QOTD: What Are Your Extended Warranty Horror Stories?

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

Today we showed you that CarChex got put on the hook by the FTC for deceptive practices. The extended-warranty peddler faces a large settlement.

I've seen the horror of extended warranties from one side of the service desk -- I imagine a few of you had problems as customers.

So, tell us about them.

If you had to fight like hell to get a repair covered or found out about a deductible by surprise or something of that nature, let us know.

Or maybe it went better than you expected. We welcome positive stories, too. Though the horror stories are usually more fun.

Sound off below.

[Image: PanuShot/Shutterstock.com]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • Dlc65688410 Dlc65688410 on Aug 03, 2024
    Has anyone bought an extended warranty for a Toyota or Lexus?
    • MGS1995 MGS1995 on Aug 03, 2024
      I did for the 2018 Sienna that I bought in 2019. I was leery about the over abundance of tech and thought it was $1000 well spent for 5 years and 125k miles. It turned out to pay for itself , not for the tech but for the rear AC lines that failed at around 50k.
  • Aja8888 Aja8888 on Aug 04, 2024
    New bought one and never will.
  • SCE to AUX "EVs tend to chew through tires in a way that surprises many new owners". That hasn't been my experience. My EV has 210 ft-lbs of torque on 16-inch tires, 3100 lbs curb weight. Tire life has been just like a gas car, which varies according to driving habits. So I agree with the "big surprise" headline.
  • 1995 SC Led me down a rabbit hole to see what the OEM tires were. I was curious if they were using some sort of ultra high. performance summer tire (didn't seem to be). However it does look like you need that specific sidewall design or part of the wheel cover won't fit. Not a "feature" I'd want.
  • Cprescott I used to love spy shots when cars changed so often. No point now in even paying attention to them since cars barely exist and the lard butt CUV/SUV's clog up our roads
  • FreedMike Define "many," please. A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand?
  • Wolfwagen There is a good article from Inside EV talking about some of the repair shops that specialize in FIsker mostly the Karma and Revo. At least one of the shops purchased an Ocean to develop fixes. The biggest issue is software. As I understand from the article, Fisker used a lot of off-the-shelf parts, So parts should be available, but the knowledge to troubleshoot and repair will be an issue
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