UKC

Recent car purchase (8 year old low mileage Volvo V60) - and it's a bit confusing out there with respect to buying a 3rd party extended warranty - what's the difference between all these products, a lot of them appear to basically be brokers - ultimately, I suspect if I do buy it'll only be for a year

Apart from the "should I?", "don't, they're all cons" issues has anyone got any guidance or claims experience with these?

Are there any clauses/conditions I should look out for, etc, etc.

Generally not worth the paper they're written on, will just try to dodge out of every claim and say the issue is down to wear and tear so won't pay out.

I’ve had a V60 for eight years from new, now 82,000 miles. I’m very pleased with it, had no problems and don’t intend to change it any time soon. I wouldn’t consider extended warranty. I stuck with the main dealer for servicing beyond the 5 year std warranty but now using a good independent to reduce costs. 

Years ago when I was buying a car (in the days when car dealers were more relaxed and upselling wasn't a thing), the dealer said to me "do you want our warranty-it covers everything except things that go wrong".

Just about sums warranties up.

a car dealer friend of mine told me some time ago these are useless and the car dealer maked more in commission then the sale of the car!"!!

as an aside already huge stink about commissions made by car finance companies

https://www.thetimes.com/article/ec5e5b0a-6b65-43a9-8968-4659de06eda6

honestly car companieas disgust me ,glad i dont drive

Ive had multiple rants on UKC about this. I no longer see them as car companies but as finance companies that happen to “sell” cars.  Tried to buy a car for cash from the local Nissan dealer in Gateshead.  Turns out they’re not set up for cash sales and so not only did the salesman not get his cut of the finance, the dealership didn’t get their kickback from Nissan - the nearest same-brand dealership that could process a cash sale of a new car was in Chester, so they got it.

First words out of my mouth to the dealer were “I want to buy this car for a trade-in and cash” and he tried every angle for pushing credit.  

Another time I had to physically restrain myself from cutting in when a smart pratt in a suit was smarming a young couple in to a PCP contract.  

Car finance sucks money out of households.  It’s been depressing to watch the change over the last 15 years as we follow the Americans into the ever deepening suck-hole that is “life as a financed service”.

Rant rant rant 

In theory it makes sense these days to spread the risk of repairs as failures are getting less common but way more expensive so used car ownership is much more of a lottery.

In practice I wouldn’t trust an after market warranty firm as far as I could throw them.

 

Only exposure I have is via a friend who's clutch slave cylinder went. The third party warranty paid for the part and the work, but since the slave cylinder was in the bell housing, it's typical to do the clutch and dual mass flywheel at the same time, but they wouldn't fork out for this. Not too unreasonable I suppose.

As an insurance policy, which it effectively is, it doesn't make sense to me. You want to insure something where the likeliness of claim is low, but the consequence is high. Building insurance being a perfect example. Insurance payments are low due to low likeliness, and it protects you from a cost most can't afford.

But car warranty claim likeliness is really high, and consequence is fairly low (at least for an 8 year old Volvo). 

Would it not be better to just put that money into an account and use that when you run into a problem?

I looked up Volvo’s own extended warranty wording out of interest - https://www.volvocars.com/uk/l/used-cars/warranty-and-mot/ .

Interesting to see the wording “suffers a sudden mechanical or electrical failure” and “ Mechanical or electrical failure means the failure of a component, causing a sudden stoppage of its function, for a reason other than wear and tear, normal deterioration or negligence.”

Outwith proven known component premature failures, it seems easy to argue that most things in say an 8 yr old car can be put down to wear and tear, and normal deterioration.

That said I’ve heard, anecdotally, quite a few cases over the years where manufacturers pay a contribution to repairs where component failure was exceptional. Ok maybe not a full cover, but what are the chances of a sudden failure in well maintained cars? If a garage said that X needs to be looked at, then it it subsequently failed, I doubt it would be covered as it could be argued it comes into the negligence part? Same if you don’t service according to recommended schedule, etc.

I’ve never bought extended warranties as I never thought they were worth it with the wording.

Quite high I would say. There's very little maintenance you can do on a car. Oil and filters is all the preventative maintenance you can really do, that might protect things like engine bearing shells, cylinder walls, brake piston corrosion etc, but all the other thousands of components that just work until they don't are a ticking bomb. This is true whether the car is "well maintained" or not. 

Not sure about this one either. First, how would they know what the garage has said? And second, the chances are they are only going to point out wear items. Pads, bushes etc. These will all likely be considered wear items. I'm sure example exist, but I can't think what item would show signs of failure, that isn't a wear item.  Is an exhaust a wear item? Probably.

I guess it comes down to their wording, but I expect they will in effect only cover items which can't be maintained or monitored and therefore fail without warning.

When I got my last (used) car the salesman couldn't understand why I wanted to do part-exchange and cash when I could have finance. I explained that I'd end up paying the same over three years, but would not own the car at the end of it and he still didn't get it.

If it's from a dealer as it sounds to be, you have an statutory 6 month warranty. Extended warranties won't really do anything past that as they will claim wear and tear. Getting am extended warranty also means the dealer will try and pass the buck to them instead of taking responsibility leaving you in bureaucratic limbo with a broken down car. So basically give it a pass.

The kind of problems you will have with that car will definitely be excluded from any extended warranty as well. (Egr cooler, emap pipe and swirls flaps/manifold mainly, amongst other known issues with no solution other than keep changing the part when it gets clogged up)

Car dealer's blurb says 30 days guarantee. Is that just guff? Is the statutory 6 months "avoidable"?

Maybe it means that after 30 days they won't accept the car back but will repair.

Dealer was Fords of Winsford who have a pretty good reputation. Their USP is to make buying as easy as possible so not pushy sales (I believe sales staff are paid decent salary rather than commission).

They always try and 'hide' it, but the 6 months is by law. The small print will say 30 days, followed by 'this doesn't affect your statutory rights"

Maybe it's a 30 day return policy no questions asked as you say.

There definitely is a period before which you can reject the car and return it due to faults, and after which they only have to make it good (repairs), so that's where it could be going 

Edit: is explained in here https://www.theaa.com/car-buying/legal-rights#:~:text=Between%2030%20days%2....

Only ever bought 2 new (well.. one pre-reg and one new) vehicles, both were "cash" it was very hard work to get them to sell them to me.

Also very very hard work to get them to tell me a price other than £X per month, I politely said so many times "please do not tell me per month I don't want to know, only ever tell me the all-in on-the-road price" eventually after about the 5th time of patiently and politely reminding him I had to tell the guy "if you tell me a monthly price one more time... I'm going to walk and buy somewhere else, tell me the OTR price. I need a car I'm trying to buy a car, stop wasting my ****** time"

I imagine the experience will only be worse these days 🤬 not helped by the fact that the move is to subscription... oh you want windscreen wipers? that's a monthly subscription.

Nope: I'll only ever buy a car pre touchscreen and with ignition keys. No more new cars for me.

Edit: the problem is used cars are steadily going up in value to cost as much as they were new in some cases [/rant]

I'm not sure if this is true or not but I heard on a YT video recently that BMW used to have a subscription-based function for their heated seats. Apparently there was a major backlash that made them withdraw this 'offer'.

Similarly for Mercedes and an 'acceleration pack' subscription:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63743597

 Edit: I see in that very article that the BMW plan was indeed true.

If you're a decent credit risk, it's almost always - sometimes a LOT - cheaper to get an unsecured personal loan than take the dealer finance.  When they start going on about selling finance, I put that in front of them and say "beat that", the answer is always "no chance", then the trade in plus "cash" (debit card or BACS in reality) sale is processed.

This is my preferred way of doing it. Even with that last time the dealer still tried to encourage me to take 6 months 0% finance.

Very similar to my surreal experience.  First and only time I’ve brought from a dealer or new.  It makes a lot more sense if you think of the person you’re interacting with as a vendor of credit, not of cars…

There are cars with touchscreens that aren’t needed whilst driving.  I cover such in our Leaf with a cardboard cutout during night driving so it doesn’t piss me off with it multi-coloured glow (muted as it is at night).  Sadly can’t do the same about the chaotically coloured display module ridden dashboard.

Are you sure you can't just turn it off? 

After my car was found to have severe chassis corrosion, I've recently had to replace it. I bought from a car supermarket type place (AvailableCar in Sutton, as it was £1500 cheaper than down here!). They were very keen to sell me an extended warranty ("it starts at only £599"), special paint treatments, mats, boot protectors, just about anything you can think of bar an air freshener. I pointed out I wanted to buy a car with nothing extra, but the salesman said he'd have to read through his script anyway, otherwise he could lose his job! I then had to sign a form to say he'd read through his script and I'd ignored all of it. To be fair though, the only thing they didn't try to sell me was finance.

You may find it pretty hard to avoid soon. My 2006 Lexus has a touchscreen. So almost 20 years old. But I like the sentiment of buying older cars. Save an absolute fortune. 

Too new. Go older.

My new (to me) car has a touchscreen. It recently popped up a message warning me to not take my eyes off the road and look at the touchscreen whilst driving. I had to touch a button to clear the warning. If the message hadn't popped up, I wouldn't have needed to look at the touchscreen!

Ah you will essentially be right with that. In reality I don’t have any knowledge of the rate of real sudden failure of car parts. I know of some but not whether they were common or not.

I meant to say to the OP there is a gamble element both with having a warranty (will a claim be covered or not) and deciding not to and keeping money aside for emergency repairs. Shouldn’t be forgotten that in some extremes, an unexpected failure can cost a huge amount of money to sort.

Given its underwritten, I wouldn’t put it past any insurance company to check service history and ask garages if necessary before settling any claim. I had had in my mind say a squealing “fan” belt where a garage recommended replacement but an owner deciding not to. You will know from your knowledge what potential damage can be caused if a belt or tensioning pulley gives up at high revs. Debatable if a belt failure would ever be classed as being covered; as you say it is all in wording, etc.

About twenty years ago I bought a three year old Peugeot 305 diesel from a main dealer. They extended the warranty for a further year as part of the deal at no additional cost. It developed some minor problem and the week before the warranty expired I finally got round to booking it in to be sorted.

Literally one mile from the dealer something expensive broke and I limped in the rest of the way. They sorted it without quibble.

They had also taken my old Golf diesel in part exchange. They gave it to the fire brigade to practise rescue from a burning car.

On newer stuff yes. This is what I like about older stuff, unless it's something exotic, there should be enough second hand stuff around to replace anything at a reasonable price. Back alley mechanics are your friend here. I can get a whole engine for my Lexus form eBay for £400. 

I've no doubt they will check service history. Although, I do wonder if it's a non serviceable part that has failed whether you would win a legal battle. Wonder if that's been tested.

Are you possibly mixing your belts here. I can't see a failing fan belt to really do any meaningful damage. Might break an electrical cable if you are very unlucky. I've had them go before, they just seem to ping off and that's the end of it.

I'm guessing you mean a cam belt, which will more than likely make your engine chew itself up. Unfortunately there's no way to tell when they need changing other than service interval. So it comes down to, did you do your service items on time or not.

My 18 year old Lexus is now due a cambelt. I've decided to ignore it. I may have to eat my own hat but I expect it to last at least another 5 years. By then the car can go to scrap heaven.

Oops it’s been a long day already, sorry. I was indeed thinking of cam belts, but also I do recall in the old days some fan belts when they existed driving likes of water pumps and failure causing over heating problems when they broke.

Cam belts are a problem for not knowing if or when they will cause problems. Stick to schedule to minimise risk for most car owners. Accept though if in the end of the day folk like yourself who will scrap eventually just making an informed decision of risk vs cost.

Mechanics in general I would say - for too long it seems mainstream garages use technicians!! Unbelievable what proper trained and experienced mechanics can do to help.

One of my previous cars (a Vauxhall Corsa, maybe?) had a cam belt go unexpectedly. I expected a huge bill, but the garage said that engine was designed in such a way that if the cam belt went, the valves etc. popped up out of the way so they didn't get chewed up, so they just fitted a new belt and the car was good for another few years. Seems like a good design decision, not sure why it isn't standard really.

it doesn't sounds like he explained it properly. To my knowledge there is no such engine where the valves pop out of the way if a belt/chain goes. It would be extremely complicated to achieve, and would have to work very fast. Borderline impossible I suspect.

You do however get non-interference engines, where the valves and the piston never occupy the same space. My old MX5 was such an engine.

The issue is to improve efficiency, you generally need a high compression ratio. This means the piston has to travel a long way up the cylinder.

To get big power, you want the valve to open wide to let as much air in as possible.

So any engine with big power and high efficiency will usually be a interference engine. I don't know for sure, but I believe the efficiency requirement probably makes the biggest difference.

They can forge pockets into pistons which leaves a bit more room for valves, but this still reduces compression ratio.

I think cars, like everything else, are now well into the process of 'enshitification'. ICE car reliability probably peaked about 10 years ago, and newer engines consist of a big turbo (or two) on a tiny engine with a wet cambelt running in the sump oil. The rest of the engine bay (and everywhere else) is filled with convoluted tubes, charcoal filters, plastic flap valves and a plethora of sensors all ready to turn on the engine warning light if a molecule of dust enters the fuel cap breather, the EVAP tube pressure is 0.001millibars out of spec, the footwell ambient lighting is too dim or the wing mirror temperature sensor readings vary by 0.01 deg C.

Well put. How long before people catch on and stop buying this overpriced failure prone rubbish that isn't designed to be fixed? I used to be into cars but where we are now is massively disappointing. Bangernomics is starting to look quite appealing!

People aren't buying this rubbish. Everyone is PCPing them, so they need to last 36 months, so they're built to last 36 months.

It's a good point.