After market warranties - opinions

Columbo

Columbo

Columbo

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I take delivery of my new 21' plate XC90 on Monday and have been exploring the option of an aftermarket warranty.

Whats the opinions on here on their worth as I've never bought one before? Any good / bad experiences with them?
I've looked at a few options and the dealer is offering one as well so before I jump in I thought I'd ask here, so far below are the options I've looked at, I also looked at Click4Sure but they wont warranty Hybrid cars.

1: Dealer Offer rrom Customer Protect - £901 total for 3 years. Warranty product is the Superior'

Superior | Customer Protect Warranty

www.customerprotect.com www.customerprotect.com

2: Motor Easy - £572 p/y for 3 years. Plan A Hybrid product
3: Allianz - £507 p/y for 3 years - Comprehensive package
4: Warranty Wise - £1663 total for 3 years on the 06/60 coverage
 
I would haggle for a lower price to purchase without one on the basis that (non OEM) car warranties are almost always utter ****. The first time you want to claim it won't be covered. That's universally guaranteed. ;)
 
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Columbo said:
I take delivery of my new 21' plate XC90 on Monday and have been exploring the option of an aftermarket warranty.

Whats the opinions on here on their worth as I've never bought one before? Any good / bad experiences with them?
I've looked at a few options and the dealer is offering one as well so before I jump in I thought I'd ask here, so far below are the options I've looked at, I also looked at Click4Sure but they wont warranty Hybrid cars.

1: Dealer Offer rrom Customer Protect - £901 total for 3 years. Warranty product is the Superior'

Superior | Customer Protect Warranty

www.customerprotect.com www.customerprotect.com

2: Motor Easy - £572 p/y for 3 years. Plan A Hybrid product
3: Allianz - £507 p/y for 3 years - Comprehensive package
4: Warranty Wise - £1663 total for 3 years on the 06/60 coverage
Click to expand...
I had a manufacturer warranty from Peugeot back when I bought my 308 however I can't really recommend it as on the two issues I had (One in warranty, one outside of warranty) they weren't great and involved me having to haggle with Peugeot head office over what constitued a defect.
  1. Alloy wheel defect
  2. Adblue tank related fault (Pump)
Both on a car which was barely 4 years old and both they claimed weren't covered, luckily the dealership I bought the car from initially helped me on point 1 however when it came to point 2 naturally neither were interested :D

Likewise my dad had a Hyundai which had a paint defect covered under manufacturer warranty but they too required a lot of persistence from us to get them to honor it.

Imho, as @jaybee has put, save your money and try haggle some more off the price.

That being said the one thing I did like was the CRI (Cosmetic Repair Insurance) providing you get one where you can select a bodyshop of your choice, on my old car I got more than what I paid back in resprays on chips and doors! :)
 
As an XC90 owner, I'd never dare own one without a warranty.

Is it a T8? If so, make sure the ERAD, which is the rear electric motor and transmission, is covered. They frequently fail at around 70-80k miles. It can be a £6k repair job. On the face of it that warranty seems to cover it, but it may have an upper limit on labour rates and OEM parts.

Can you get the Volvo warranty extended? If that's an option I'd do it every time. I used it on my previous V90CC and it was so much easier than dealing with 3rd party companies.
 
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Scuzi said:
As an XC90 owner, I'd never dare own one without a warranty.

Is it a T8? If so, make sure the ERAD, which is the rear electric motor and transmission, is covered. They frequently fail at around 70-80k miles. It can be a £6k repair job. On the face of it that warranty seems to cover it, but it may have an upper limit on labour rates and OEM parts.

Can you get the Volvo warranty extended?
Click to expand...

Yes its a T8 and Volvo wont extend the warranty but the battery to the hybrid motor is covered for 8 years.
I've confirmed on Option 1 and Option 4 that the ERAD is covered, 2 & 3 I dont have it in writing. Option 2 does call out the Electric Motor in hybrid's as being covered but I need to confirm in writing the Volvo ERAD is covered.
 
for the per/year policies you pay up front or could quit after a year ? if it's as you go, then 3years in advance option obviously giving you some credit for your 3 year commitment (and them banking the money.)

what is the warranty from the garage you are puchasing from ... I just purchased a used Audi with 12months from the nationwide garage.
which was attractive versus 3/6months I'd seen elsewhere, where they were going to add £3/400 pounds to make it 12.
 
When manufacturers won't offer extended warranties, often it's due to not qualifying due to servicing irregularities, i.e. not serviced in accordance with the schedule... so I'd be checking the service history very carefully just in case..

However, you can always phone Volvo's warranty team and have a chat, my Mustang was overdue its first service, but as it had only done 2500 miles in 4 years, and had just been serviced with a health check at a main dealer, the underwriters accepted it in the end, but I had to jump through some hoops.

Weird why so many people buy new cars and don't service them to the schedule not realising it invalidates their warranty..
 
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Warranty from where I purchased from is the standard 3 months fyi...

So have called Volvo this morning and its because its out of manufacturer warranty now (lapsed May 24) and an extended warranty cannot be purchased once the the original 3 yr warranty has lapsed.
Even though the car has had 2 main dealer services on it and a 3rd one being done right now, Volvo won't sell you an extended warranty after the original 3yr period.

So I guess I'm back to one of the options on Plan A above...Option 3 (Allianz) is also out because they dont cover Hybrid's even though they quoted for it...:rolleyes:
 
It's good you're seeing that the 3rd party warranty providers can be a royal pain in the ass, and that's when you're trying to give them money. I went through similar and have come out the other side highly valuing a manufacturer backed warranty. If I were in your shoes, I'd be looking at other cars which are eligible for the extended warranty, but I can also understand that you may have your heart set on this one and it may well be a solid car. It comes down to the risk you're willing to take and the amount of faff you're willing to deal with if they get difficult on the technicalities of any claim. If it was a D5/T6 it would have less to go wrong. A T8 will have a much increased chance of throwing up issues in the next few years. But also, you may have a completely trouble-free experience.

Sorry, that's probably not what you want to hear, but I'm on my 3rd Volvo now and as much as I love them, I'd be reluctant to own one under a 3rd party warranty, particularly the most expensive and complicated model in the lineup. I could be doing the 3rd party providers you're considering a disservice as I don't have experience with them, only with Warranty Direct.

If you're willing to consider other XC90s, we could help with the search?
 
Make sure you check the labour rate on the warranty.


When I was looking at premium warranties, but third party, for my old Boxster, they’d only cover up to something like 100 inc VAT on the labour rate.


Porsche are 220, my local specialists are something like 130.
 
MrRockliffe said:
Make sure you check the labour rate on the warranty.


When I was looking at premium warranties, but third party, for my old Boxster, they’d only cover up to something like 100 inc VAT on the labour rate.


Porsche are 220, my local specialists are something like 130.
Click to expand...
Yes that's what I'm finding on the extended warranty my dealer is offering, it covers up to £75 or something when labour rates are well above that.
As it also doesn't get great reviews (do any of them?) I am probably just not going to bother.
 
Uther said:
Yes that's what I'm finding on the extended warranty my dealer is offering, it covers up to £75 or something when labour rates are well above that.
As it also doesn't get great reviews (do any of them?) I am probably just not going to bother.
Click to expand...

If you have the money, self insure it for £1500 a year, which is roughly what a Cayenne would cost on a Porsche warranty.


That should give you a reasonable buffer. If you don’t have to use it, you don’t lose it.
 
You're a brave man! I researched these and discovered they are pretty much a ticking timebomb of big bills. I doubt any warranty company will touch anything that will typically go wrong. A quick Google shows you know/knew the risk.
 
I bought an old Focus some years ago. The dealer gave me an RAC warranty with it. About a month in the gearbox started whining so I took it to a local garage and showed them the warranty card. They said these warranties are usually not worth the paper they're printed on. But as it turned out they did pay up and the gearbox was reconditioned.
 
A good few years ago bought an Audi A4 and the dealer sold it with a third party warranty with warranty direct.

Refused to pay out on a failed flywheel claiming wear and tear…even though I managed to get a third party report done saying it wasn’t a failure due to this.

After this I’ve never trusted them.
 
My recent dealing with warranty companies, they are awful to deal with when you actually want to claim and won’t cover the full cost. Labour rates they cover can also be silly low mine covers £55/hr but the I don’t know of any garage with labour rates that low these days. Hence why I am having to pay half of the labour and half of the investigation fees.

At the end of the day, I am lucky I had warranty with my car, as I would have had to, sell the car as spares or repairs and been hugely out of pocket roughly 12k. If I have to pay out of my own pockets to repair it, would be talking 6-8k. Covering the fees, listed above I will still be out of pocket (couple of k) but I will have my car.

I know people who think warranties are a waste of money, but It has saved my wallet. In the future, I will purchase one again, but only if the car is over a certain value etc. Even with all the stress it has caused me etc and funny thing is I am still waiting for my car to completed, should have it back in Feb.

Just make sure who ever you choose covers all the vital components and have sensible labour rates.
 
Only ever claimed on the VW one we had through them on the golf.
Was 4 years old when we got It and they paid out:
EGR valve
Water pump
Two front springs
One rear spring


Think you know the score from the above with aftermarket ones. Oh I suppose the RAC paid out for two callipers on the Mustang after 3 weeks of ownership (clearly the dealer not wanting to pay)
 
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