Ruth's Life is Good: 1-23 Extended Warranties

Friday, January 23, 2015

1-23 Extended Warranties

Do you purchase extended warranties? Should you? My experience tells me there are very few instances where you should purchase an extended warranty and reputable resources such as Consumers Reports agrees (Consumer Reports -Extended warranties Guide). In my blog the other day I talked a bit about vacuums, in over 30 years we have owned two, never took either one in for a repair. Let's talk appliances: Stoves, owned three, no repairs. Refrigerators, I believe we are on our third (might be fourth), have not repaired one but have paid service guys to check out the two that finally failed, both times they said compressor was shot and we should buy a new fridge, the quickest one has failed was seven years. Washers/Dryers they last years and years, when a washer finally quits we simply buy a new one, nothing fancy, dryers are simpler and Larry has fixed our current one a couple of times but once again they are not that expensive and when he can't fix it we simply replace it. Dishwashers, have never replaced one, of course I never use one. Trash compactors, love em, three houses, three compactors, no failures. Microwaves, couldn't live without one, use them multiple times a day and in over 30 years only one failure. Water heaters, no failures. As you can see if I would have purchased an extended warranty on any of the above I would have simply been giving my money away.

Home Air conditioner / Heater: Over the years we have had some repairs and even had to have one totally replaced, the repairs are normally less than $200 and most new ones actually come with really long warranties, we certainly would have lost money on an extended warranty.

Computers, normally come with a one year warranty, odds are if they are going to fail it will be within the year, if they fail after that maybe a friend (or brother) can get it going for you and if not buy a new one, a decent machine can be bought for less than $350 and it will be faster/better than your old one.

Automobiles, we keep them far longer than most folks, after having the last car for 16 years we just bought a new to us car, yep, bought a used car, oh did I mention the car we had for 16 years was actually 21 years old, yep, bought it used. We have purchased our trucks new, we have found by purchasing less fancy models we can actually buy a new truck for less than a used one. As of today we have never bought a vehicle extended warranty and would have lost money if we had. This is one place where we might eventually purchase a warranty, new cars are extremely reliable but they now have far more sophisticated stereos, electronics and computer controls. While a person will probably lose money on the extended warranty they will buy themselves piece on mind. Let's say you purchase a bumper to bumper warranty from the manufacture that will cover the car 7 years or 100,000 miles, these can normally be purchased for less than $1700 (remember the mfg. new car warranty will cover the first 3 years), this would mean 4 years of warranty is costing you about $425 per year, the piece of mind might be worth it. A couple of things to think about, these extended warranties normally have a $100 deductible so you will still be on the hook for some money and you don't have to purchase the warranty when you purchase the car, both GM and Ford will let you purchase the warranty later as long as the car has less than 36000 miles, why on earth would you purchase it when the car is new, you may not have the car in three years, it might get totaled in a wreck.

Today Larry and I went square dancing with the Double C's Club Founders Dance. The club had a special caller Nelda Eaton, who calls to Gospel Music. Ed Smith was the cuer for the round dances in between square dancing sets. This was Ed's last dance curing because he decided to retire but his wife and him are still going to dance at the different clubs. We wish him all the luck in his retirement.