Extended Warranty???

[dilkens]

I just bought a 2001 Volvo xc70 - 44000 miles.
All appears to be great but I am wondering if I should buy an extended warranty on this car. Cost - around $2k. Any thoughts from other members? This is my first Volvo so your advice is appreciated!
Drew

[al_roethlisberger]

Gosh, I hope this doesn't start another lease vs. buy thread :rolleyes:


Everyone's experience is different. Many go forever without needing an extended warrantee, where others find value right away once some major component fails soon after the factory warrantee ran out *shrug*

Personally, I have had two very good experiences with an aftermarket(GE) and factory(Honda) extended warrantee. In the case of the aftermarket plan, I had a lifter go bad in our Miata well after the mileage cap on the factory warrantee, and it was fixed with no problem. In that case, the warrantee paid for itself.

With the Honda plan, we never used the warrantee, however upon the car being totalled, we got a full refund(minus a very small pro-rate).

Now, some might say why give someone else your money, and instead just save it yourself in a "rainy-day/repair" fund that earns interest. And I think that is a great plan. However, if you are like me, saving money that way takes a lot of fortitude that sometimes is hard to muster :p Plus, even if one saves.... $3k? ... of "emergency repair" budget, it might not be enough if a really major failure or two happens, such as your ETM and a transmission rebuild.

And, not to sound pessimistic, but your 2001 model almost certainly has the cursed ETM, which is $1k. And if it is going to fail, it is probably within the mileage range your has.

And of course, while under warrantee, cars like Volvos are generally considered expensive to maintain. Once out of warrantee, that cost could only get worse in the event of something breaking.

So.... I think my opinion is obvious. But take it with the appropriate grain of salt, as others will have good points pro and con.

But I like extended warrantees, once the manufacturer's is about to expire, and I intend to keep the car well beyond.

You should be able to find a very good warrantee for $1500-2500.

I hear that https://www.warrantydirect.com has good reviews. But I have not personally used their service.

Good luck! That was quite a drive :D


BTW, send us the link or eBay item# so we can see which car you bought!

al

[Jack]

FWIW, Yannis at Stillman Volvo was offering deals on Volvo's extended warranty last month over on Swedespeed.com. The deal is over but he expected to offer it every six months, next time around March '06. I picked up a 7yr./100K mi., $100 deductable, for about $1,700. Much better than the local dealer's offer. Interesting that a similar offer on a Toyota board for a 4Runner was about $800!

[d2gxc]

Check out some of the other threads on extended warranties! Like many topics on this forum, there are definately two schools of thought on this.

I typically do not buy extended warranties on most products, because they are usually not worth it, but we thought hard about it for our 2001 XC as it approched 50K miles. After reviewing some of the things that could go wrong with these vehicles and the cost to replace them, we decided it probably WAS worth it if you could negotiate a reasonable price. We had several dealers bid against each other and then used the results to persuade our own dealer to give us a better rate. In the end, we also paid about $1700 US (but for a for a 6yr/100K warranty since we figured we'd be at 100K long before we got to 6 years).

Since then we've had several expensive items replaced including the ECM and the ETM, so I think it's already paid for itself.

Obviously, this is a peace of mind type of decision. For instance, the ETM did not actually fail, but all the publicity about it caused my wife to feel very nervous about it once the car began to exhibit symptoms that suggested it might when we got to about 70k miles. Because we had the extended warranty, it was a lot easier to convince the dealer to replace it rather than pay to have it cleaned and then still have to replace it later.

[dilkens]

Hi Al,
Here is my ebay item number - 4577221432.
It is a beautiful car!!!!
Thanks,
Drew

[al_roethlisberger]

Hi Al,
Here is my ebay item number - 4577221432.
It is a beautiful car!!!!
Thanks,
Drew


Nice :cool: Looks like it is in very good shape, and low mileage for a 2001!

You've got the brown interior I see. That is the color of the interior on the white 2004 I am buying now. I think it is a very interesting interior color that I don't see very often, but looks good on models with the umber colored cladding. I do wish Volvo had color matched the brake and gear-shift to the brown steering wheel though. Seems like an odd design choice *shrug*

I may buy one of the leather brake handles and see if I can dye it a brown that will match and be durable, as a test. But I suspect it will be futile, as the color will be difficult to get correct, and most leather items that I've ever dyed DIY tend to wear poorly.

Anyway, nice car. You bought it just down the street from me... well a couple hours away anyhow :p


al

[CheesheadinMemphis]

Looks like a nice rig! Ebay is a great place to buy cars, I almost bought there myself but I ultimately found a better deal on autotrader.com

As most of you may have guessed from the lease/buy thread, I do not buy extended warranty, as, on average, the warranty will cost you more than paying for repairs. However, I do understand how they can give some people piece of mind and I don’t think they are as bad of deals as leases.

I make it personal policy to never buy extended warranties for any product so my “reserve fund” contains funds from car purchases, electronics purchases, yard equipment, ect. The funds saved by not purchasing extended warranties more than pays any repairs.

That said my XC 90 was Volvo certified and I’m really glad because Volvo’s have such a reputation for breaking down and being expensive to fix. I was fortunate that my XC cost less with the factory certification than any other dealer’s non-certified. I was very lucky.