dealer's
financed guy scared you ..." But, consider that with modern cars there
are many repairs that can turn out to be quite expensive. The question
is, therefore, can you fiancially and psychologically tolerate such
surprise expenses. If not, the peace of mind of an extended warranty
may be worthwile to you.

Also, check around on price before you buy. I don't have any specific
dealers to recommend for Subaru, but found with a Toyota Prius through
chat rooms that there are dealers willing to discount a roughly $1600
list price genuine Toyota plan to less than $1000. It is worth
checking. As others have mentioned, such contracts are a big profit
item for the dealer.

Ed P

 

[grape]

thanx for the reply.

I've seen car acted up by normal driving, I think it really depends on your
luck, not much on driving style (sure, wreckless driving will damage it).

My intention goal is to keep it for 10 years, like my old camry, which's
been driven for 11 years until the engine acted abnormal 2 months ago.
everything on my old camry is either broken or mulfunction, the air
condition never worked since 2000, abs is gone, brake light constantly on,
air bag warning led is red. But so far the only major repair done is the
igniting system, and once a broken CV joint. others are just routine
replacement, like drive belt, spark plugs blah blah blah, and the old camry
has 390 thousand km on it.

Dont know about Subaru, I've heard it had HG problem which is expensive to
get done, and lots of parts are expensive too....so it makes me wonder if
its wise to get an extended warranty on it

BTW, I don't earn the old camry that long, my dad drove it and he seemed
don't do much maintainance except regular oil change and coolant check. even
the CV made loud noise, he didn't repair it for about 6 months....

 

[grape]

what do you meant by *personally insured*?

I've downloaded the subaru service guide, coz I wanted to serve my car
myself, but after reading a few pages that I realize lots of service is time
consuming and need special tools. The electronic parts are almost impossible
to service by my own.

 

[grape]

the point of my post is , should a warranty be purchased, is it better to do
thru Subaru or 3rd party?

 

[Ed P]

the point of my post is , should a warranty be purchased, is it better to do
thru Subaru or 3rd party?

Whether to purchase an extended warranty is entirely a personal
decision. Throughout one's life, if you always declined extended
warranties BUT put money equal to the warranty premium in an interesting
earning account that was reserved for expensive, surprise repairs, you
would most likely come out ahead. But if you don't consistently set
money aside for repairs or can't easily handle such surprise expenses,
then extended warranties offer value.

Personally, I tend to avoid sevice contracts. But I bought them for a
'99 Dodge Grand Caravan and '04 Prius. While I liked the Dodge enough
to buy it, repair history suggested that the service contract would be a
reasonable buy. On the other hand, the Prius uses new and complicated
technology and I don't want to personally face, for example, a $3000
expense to replace a failed Multifunction Display dash.

As to 3rd party warranties, it depends. I wouldn't even consider one
where extremely new technology is involved, as with the hybrids. No one
has any experience with how the 3rd party contracts will handle
high-tech repairs. But the real issues are: Will the 3rd party contract
company still be around when you need them? Will the repair garage you
want to use accept the plan? Does the contract clearly state what is
and what is not covered?

When I was a service writer some years ago, I found the 3rd-party plan
our dealer sold in general easy enough to work with. The exceptions
tended to be failures that led to differences of opinion as to how much
precautionary measures should be taken. For example, flushing the freon
lines after an AC compressor bearing failure. The contract company
tended to want to play the odds more than our shop did. On the other
hand, many people have been burned when otherwise reputable contract
companies when out of business and left their contract holders stranded.

Perhaps people on this group can report their experience with contracts
from big companies such as GEICO.

Ed P

 

[Frank Logullo]

what do you meant by *personally insured*?

I've downloaded the subaru service guide, coz I wanted to serve my car
myself, but after reading a few pages that I realize lots of service is time
consuming and need special tools. The electronic parts are almost impossible
to service by my own.

What I mean is you have enough cash available to cover repair yourself. On
the whole you should be ahead since the profit margin in extended warranties
is probably 50%. Look at it as paying yourself that 50%. I remember
reading a automobile trade magazine a few years back advertising a radio.
They said if the dealer installed it as an option, he could make more money
off the radio than the sale of the car. I'd like to see the warranty ads.

Service of course is a separate matter. I do what I can but leave rest to
pros. That also means, if I have a good foreign car specialist and he's
cheaper than the Subaru dealer, I go there.

 

[Dino]

The problem with these, at least with the "official" Subaru warranty, is
that it doesn't cover many of the items that I think will probably fail in
the first 100,000 miles, such as O2 sensors, MAF sensor, etc. Other than
maybe the alternator and a few other misc items, the odds are nothing else
major will break that the warranty covers in that time. I've considered
buying it, but I don't think they'd be selling it if the odds were in our
favor.

 

[bigjim]

The problem with these, at least with the "official" Subaru warranty, is
that it doesn't cover many of the items that I think will probably fail
in
the first 100,000 miles, such as O2 sensors, MAF sensor, etc. <<


Youre wrong. the subaru gold warranty covers just about everything.
They even replaced a blown strut. Some of those are emissions and are
covered by a federal warranty of 70000 miles.

 

[grape]

so the default warranty will cover everything bumper to bumper? how come the
dealer never mentioned the *gold warranty*?

 

[Dino]

The O2 sensors and MAF aren't covered after 36K. Only the cat and control
units is covered after that, and only to 80K.

You're correct, the Gold covers everything. However the standard Extended
warranty does not.

 

[Dino]

The Gold is described here:

http://www.subaru.com/owners/addedsecurity/index.jsp?id=ADDED_SECURITY_SUBARU_PLANS

Subaru wants $1200 for a standard extended warranty for my '05. Wonder how
much the Gold costs...

 

[bigjim]

I got the gold 5 yr 100k warranty for about $1100. You can bargain on
the warranty as well. Once I hedged and said "I'll wait" the price
dropped. Of that $1100 I've already got back over $100 for the blown
strut replacement. If the abs unit goes the warranty will be greatly
appreciated. The outback in made in the US by mediocre American
workers.If it were a japan built toyota or isuzu the extended warranty
may not be worth it.

 

[Carl 1 Lucky Texan]

I got the gold 5 yr 100k warranty for about $1100. You can bargain on
the warranty as well. Once I hedged and said "I'll wait" the price
dropped. Of that $1100 I've already got back over $100 for the blown
strut replacement. If the abs unit goes the warranty will be greatly
appreciated. The outback in made in the US by mediocre American
workers.If it were a japan built toyota or isuzu the extended warranty
may not be worth it.

Which mediocre workers make the struts? Do mediocre workers at Bosch
make the ABS?

you're funny!

Carl