Are auto extended warranty a good idea to purchase?

If you have the money laying around to pay for repairs then you dont need an extended warranty.. but when the tranny goes out and you have to cough up a couple of grand then you are going to wish you would have had the extended warranty. You hope you dont need it but if you do and you have it then you are covered, but if you need it and dont have it you are out of luck... kind of a catch 22.

Are the companies hoping you wont have to use it ofcourse, they have to make some money otherwise they wouldnt be in business to cover the repairs when they happen. I always hear on here, "they are only in it to make money"... isnt that really why EVERYONE is in business? To make money?

Why do people have health, life, home, auto insurance? They hope they dont have to use it, but if they do atleast they have it. If you decide to sell the vehicle BEFORE the extended warranty runs out, it makes a good selling point as they are usually transferable atleast once.

If you decide to get one, you MUST maintain the vehicle to the manufactures recommendations. WHY? So that if your engine goes out and you can provide the oil change records, then the warranty company knows it wasnt your error and will cover the repair as it is actually a mechanical failure, rather than you just not caring at which point its user error..

As always READ everything, if you decide you wont like/want the coverage, you usually have 60 days to cancel with a full refund, as long as no claims have been paid. After the 60 days you will get a prorated refund and you can cancel at anytime.

Check around, contact dealers, Credit Unions and your personal auto insurance agent. The dealers will be a bit more expensive as they can mark up the price quite a bit, but that gives them alot of room to haggle as well. CUs and Agents have a set commission that is much less than the dealers mark up, but they can not discount at all. Theoretically you could talk a dealership down to match the CUs price.

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try looking at it this way.

Are you going to keep the truck passed the warranty point?

Do you drive a lot? will you have the truck paid off before the warranty runs out?

If you answer yes to any of the these question than you should look at the extended warranty.

Like other have said go with the Ford only extended warranty.

too many of the third party companies have gone out of business. then you are just out.

I have been in the automotive repair business for over 40 years and can honestly tell you it is money that is well spent. I purchase extended coverage for every vehicle that I own. As a mechanic I see all of the horror stories that other people tell about. Do keep one thing in mind, not all extended warranties are the same. Read or have someone you trust read what it covers before you sign up for it. There are a lot of sneaky exclusions according to how the contract is worded. My last vehicle cost $1300.00 for the extended warranty. In the eight years that I have driven the vehicle It has paid for itself four times over. Not bad, and they provided a loaner vehicle when I needed one.

No they are not unless you intend on keeping the car for a long long time....... Don't get the extended warranty ....get a maintenance contract instead.... Alot of people get the warranty and then in a few years trade the car in way before the warranty is up.

But if you plan on keeping it or you put alot on miles on the car each year it might be worth it.

The F150 i think already comes with a 100.000 mile warranty so for you i don't think its worth it. Unless you plan on keeping it for more then 5 years or 100.000 miles...

dude, i bought a new, off the lot, '95 ford probe GT and thouht "i don't need extra warranty! that's just extra $$!"

the regular warranty expired at 60k miles

my transmission blew-out at 64K miles....

it was $9,000, 6 ford dealerships, 4 tranny shops & quite a few mechanics later and NO ONE COULD FIND THE PROBLEM - they all said it "looked fine"

all ford kept telling me was "you shoulda got the extended warranty, we could have replaced the entire tranny"

i sold the car for $800....

my opinion? GET THE EXTENDED WARRANTY!!!

good luck! :)

No don't get it. Nowadays cars are build much better than 10 - 15 years ago. The cost of the ext. warr. is likely to exceed the cost of the smaller repairs to be done. Plus these ext. warr. have so many exemptions in the fine print that any major repair to be done probably won't be covered anyway.

It's just a nice cash cow for the person selling it.

Usually a rip-off. If you feel you must, ONLY buy the one from Ford. The aftermarket/independent ones are expensive and nearly worthless insurance.

tough Q...i just had same prob with my wife's 05 Subaru...it got to 35K and bumper to bumper runs out at 3 yr/36K...on a trip to Florida last week the AC went out... with 35,850 miles we spent day in dealer getting paper to prove it broke under warranty...we got it fixed 4 free on Monday in Virginia where we live...extended warr.costs 900 dollars...we didn't get it bu now i wonder...

ONLY buy a Ford ESP other dealers don't always accept them, there are loopholes, etc.