Newbie here!To buy extended warranty..or not ?

[waybigdog]

Hello all !
My very first new 2016 LR4 Lux is arriving in a couple of weeks and I am curious if you think I should purchase the extended warranty? I live in Northern California.
By the way I love this site, I have gotten lost in time checking everything out. Some beautiful rides here. Thank you in advance.

 

[umbertob]

The eternal question, should I buy an extended warranty... If you read automotive magazines, where Land Rovers are routinely at the bottom of reliability ratings, I guess you should run and get one, pronto. If you are going to pay big bucks for it though, make sure you get an iron-clad, exclusionary policy from a reputable company or from your Land Rover dealer directly, carefully reading the fine print before signing anything. Also, if it makes little or no difference in the premium, buy the extended warranty when your factory coverage is about to run out, not now that your car is brand new and already covered for the next few years. If it turns out to be trouble-free during the next 4 years or 50K miles, you may change your mind about extended warranties. Finally, how long do you plan on keeping your new LR4? That should be a consideration as well.

I purchased my current LR4 in early 2013, I am a high mileage driver so my factory coverage was up about 18 months later. I didn't buy an extended warranty. 3 years later, I have now close to 100K miles on my car - so my extended coverage would probably be up, even if I did buy a policy - and haven't spent a penny in repairs that an extended warranty would have honored other than a set of bushings, only brakes, oil changes and other wear and tear parts (I did rear end someone and had to redo my front end... but that's no fault of Land Rover, LOL.) I had a similar experience with my previous Land Rover, a 2006 Sport that I sold with 208K miles on the odometer. Had a few issues with that one - a few struts, an EAS compressor, front hubs, but nothing that would have justified the cost of an extended warranty. I off-road both cars regularly and they are my daily drivers as well, thus the 30-35K miles per year. I change my own oil religiously and keep up with the scheduled maintenance through a trusted indy shop, that's all. I am probably very lucky.

I don't talk about it much so as not to jinx myself, but I am the poster child for not buying an extended warranty. When you buy one of those policies, you are betting a big chunk of money against your own car's reliability. Then, you often have to fight tooth and nails with some invisible "adjustor" and "claim specialist" across the country to get back some or all of that money you gave them, if and when something does go wrong, to figure out if the part was covered or not, to get reimbursed for a rental car, etc. I am not playing that game - I basically think most / all extended warranty companies are crooks running elaborate and legalized scams... But that's just me. I am sure plenty of other people will have an opposite opinion or experience, and will recommend you buy a policy asap.

 

[shrinkboy]

My extended warranty (as Umberto noted, purchased through an LR dealer) just ate a timing chain failure, valve control motor and thus saved me over $6k. I'm ahead of the game at this point.

 

[catman]

I'm with Umberto in this one. If you are buying new then you will have control over the maintenance from day one. A majority of any factory "defects" are going to show up in the first 4 years or 50,000 miles. After that it's usually wear and tear related issues and you have control over that in terms of how you drive and the maintenance you perform.

When buying used, you never really know what the previous owner did or did not do. That makes it much harder to predict what failures to expect and that is where an extended warranty may be handy as a security blanket.

I did purchase one for my first new car, but ended up trading the vehicle in 18 months later and I did get a majority of my money back since the policy was both transferrable and refundable. You should definately check to see if any policy you consider is refundable and how it is pro-rated should you cancel it without having ever used it.

 

[waybigdog]

Thank you so much ! I appreciate all the points of view and advice. I doubt I will be trading this one in anytime in the near future, especially based on the pictures of the new Disco redesign that I have seen.

 

[Quijote]

Add me to the crowd that self insures. The only time I bought extended warranty was for my Volvo V70R. I knew it would be driven little, so I got a 7 year/70K mile warranty with a $200 deductible for $1700. Car had no issues in the 4 years I had t but it was fully transferable so I feel I got most of that money back at resale.

At 3-5k, that buys a lot of repairs, IMO. Admittedly our LR4 sees only about 8k miles/year, but still. As someone pointed out, I know the full history.

 

[Surfrider77]

I am not sure what Land Rover's policy is, but on my BMWs I would often buy the extended just before the factory had expired. The thing I always worried about was if you pay for the extended up front when new, you have years of time where it could turn out to be money flushed in the toilet for reasons out of your control. (ie: an accident that totals the LR4)

 

[dj_karl]

For peace of mind, it is worth getting the extended warranty unless you know a competent mechanic who can do the maintenance and repair works for you.

 

[TXLR4]

does anyone have a relative idea as to what fair value is for the extended warranty offered through Land Rover? I'm still within my factory warranty and was just quoted about $3,000 for a bumper to bumper type warranty through LR that is good for 4 additional years and/or 100k total miles. This doesn't seem too outrageous (notwithstanding all points raised about about whether its good to have one or not). I'm a little in the dark here because I'm used to dealing with Ford where there are a multitude of dealers and you can really shop it hard. I'm getting the sense this experience will be different, but trying to validate that.

Any previous experiences would be appreciated. Feel free to PM me if you would prefer to not have it out in the open. Thanks in advance to everyone!