I see ads for these (Endurance, Car Shield) and having a car coming out of warranty in a few months I wonder how deep the snake oil is with these folks.

Does anyone here have PERSONAL EXPERIENCE with any of the warranty companies?

YEs I could go with the dealer's policy. but wanted to know about alternatives.

Thanks,

RMD

Deep

I typically avoid any extended warranties. Car Shield and the like are notoriously bad from everything I've heard. Plenty of data out there confirming that.

IMO all these aftermarket car warranty companies are scams but clearly there's money in it as they are relentless.

Sometimes the Dealers sell Endurance policies too. Overpriced and not worth it.

I bought a Honda Care warranty for my kids Civic Hybrid for $1,150 for 8 years/100K miles. No deductible and fully transferable. Car is Loaded with tech and gadgets and I doubt it will all last 8 years. If you shop a few Dealers you can find some good deals.

I grew up in the business. When I was younger, my father had an insurance agency. He was the midwest regional VP for a company called American Warranty Corporation. We also sold credit life insurance.
We provided dealer-based sales through their F&I departments for auto warranties. I worked for him and went to F&I school. It was a great business and we always paid our claims. It kept some of the dealers service departments in business.

Then the factories wanted to take over. Ford came out with the ESP and GM came out with their own extended vehicle service contract. That kind of relegated us to used cars and it was down hill from there. Eventually, AWC went bankrupt.

I wouldn't buy one of these.

The advertising is deceptive in that they do not pay everything with no questions asked, as is implied.

They are a PITA on the truck side.
Lots of hoops to jump through for nothing in the end.
Everyone involved is pissed at each other almost every time.

I don't have any, but most of the mechanics I know will NOT do any work under these warranties.
Tough to get paid.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
The advertising is deceptive in that they do not pay everything with no questions asked, as is implied.

Specifically, they do not cover diagnostic services, only parts and labor for an actual repair. As many have experienced, in modern cars figuring out what is wrong is often more involved and costly than the repair itself. There is also the sad reality that a parts replacement does not always fix the root cause that made the part go bad in the first place.

I suspect that it is standard practice to short the mechanic on the book rate for a particular repair, and constrain their selection of sources and brands of parts.

Full disclosure: I don't have first hand experience with these, nor am I likely to ever have, but I do with home warranties that suffer from many of the same shortcomings. One of the most egregious is automatic policy renewal unless you put forh extraordinary effort to cancel within an infinitesimal time frame.

Of course, they only warranty cars produced in the past X years, what do you bet that they don't stop billing once the car ages out of warranty?

Finally, they rarely state, but imply that they also are "willing" to sell you "extra services" like lockouts, tows, tire and battery rescues, etc. You can bet that these will not be cheap.

If you have a mechanic you trust, I suggest you try asking them.

Persnally, I wouldn't touch one of these.

Factory Extended Warranty only for me. The dealership wanted 3K for a Jeep factory warranty. I shopped online and got the exact same warranty for $850. There is no way I would keep a new production vehicle of any make after the factory warranty expires, unless I have further coverage.

quote:

Specifically, they do not cover diagnostic services, only parts and labor for an actual repair. As many have experienced, in modern cars figuring out what is wrong is often more involved and costly than the repair itself. There is also the sad reality that a parts replacement does not always fix the root cause that made the part go bad in the first place.

I suspect that it is standard practice to short the mechanic on the book rate for a particular repair, and constrain their selection of sources and brands of parts.

Correct on all of these.

Know a guy who recently bought a used Ford Raptor from a Ford dealer. They up sold him their top of the line warranty.
Fast forward a couple months. It keeps throwing the check engine code so he takes it in.
They look it over and tell him someone put unapproved spark plugs in it. It's NOT covered under his warranty. According to him they want $6000 to fix it.
I mentioned that would make me very unhappy. Like lawyer consultation unhappy.
Having said that, it's about what I would expect from a warranty company.

I was in the car business for 21 years and only recommend warranties from the mfr. Be sure and get it prior to your factory warranty expiring, Shop online and you can get some great bargains.

if the "warranty" doesn't include a inspection its crap. just like life insurance requires a medical exam.

Thanks all. What I expected.

RMD

DO NOT BUY

My opinion:

I have experience with aftermarket warranties over several iterations over the past 15 years on pre-owned vehicles...they used to be better, but recent experience is far from positive. I suspect the astronomical cost of repairs these days plays a part. The 'fine print' can exclude ALOT of the main reason(s) you buy the service contract for...little things like exclusions: drive train, anything related to the spark plugs (basically the combustion cycle ie running)...and so on. They are also big on semantic games...repair vs. maintenance...

They will stall/slow walk literally for months and pass you around to different customer service reps, often then having to restart part or all of the conversation because they claim as they don't have your previous communications right in front of them, well, there's just nothing they can do, even tho they admit they have your previous communications archived. And if it's something major, they're going to require a second opinion (more time/$$, especially if you're not supposed to drive the car...ID10T/'Check Engine Light' on.)


Also keep in mind, I suspect dealerships don't get any better service and as such are disinclined to deal with these types of tactics. So when they take your vehicle back into the bay and spend 2 minutes putting their scanner on the car, they just can't seem to find what's wrong. Translation, they want the $$ to instantly come out of your debit card rather than fight with an insurance company that may partially pay them sometime down the road.

These days, you'd likely be much better off putting the purchase price of the warranty into a 'vehicle rainy day' savings account and adding $50/month.

A decent OEM warranty extension is probably a better deal as long as you don't modify or get away from equivalent approved parts.

'Delay, Deny, Defend' the strategy...

FWIW...YMMV.

Factory extended are the only way to go. Honda offers Honda Care and doesn’t have to be purchased at the dealer you buy your car at.

Retired parts counterman here, GM experience.

DO NOT buy one unless you are getting one offered by the manufacturer.

The clause “Like kind and quality” translated into normal speak means that at their discretion instead of getting a rebuilt engine or transmission you might be getting a used junkyard part. Seen it too often in the past.

quote:

The clause “Like kind and quality” translated into normal speak means that at their discretion instead of getting a rebuilt engine or transmission you might be getting a used junkyard part.

Parts quality is enough of a problem without adding used parts of unknown provenance to the mix. After all, what's the number one reason non-wrecked cars are junked? Engines & transmissions.



I've been given worse engines to install.