I will be ordering a 2006 msc in December, what are everyone's thoughts on
the value of the extended warrenty? I will be keeping the car stock except
for wheels/tires and a borla exhaust.

 

Extended warantees are huge profit items for dealers and salesfolk. In many instances the extended warantee isn't backed by the dealership or by the factory but by a third-party warantee company that may or may not exist in six months.

The warantee company is betting that your car won't break down on a warantee related item under the warantee period. Those items can be very closely defined, so read the warantee and make certain you understand what's covered. Often anything that could be considered a wear item (even clutches) are excluded. Sometimes labor is excluded and only parts cost is covered. In general extended warantees on cars are not a good deal. Of course, there are exceptions.

Best extended warantee deal I ever heard of was, believe it or not, Harley-Davidson. They wanted to overcome their reputation for being prone to break, so there was an extended warantee offer for I think three years. (Unusual in an industry where warantees tend to run in the 90 days to 12 months range) If you didn't use the extended warantee during that period, you were refunded the purchase price of the warantee.

If you can get that kind of deal, go for it. But I'll bet that all you'll see if you ask for that is rolling eyeballs.

 

Extended waranties are never in favor of the consumer, else how would the company ever make a profit? If you do any more reading and research on this topic outside of asking opinions on the boards you will find that ALL consumer advocates will steer you far away from these bad deals.

 

I wouldn't even consider an extended warranty until after I know for sure how long I will keep the car. You may be buying the MINI thinking you'll keep it forever but sometimes things change. The worst possible thing to do would be to buy the extended warranty as part of your bank loan, you'd end up paying much more than the face value. If you end up keeping the car, you can always add one later on.

 

MrsDiff and I are in this same delema right now. D&R wants to sell us insurance for tires and wheels as well as the extended warrenty. We are consideing MINI Select financing and the Extended warrenty would meen no part or labor cost for both loan terms. Fantastic but.. No MODS at all, other than window decals!

Now for the tire warrenty. First off, the price they give you for run flat replacemet is the MINI price. They say $200 and up per tire. I have found that the TireRack has the same tires in factory size for $140 per tire. The question now becomes can you find a local shop that has experience with them and will mount them at a decent cost

The tire Warrenty is pointless if you are thinking about a set of winter tires and another one for summer. you may or may not have the warrentied tire/wheel on the car when the flat occurs.

Had Tire coverage on the Stratus. Never had a flat untill after coverage wore off.

 

First see here https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=38588

by their own admission, adding the Borla means you cannot get an extended warrenty (at least from that provider).

Now read here http://www.carnutgarage.com/warranty/Warranty_3.html

The bottom line is that DESPITE the fact you will get ancedetol stories (i'm sure someone will add that their extended warrenty saved them X thousands of dollars), the hard facts are that you will be paying for his repairs and that the odds are, you won't get a dime. The winner here is the company selling you the warrenty.

 

First and only thing you need to realize is that most if not all extended warranties can be added anytime during the manufactures warranty. Never ever buy an extended warranty with a new car. Would you give me a 4 year $2K interest free loan? Why not? So why are you thinking about giving it to the car dealer? If your car turns out to be totally craptacular but you still want to keep it (why?) then maybe you could add an extended warranty in a couple years. My guess would be that if your car is always in the shop you would want to get rid of it (and thus not need the extra warranty). If your car runs great than it probably will continue to run well and not need extra warranty time. Just my 2 cents.

 

Thank you all for your replies.. I was leaning in the direction that it was not
going to be a good deal and your responses solidifys that feeling. I try to
speak to as many mcs owners that I can and have yet to find one that has
the type of problems that would make them sell their car. I can't wait!!

 

Autologic: GREAT point. Add it at 2 years 11 months or 35000 miles which ever comes first. I will alert MrsDiff to this strategy

 

What about extending the maintenance agreement? My dealer offered an extra 12 months/14,000 miles (making maintenance 4 years or 50,000 miles). This includes new brakes. Cost: $500

 

Again....They would not offer it if it didn't make money for THEM, not you. It MAY include new brakes, Unless you KNOW that you will need brakes before 50k I would be very hesitant.

If i were you I would start a thread on here about how many have had thier brakes replaced under 50k, and how they would describe thier driving style.

 

You should be getting brakes at the 35,000 mile mark before the regular maintenance warranty runs out and you bring it in for those last rattles and that one more set of wipers. Have them check them and you'll see they are below the 3mm standard. You'll get brakes and rotors all around. I am easy on my brakes and they qualified so my guess is that everyone will. The standard is that if there is less than 3mm of pad left on the fronts, you get them all around.

So if brakes last 35,000 miles the extension to 50,000 gets you nothing. That said my clutch at 40,000 was fine so my guess is I saved $500 because that is not likely to go bad in the next 10,000.

Rich

 

I bought it used. It had an extended warranty of 7yr./75,000 mi. When I bought it it was 6 weeks before the end of 7 years, but well under the miles. I took it to the BMW dealer for service. It needed a new camshaft (one low lobe), new transmission (I thought it was fine), fuel sender and a bunch of other stuff to the tune of $6400. The warranty company which was originally owned by BMW was sold. The paper was sold to another company. The BMW service manager got on the phone, tracked them down and extracted the money. A process that became his hobby. The extended warranty was difficult to transfer. Many roadblocks. Previous owner, who had gone on vacation, had to provide written permission which I faxed. Warranty guys used the mail because it was slower and time was running out. All was fixed and I paid for the fluids. I was amazed. It usually doesn't work out that way. It was kind of like a bad movie with a happy ending.
Jim

PS. I have to ask myself, "Geez, How did I miss all that stuff when I bought it?" --Lemon city!!

 

The best advice I heard on this boiled down to:

1. If the warranty extension is say $2,000 set that amount aside

2. Take the $2,000 and put it into a savings or investment that is reliable

3. Leave it there until you need a repair done

4. If you never use it, you still have the money plus all the interest that it earned

 

My understanding on this one is that you need to add it no later than 9 months before your regular maintenance program runs out. This makes it imposible to know if you will use the extension for something expensive (breaks, clutch etc) unless you delibratly destroy them.

 

Thats exactly what I will do when the warranty runs out. You can't do better than that. Extended warranties are offered to make the company money, and your best bet is that your car won't need $2000 worth of repairs in that warranty period.

 

I have a 2003 Cooper S. At 35,000 miles I brought it in for the last few rattles and asked them to check the brakes. They told me that the brakes were under the 3mm standard and qualified for full replacement under warranty.

I have never raced or autocrossed PeeWee. In fact my Goodyear runflats were just replaced after 40,000 miles because I knew they wouldn't last through the winter (I replaced them with Pirelli P-Zero Neros All-Seasons and love them) so clearly from tire wear you can guess I am not hard on the tires or brakes.

So just like my guess is that every '03 S has a loose induction scoop (unless the nuts were tightened or replaced) and that the power steering pump will eventually fail, I believe that at 35,000 miles most if not all will be under the 3mm minimum for replacement.

Rich

 

My extended warrenty covers everything the factory one did, yes I read the fine print first.

I knew I was going to go over on milage long before the time ran out. I hit 50k miles before 2 years of ownership. I'm close to 60k in 27 months of owning my MINI.

My warrenty will take me to 93k miles, or 5 years. I will still run up the milage, long before the time with that deal.

It cost me about $2200 for the extended warrenty, the service discounts will cover that cost. We don't get free maintence up here, but a discount.

If one mayor thing comes up in the next 2 years, I'm ahead. If nothing comes up, well I feel better knowing I still get the discount.

 

Lot15 I could see some value in extended warranty in your situation, (which is not really a "typical" one). I think for you, it is a good investment.

For me, not interested. I will have to work very hard to do that "Take $2000 and invest it" strategy, but that's another story...

Last thing, Gabe wrote an article that should be find-able at Motoringfile.com. This is remembering back to before my car was delivered, but it was a good read, about deciding if Extended Warranty makes sense or not.

two more cents than you asked for,
Tatt