Extended warranties on big ticket items? Hell yes, and it has paid off for me.

fordman84 said:
Oh, yeah they are going to be idiots. Could you not still call Bosch for customer support without a warranty in place?
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I went online and researched the error codes, which indicated both a drainage and clog issue. Since I had that, I did not contact Bosch CS thinking I was out of warranty anyway..
 
williewilliejuan said:
I had one when I bought my current house. The microwave, which is built into the wall, stopped working. I called the home warranty and they refused coverage because the microwave wasn’t built in. I said, it’s literally built into the wall. I know, sir, but it isn’t built in built in, it’s just built in.

Excuse me?
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What part of built in do you not understand?
 
williewilliejuan said:
I had one when I bought my current house. The microwave, which is built into the wall, stopped working. I called the home warranty and they refused coverage because the microwave wasn’t built in. I said, it’s literally built into the wall. I know, sir, but it isn’t built in built in, it’s just built in.

Excuse me?
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I've actually filed claims with the State AG against asshole companies like that. Even if the claim goes nowhere, it will cost the company more to respond to that than I could have recovered.
 
fordman84 said:
Our last house had two A/C units that were like 15 years old. Compressor went out, called warranty. They sent a guy with a magnet sign on his truck (red flag) who told me the compressor needs to be replaced and they would cover it after my $50 service fee and the coils need to be cleaned for $150 plus the install kit isn't included (power harness) which is $150 and the EPA haul away is another $100.

I told them I would pay for the coil clean and inspect it before they left, I would supply my own power harness, and leave the compressor I'd handle it. "No sir, can't do that as the EPA won't allow it". Showed him my EPA refrigerant license and explained I have done A/C repair and where my dad worked. Suddenly all I had to pay was the cleaning and service fee call. When he was done I told him we needed to go check the cleaning. I informed him that the contract for the cleaning stated it would be chemical cleaned and fins would be repaired. So I made him get his fin tool out, which he didn't have on him so I loaned him one I still had, and stood over him like a fucking grade school teacher while he combed out all four sides. Took him about an hour and I stood there the entire time. All he had done was run a hose over the coils like a lazy fuck.

Never again. The common homeowner would have ended paying nearly $500 for a compressor on top of their warranty cost. And he didn't even do a good job.
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You know how hot it gets in Texas. Well, a few years back, My unit's fan motor went out the Saturday night before Memorial Day. That means I had to go at least 2 days without AC--b/c I wasn't paying the "holiday/weekend premium charge" that every one of the HVAC companies demanded.

I figured out what was wrong--all I needed was a new fan motor--but when Tuesday rolled around, none of the HVAC parts stores in the area would sell me one b/c they only sold to licensed HVAC contractors. The motor cost between 100 and 150, but the HVAC places I called wanted 400-500 for the parts and labor. Screw that. I finally found a small store 2 towns over that would sell me the right motor. 2 hours drive time and $100. Using the intergoogle, I replaced my old one in about 2 hours. Someone with training should've been able to change that thing in half the time.

I just don't get it. They literally wouldn't sell me a part so that I could fix a problem on my own house--they were trying to make me hire a licensed contractor to do it (and pay them at least $100/hour to do it). It would be like courts letting you represent yourself at trial, but forcing you to buy all your forms and paperwork from a lawyer. It was practically extortion.
 
Dolemite censored said:
Bought a 75 inch Samsung HD TV in March 2021. In June 2022, after the manufacturer's 1 year warranty expired, the fucking thing went south with vertical lines in the picture that couldn't be adjusted or removed. But, I purchased it at Costco and leveraged the concierge warranty and exchanged that Samsung piece of shit for a 75 inch Sony. Took about a month and several emails, but it worked out. No more Samsung crap for me.

Bought a Bosch Dishwasher from Lowes in April 2022 that was highly recommended Best Buy in Consumer reports. Purchased a $69 3-year extended warranty for it. In June 2023, the Bosch flashed error messages and stopped running. Called in the warranty, but they were unable to find a service repair contractor in my area, so thy sent me $762 to get a new dishwasher. Good stuff. I contacted a local appliance repairman who came out and diagnosed that there was a clog in the drainage and the machine automatically stopped so that there would be no flooding. He bypassed the clog and placed the drainage valve through the garbage disposal, and the machine has worked perfectly ever since. The repair cost me $175. So that $762 check minus cost of repair and cost of extended warranty still left me ahead by $518. Quirky note: WA state does not want you routing dishwasher drainage through your garbage disposal, but plumbers and service people here regularly ignore that. The original installers ran the drainage through a simple outlet that was unable to be cleared since it was about 1/2 inch thick and ran down at a right angle from the machine.

I think that since all major appliances/electronics are made in China it makes sense to get an extended warranty/service contract, since the Chinese are not known to have good quality control.

For other less expensive items, not so much.

Opinions?
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Big ticket items? Yes without question
 
fordman84 said:
Kind of along these lines, my parents have an LG washer and dryer. The washing machine was acting up a couple of years ago so my dad installed their customer service app. No shit you could activate the app and then turn on the washing machine and it can trouble shoot it just from the sound. The app popped up a code which was some sort of hard water filter in the line and directions to pop it out and clean it, put it back in and it worked.

No clue if it is listening to the clicks and whatever or if there was some sort of code transmitting outside of our auditory range. Either way it was impressive when he told me about it.
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I was actually gonna buy a smart LG wadher and dryer from Home Depit a few years ago,but didnt feel the need of such a thing as when you wanted to wash or dry your clothes thru your phone from work or where ever you were.....but after reading this to be able to trouble shoot it on your phone can be very helpful......I figured it was a wadte of money....
Things you dont know.......

Thanks for the info.
 
Niner Outlaw said:
You know how hot it gets in Texas. Well, a few years back, My unit's fan motor went out the Saturday night before Memorial Day. That means I had to go at least 2 days without AC--b/c I wasn't paying the "holiday/weekend premium charge" that every one of the HVAC companies demanded.

I figured out what was wrong--all I needed was a new fan motor--but when Tuesday rolled around, none of the HVAC parts stores in the area would sell me one b/c they only sold to licensed HVAC contractors. The motor cost between 100 and 150, but the HVAC places I called wanted 400-500 for the parts and labor. Screw that. I finally found a small store 2 towns over that would sell me the right motor. 2 hours drive time and $100. Using the intergoogle, I replaced my old one in about 2 hours. Someone with training should've been able to change that thing in half the time.

I just don't get it. They literally wouldn't sell me a part so that I could fix a problem on my own house--they were trying to make me hire a licensed contractor to do it (and pay them at least $100/hour to do it). It would be like courts letting you represent yourself at trial, but forcing you to buy all your forms and paperwork from a lawyer. It was practically extortion.
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Yup, need that license number to buy from a lot of parts houses. Grainger is really good about having most of what you need and unless it is refrigerant related you don't need a license. And honestly, Amazon is the best place for a lot of stuff these days. I'm not to the point I keep a few spare capacitors on hand of difference microfarads because those are usually the issue. Just had one pop on my just over 1 year old pool booster pump this week. Had the spare already in my shop so I popped it on and ordered another. I bailed my neighbor out last year because I had one on hand and it was the same size as his A/C unit.
 
Wood20ks said:
I was actually gonna buy a smart LG wadher and dryer from Home Depit a few years ago,but didnt feel the need of such a thing as when you wanted to wash or dry your clothes thru your phone from work or where ever you were.....but after reading this to be able to trouble shoot it on your phone can be very helpful......I figured it was a wadte of money....
Things you dont know.......

Thanks for the info.
Click to expand...
Yeah they don't have anything that will start and stop or monitor over wifi, I don't think. But the smart phone troubleshooting was amazing. I went and read up about it. Not sure if our Samsung has the same thing or not.
 
fordman84 said:
Those are the biggest rip off in the history of man. Never buy a home warranty. I've only ever had one after buying a house since the seller almost always throws one in for a year.
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My last house, the home warranty was a great decision. We pay a $150 deductible, and virtually any appliance gets repaired / replaced for that cost. Only once did we have to pay for a part, but typically once the repair cost exceeds some level, the warranty company just decides to replace it with a new appliance. They also replace at a level comparable with the original purchase price, so we've made out like bandits with a new clothes washer, dishwasher, heat-pump, and gas range -- all for $150 each.

The only nasty side is that some accounts manager at the home warranty company reviews annual costs and we were dropped. So we just signed up with a competitor. I honestly don't know how these companies make a profit.
 
Mofo said:
My last house, the home warranty was a great decision. We pay a $150 deductible, and virtually any appliance gets repaired / replaced for that cost. Only once did we have to pay for a part, but typically once the repair cost exceeds some level, the warranty company just decides to replace it with a new appliance. They also replace at a level comparable with the original purchase price, so we've made out like bandits with a new clothes washer, dishwasher, heat-pump, and gas range -- all for $150 each.

The only nasty side is that some accounts manager at the home warranty company reviews annual costs and we were dropped. So we just signed up with a competitor. I honestly don't know how these companies make a profit.
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You are the exception. I had a buddy who swore by warranty companies until his latest house. Then the "comparable" alternative wasn't even close. I'm sure there are people like you who have benefited but seems like most people I talk to have never had good experiences.
 
fordman84 said:
You are the exception. I had a buddy who swore by warranty companies until his latest house. Then the "comparable" alternative wasn't even close. I'm sure there are people like you who have benefited but seems like most people I talk to have never had good experiences.
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It doesn't make sense, unless your home has a lot of appliances and systems, and a certain number of years have passed since the appliances were purchased / inherited. Now that I think most of the appliances that were dodgy have broken down, have, we probably don't need the thing as much. Each of the replacement appliances came with its own warranty. Lifetime costs are now best dealt with on an individual appliance basis. I can repair / replace things like disposals, refrigerators and some light plumbing myself thankfully.
 
Center Ice said:
I don't generally buy extended warranties and have never been burned by that. I have two Samsung Smart TV's that operate flawlessly. In general, it's the hardware that fails and if it's going to do that, it usually does it during the warranty period. There are exceptions of course. BTW, Bosch is a great brand.

The biggest rip off is computer warranties. There's an old adage, hardware always blames the software and software always blames the hardware. When I bought my last desktop from Dell a year ago, they tried hard to sell me the extended warranty. I quietly told them that if the hardware was going to fail, it would likely so so during the warranty period, AND if I so much as loaded any software programs that weren't pre-loaded by the manufacturer, Dell would simply blame rogue software for any performance problem.
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Never bought an extended warranty for anything. Have a Samsung TV that's over a decade old. It had an issue once where it would turn off and on after x amount of years. Was a known issue, they sent someone out to replace a capacitor and it was good to go. Bought another one when I was over seas where a small blue line ran across the bottom of the screen. No cost for either and the customer service for both was a breeze.
 
Bender said:
Never bought an extended warranty for anything. Have a Samsung TV that's over a decade old. It had an issue once where it would turn off and on after x amount of years. Was a known issue, they sent someone out to replace a capacitor and it was good to go. Bought another one when I was over seas where a small blue line ran across the bottom of the screen. No cost for either and the customer service for both was a breeze.
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Because televisions are dirt cheap, both parts and replacements. They're pretty much disposable nowadays, and the cost of repair generally exceeds both the new one and whatever disposal would be.
 
Mofo said:
Because televisions are dirt cheap, both parts and replacements. They're pretty much disposable nowadays, and the cost of repair generally exceeds both the new one and whatever disposal would be.
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my post was about how i wasn't charged anything despite not having a warranty. disputing the OPs claim on that item. not to mention it's a korean company, not china.
 
fordman84 said:
Yeah they don't have anything that will start and stop or monitor over wifi, I don't think. But the smart phone troubleshooting was amazing. I went and read up about it. Not sure if our Samsung has the same thing or not.
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Don’t know if they’ve gotten any better, but in my experience, avoid Samsung washers and dryers like the plague. We had them in our house in Yorba and they were absolute shit. Maytag all of the way.
 
Some people love insurance. Love it. Can’t buy enough of it. They buy a warranty then extend it.

What a total ripoff. The myth of insurance is the biggest hoax in American history. Look at every skyline. The newest, tallest buildings are insurance companies, built by gullible, naive consumers who love them some insurance. It validates and comforts them.

Weird, huh? :crazy:
 
Dolemite censored said:
I've actually filed claims with the State AG against asshole companies like that. Even if the claim goes nowhere, it will cost the company more to respond to that than I could have recovered.
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Thank you. Consumers everywhere appreciate your efforts and are happy to share the cost of you making a point.
 
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