Extended Warranties.....

I just bought my first car yesterday, 05' LGT limited 5EAT, 25,000 miles and the dealer tried to sell me the extended warranty, I turned it down. Apparently I have til the end of the week to make my decison. Apparently he believes that it is a necessary investment and I can see his point, however He made it sound like something WOULD go wrong with my car Soon???>? and I should probably buy the warranty. I was hoping to get some advice from people on this forum about it, Does everyone buy It? He didnt reinforce the idea that a subaru was a quality vehicle, seems kind of stange seeing as it is in his best interest to sell me on the car completely. The warranty is about 2,300 more for 4 years 50,000 b2b. Has anyone had any problems with things like, cd changers, alternator, air conditiong, window motor, computers? etc..... I realize things happen but really it seems me like this is just another way of squeezing me for all I'm worth.

 

ps.....Clay Subaru of Norwood MA has given me nothing but trouble and I would'nt reccomend dealing with them in the future.

I have 61,000 miles on my '05 LGT. Haven't fixed anything yet. Only been to the dealer twice, 30K service and 60K service. No extended warranty.

 

My last car a 96 Camry, the extended warranty did pay for itself about twice over. So you never know.

Make sure you know what the warranty covers (I see b2b, but look for specifics in the documentation!).

 

I wasted $1500 on a warranty for a used car that covered next to nothing. Not the A/C, not the engine, not the drivetrain, not the cooling system, not the brake system, not the clutch... When I came back to the dealer for the documents that said all of this I got a refund as soon as I read through it (yes, I bought the warranty on his word which was "It covers everything except your typical maintenance like tires, oil changes, et cetera.").

 

When I asked him to clarify exactly what it did cover, all he could come up with is "Electrical Switches".

 

Getting the warranty isn't so much about an investment as it is buying into peace of mind. LGTs are fairly reliable, but like any car there's some that are more problematic than others, and you have no way of knowing about the one you are buying unless the prev owner tells you everything.

I believe it covers everything except for maintenance, seriously.....so I dont know, still havent made up my mind

Normally I'd say no, but think about it. You're starting out with 25,000 miles on it. Used cars are unknowns and this is a small turbo. I wouldn't buy his contract, though. It doesn't sound like a factory contract, and third party contracts can really piss off service writers. If the place you take it to doesn't deal with that company regularly, they can go through hell dealing with the contract company. The place I'm at charges a $100 administration fee when they have to deal with some random company, and that's got nothing to do with your deductible.

 

Read here for more about the warranty you've got right now and here for the service contract that Subaru will sell you as long as you're still under the 3/36. You've got more than a week to think. The Subaru contract can go out to 100,000 miles and should work seamlessly at any Subaru dealer. No, I don't work for Subaru- I just drive one.

Thanks alot charlie good info!!

Sorry, I feel like a jerk. Welcome, and enjoy. Enjoy a lot.

I just bought my first car yesterday, 05' LGT limited 5EAT, 25,000 miles and the dealer tried to sell me the extended warranty [...] The warranty is about 2,300 more for 4 years 50,000 b2b.

 

50,000 miles total, right? This would mean that this warranty is good for another 25k miles. Figure how many miles you drive per year, do a little math... I'm guessing that's about 2 years, meaning over $1000/year for that warranty. Chances of you spending $1k/year this early in the life of your Subaru are slim. My last car was costing about that much but it's over 10 years old.

 

If you've also got Subaru's factory warranty working for you, then this one may only be adding about one year of coverage (I'm just guessing - check the date for your coverage).

 

The place I bought my car from tried to sell me a similar thing ($1k/yr coverage), and I declined too.

 

First he offered me the warranty, then he told me something about modern cars having more computers than the lunar landers. Then he said he had something to attend to in another office. He leaves for a minute. He comes back, I decline the coverage, told him about $1k/yr being equal to the cost of maintenance for my old car, and a new Subaru can't be that bad. His response? "But your old car probably doesn't have as many computers controlling everything, like this car has."

 

It didn't occur to me until later that he probably just left me alone earlier in hopes that I would dwell on the scary computers in my new car and thus be more likely to fall for his warranty crap. The more I think about it, the more slimey it seems.

 

Next time I buy a car from a dealership, if the guy offers me a warranty and says he has business to attend to, I'm following him out of his office to see where he really goes. Ninja skillz FTW.

Ninja skillz FTW.

 

NSFW you truly are a ninja. I'm making you my buddy.

_________

http://www.crawspace.com/web3/ninjasusepngs.png

Like crawdaddy says, really check the fine print if you are seriously considering an extended. My 05 is still running strong at 40k and only the notorious Legacy wheel bearing issue has struck once. Overall, it really depends on how long you intend to keep the vehicle. And the sales pitch is that you have to buy right now, which is not true. I'm not aware of any extended warranty anywhere that can run concurrent with a factory warranty. So if you get pressured into buying one on the dealerships terms you'll end up with two warranties, one of which will be absolutely useless until 3/36k. You'll have more than ample notice to extend your warranty as the 3/36 approaches. I think I still have 3 or 4 mailers that came to me with extended warranty options for sale.

 

And on a side note, I purchased an extended warranty for one of our other vehicles and looking back it's been a total waste of money. Turns out the vehicle has been flawless and we're approaching 80k. Recently, although, I went in to have an electrical issue checked out. I didn't do my homework and ended up owing a $50 deductible (in the fine print), which was more than the part.

why did he say you have 2 weeks to decide? you have 3 yrs or 36k so it seems you have plenty of time to buy a warrnty from subaru 11k or about a year

well actually the 50K/ 4yr is ontop of the 25K the car has onit. I can even go up to 60K/5yr from today, so i would basically be covered up to 85 thousand miles, this however costs more. Thanks for all the info everyone I've decided not to buy it for now.......

I would go for the warranty, as it is a Subaru Warranty and not third party so it would be the same as Factory. The number one reason I would say yest to the warranty in your case is, because it has 25K on it already. Hope this helps just my opnion.

get the warranty, it was worth it in my case just recently..

really.......what happened?

The warranty was worth it on my Baja T that ended up being a lemon. But make sure this is the SOA warranty. One of the dealierships near me, the slimy one, likes to try and sell their own over the SOA warranty. I got the 5 year 100k gold on my legacy and we got the 7 year 100K gold warranty on my wifes 04 forester XT at the same time. But you do have till the end of the 3 year 36K warranty to purchase it. We bought thte forester at 35500 miles. You can go to any dealiership to purchase these.

I purchased the SOA Gold warranty (6yrs. / 100,000) miles for my '05 5EAT when I had 35,500 miles on my car.

 

Call Subaru of America and verify that you have until the end of the 3/36 warranty to buy the extended coverage.

 

Only purchase the Subaru extended warranty and shop various dealers. I bought my car in Long Beach, California and got the Subaru Gold warranty from a dealer in Billings, Montana. There was a $600 price difference.

 

As another poster stated, you are buying peace of mind. On one hand, the cars are reliable, on the other they are complex (AWD / Turbo) and, a repair could easily exceed the cost of the warranty.

 

The Subaru extended warranty is worth buying if you plan to keep the car or are on a tight budget and can't handle a big repair bill. On top of that, you can probably get most of your money back when you sell the car.

 

Wait until you get close to 3 years or 36,000 miles and get the Subaru warranty.

really.......what happened?

 

throwout bearing broke my tranny case...since the throwout is not a coverd part and broke the trans case which was covered, ultimately everything was not covered under warranty...... but my gold extened pland covered the throwout

 

$100 deductible or paying for removal of trans and paynig for labor to swap internals....

throwout bearing broke my tranny case...since the throwout is not a coverd part and broke the trans case which was covered, ultimately everything was not covered under warranty...... but my gold extened pland covered the throwout

 

$100 deductible or paying for removal of trans and paynig for labor to swap internals....

 

I need this translated. What exactly did the Gold Plan pay for? Just make a list of parts and labor that was covered. Do not attempt to construct sentences.

From what I gather from what bmorrisj said, he had a choise, pay the $100 deductible or pay for the labor. So he paid the deductible and it was all covered.

 

Also, We got the 0 deductable for both the LGT and the FXT. Just don't want to worry about anything going wrong. I have owned 5 other subarus in my life have been farily worry free except for normal were and tear for an older car.

i've never bought one b4; i've worked in car sales, and the OE's really push the warranties, they make a lot of money on them, plus if there is a claim later on, they don't have to pay for the whole repair, the dealer pays a %....

It's not that the dealer pays, as such, it's that the parts and labor get paid for at warranty rates, which aren't as good as list price. So the shop makes less money, but they don't see it as chipping in a portion. They see it as work that would probably have gone elsewhere, but came to them because of the service contract.

I hate to dredge up an aging thread. Lots of good info here. I would like to get the opinions of the members here. My situation is a little different. I recently bought an '05 LGT from a member here. I trust the person but, not the car. My last car was a Subaru and (luckily) the turbo died at 59K miles. So it was one of the last things covered under the warranty. I'm afraid that my luck won't be as good as it was before. I called around and I can get the 7/100K Gold+ Subaru warranty for about $1800-$2K. I'm comparing that to upgrading the exhaust (uppipe, downpipe, maybe AP) on the car? What would you do? $2K can buy a lot of mods.

 

Thanks,

Brian

 

PS: And I'm wondering if the mods will interfere with the Gold+ warranty anyway?

Figure out how long until you hit the threshold (will it be miles, or years) and then how many dollars per year that works out to.

 

Then guesstimate how many dollars per year you're likely to spend on warranty-able stuff if you don't buy the warranty. I'm guessing $300/year. But you should know that I pulled that number outta my ass.

 

They offer those warranties because they think they can make money on them, which means that they believe you will end up giving them more for the warranty than you would for the individual repairs. They have plenty of historical data - far more than we do - to support their projections, so they're probably right. It probably is a winning proposition for them and a losing proposition for us. But if it makes you feel better knowing you don't have to worry about this stuff (which is totally reasonable), then it's worth it.

 

For me personally a warranty would mean less peace of mind and more angst from wondering if modding violated the warranty, and wondering if I'll have to argue about stupid crap like them trying to deny coverage for failed diff because I have short-shifter, or whatever. Unless they offer me a really sweet deal, I'll pay for the repairs myself just to avoid crap like that.

 

Besides, a dead turbo ain't a bad thing, it's an opportunity to upgrade.

you never know when you are gonna need it. I did get it on my subaru. I had one on my old accord and i made my money back then some in repair bills.