Extended Warranty

[philosophicaldreamer]

To those in the know:

First of all, I need to say that I do understnd that from an economical point of view getting extended warranties makes no sense. I have had four Volvos so far, and I have have never recovered money that I had to pay for getting extended warranties. However, I always feel better when I have one of those policies. Hence, I have a nautica blue, 2001 XC70. My orignal warranty is going to expire in about a year. I am thinking about getting an extended warranty. My credit union is offering me bumper-to-bumper extended warranty for 6 years. However, they want $6000 for the policy, which strikes me quite excessive, to put it politely. Does anyone know which extended warranties on the market offer the best value? I would appreciate any guidance in this regard.

Thank you.
janusz

[littlewaywelt]

I can say I wish we purchased one. I seriously debated it and thought that (based on my ownership of Jeeps and a Saab), that it would be unlikely that the warranty would pay off. Less than six months after the warranty expired we have dropped over 3k bucks into the car, not including regular services. I will be purchasing an extended warranty for our new xc which is replacing our current lemon/money pit 01xc. Most of the full service warrantys that I saw for the xc were around 2k for coverage through 100k or 7 years from in service date. These weren't bumper to bumper, but they were pretty close, covering all the major systems, but not things like plastic trim pieces, and some wear pieces. I looked mostly to the third party companies, as they covered much more than volvo's. They could be used nearly anywhere as well. The shop calls a number and gets a credit card number to pay the bill.

If your car has been pretty much problem free, it might not be worth it. If you have had problems it will probably pay for itself. 6k seems like a downright rip-off. Also research the company carefully as at least one of the big ones went chapter 11 in the last two years.

[cmon4day]

In 1998 I bought a Pontiac Minivan. The GM extended warranty was about $1500, 6/100k. I shopped around and found a company, Warranty Gold, and bought the Platinum policy which was a bumper to bumper for $950. Everything was covered and it was a 7/100k.

Being a GM product, I used the warranty several times and everything went well. I even got a new transmission, $3500, - no problem. Two months ago I got a letter in the mail stating that Warranty Gold is bankrupt! I still have 1 year to go and 20k miles. So now I'm out of luck.

Moral of the story, beware 3rd party warranties.