Consumer Reports says: don't buy these for anything, put such money away in a separate account. I never buy these warranties for anything, myself, always felt one would pay more for such "insurance".

Local respected garage/shop owner has Saturday morning radio show, says he has to fight with EVERY extended warranty company over every repair/payment. He says stuff like failure to service a transmission can cause refusal of payment for an AC compressor, crap like that.

So I say to bank such money, and find a well-rated independent shop for your service and repairs.

 

Is the cost of the warranty $1300? What is the deductible? What does it cover? Doe is include rental car while in the shop?

While I do agree most times an extended warranty is a Vegas crap shoot, you do need to look at all the details.

I did have luck with my extended warranty when it covered the rear axle assembly replacement when the locker failed at 70k miles. The repair was over $4000. I paid my $100 deductible and the dealer put me in a rental for 2 days. If I remember, my warranty was $2000 and was good for 5 yrs and would take me to just shy of 100k miles. The dealer had no issues getting the warranty company to cover the repair, though he did comment on how easy this warranty situation was to deal with compared to most. So... YMMV.

Did I gamble? Not really. I made a calculated decision based on how complicated my truck was and the cost of replacing things like a locking rear diff, an automatic transmission, an engine or a front differential. Any one of these would easily run the $2000 I paid so I went with it. If the warranty was any more expensive, covered less or was a shorter mile/term I wouldn't have bought it. If I were buying a base model or 2wd I wouldn't have bought it.

 

I bought it on my last truck and never used it so I skipped it this time and the money it would have cost me goes toward a repair. If you do purchase a warranty buy a Nissan plan or skip it altogether.

Clint

 

I have not purchased an extended warranty for my Frontier. The only extended warranty I would ever consider is one provided by the manufacture (Nissan). I would not go with a third party warranty. I have decided to just put money away for any repairs that may be needed on the Frontier.

I have had good luck with an extended warranty offered by Dodge for my Ram and one for a Jeep Grand Cherokee offered by Jeep. I basically broke even on costs with repairs on the Ram compared to the cost of the warranty. The Jeep warranty was a life time with a $100 deductible. So far we have recouped about 1/3 the cost of the warranty. We plan to keep the Jeep for a very long time. Time will tell if it was worth the cost.

 

Thanks for the replies. I read that article on Consumer Reports as well. I should say that I actually purchased the warranty when I bought the truck but there is a 60 day cancellation period. The $1300 is the cost of the warranty for 5 years or another 71,000 miles through a company called IWS with $0 deductible. It includes road side assistance for $80 per occurance and rental car for up to 10 days or $500. The list of items covered is pretty comprehensive and includes engine, drive axles, transfer case, electronics, electrical etc. I like doing some of my own maintenance as well and don't want any hassle if something goes wrong and they say I didn't have it dealer serviced or whatever. There is a disclaimer that states "if the manufacturer's warranty was in place at the the time of purchase the manufacturer's recommendations for service must be followed". Technically I think the manufacturer's warranty is up for everything but there might be a few months remaining on the powertrain, depending on the date they use. Seems like a blanket statement set up for denial of coverage. Thanks for the input. Just wanted to get an idea of the cost of some of the major repairs. This is more of a daily driver for me. I'm not planning on any hard off-roading yet.

 

When doing the service yourself, just keep all receipts and it doesn't hurt to enter everything in to a spread sheet or use something like Fuelly and just enter a note with mileage and description. That way if down the road they try to decline due to no service record, you can hand them a stack of receipts and a report of all the times you checked and changed fluids.

 

This doesn't work as well if one likes to stock-up on the fluids and filters and just do the work as the odometer or clock demands.

Admittedly I'm a little weird, but I have found that if I don't have the materials on-hand I'm more likely to put-off doing the service. If I have cases of oil and filters for my little fleet then the services get done as they're called for. As such I don't have receipts that reflect the date of service, just the date when I bought cases of oil and filters for three running vehicles.


As to the nature of such a warranty on this particular truck, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot that goes wrong with them, and now that we have fourteen model years of production there are lots of cheap used factory parts even if something catastrophic happens. If one works on one's vehicles one's self there doesn't seem to be a lot of reason to go with a warranty.

 

I bought an extended warranty for my M3, but that's an M3 and BMW isn't easy to work on nor are the parts affordable.

My TDI Golf was a pleasure to work on and the engine is pretty much bullet proof so when it came time to decide if I wanted an extended warranty or not, the answer was easy, no. The golf TDI is popular and has a great forum filled with tutorials for almost every job. The M3 is just a bunch of snobs (not all) talking about waxes and looks, not much in the technical department.

This truck seems similar to my TDI, so I think I'm going to trust my mechanical skills and available parts and not get the extended warranty.

 

I have benefited both times I bought an extended warranty, on my VW and my Frontier. Each time I save $4000 in repairs. So, as the old saying goes, your mileage may vary.

 

This is my opinion based on my experience as a car guy and a service writer: Buy the manufacturers extended warranty every time.

Here's why ...

As a car guy: I look at it like an insurance policy. You may never need it, in which case you're just out that money. However, if you DO need it, it can save you a ton of cash and possibly some heartache. I always buy the top of the line, longest, least deductible (zero if possible) policy I can.

As a service writer: Nothing is more frustrating than having a customer past their warranty and having to tell them they need a $4,000 trans. In many cases, they just can't afford that. It might be their only car and they still owe money on it (72 month financing is so common these days). So, now they have a car they can't drive, can't fix, and can't get rid of to get a new one. So much better when I can say "You need a new trans, it's covered by your extended warranty. I'll put you in a loaner car and call you when your car is done"

Third party warranties ... depends. Anything from The Warranty Group is excellent (Car Max's MaxCare warranty is actually from The Warranty Group). They are very quick and easy to deal with and cover everything they say they will cover. On the flip side, there are some REALLY bad warranty companies. I've called in claims and found they don't cover much of anything. I called in one the other day that was limited to the current value of the vehicle (in which case, they only would cover about half of the needed repairs).

 

Q: How can a warranty company stay in business if they pay out more in warranty claims than they make in policy sales?

A: They can't.

The ONLY way for them to win is to stack the odds so that on average, you lose.

It's no different than gambling in Vegas: For every person who comes out ahead, dozens of other people don't.

 

Correct. Same as health insurance, auto insurance ... If they pay out more than they collect, they go out of business.

However, if you still owe $13,000 on your vehicle that has a value of $8,000 in good condition, and you need a new trans for $4,000, but you don't have $4,000, you lose as well. In that case, adding $5 or $10 a month to your payment for an extended warranty doesn't seem (to me) like such a bad gamble.

 

My 2015 is a Certified Pre Owned car from Nissan. I saved 10K over normal price of an SL (it was one year old and immaculate) plus got the 7 yrs 100K warranty with roadside assistance for the same period. A better warranty than I got on the brand new 2014 SV that I purchased... So far in over a year the ONLY warranty claim was for one keyfob that died, dealer replaced it with no questions. So it is not looking like a warranty will be used much.