Perhaps one of the best feelings in the world is buying a new car. Walking into a dealership, test driving a lot of cars, finally settling on what is perfect just for you. After you find the car you want, you do a little bartering with the dealership, and the car is yours. However, recently there has been an extra step added to the process of car buying. That extra step is none other than the extended warranty.
For those unfamiliar with an extended warranty, it is basically a contract between you and the dealership. The contract usually states that a specific area of the car is going to be covered for a certain time amount after the factory warranty expires. Of course, the dealership also wants a substantial amount of money to enter into that contract, which can sometimes be in the hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
So, the question that drivers have to ask themselves is whether or not that thousand dollars is ever going to pay off. Keep in mind that your car is already covered for a factory warranty for most of its problems for a decent period of time. The factory warranty on your car, remember, is a full bumper to bumper warranty in most cases, which means that the dealer must fix whatever goes wrong at no cost to you. While extended warranties may seem like a similar package, the truth is that they are in fact very different.
It is incredibly important to read the fine print before you even consider purchasing the extended warranty on a vehicle. Most extended warranties only offer limited coverage on the drive train, and it more than likely that even on those parts which are covered, you will still have to pay a portion of the cost to fix it. All in all, this boils down to the consumer paying a lot of money and getting only a limited amount of security in exchange. If you do want to consider the extended warranty, make sure to read everything and ask questions, you want to find out which aspects of the car are covered, if there are any restrictions on how the damage occurred that must be fixed, what percentage of the cost that the buyer will have to pay, and the time period of the extended warranty itself. It is not unheard of for an “extended” warranty to not actually be all that extended, and the time period under which damages are covered to be incredibly limited. For that reason, it is incredibly important that you find out all the information you can before you even consider purchasing the extended warranty.
One more factor that should cause hesitation to buyers is simple common sense. When you buy something, anything, brand new, the odds are that it will not break for a long time to come. Of course, we have all heard the nightmare stories of new cars breaking down the second they come off the lot, or just inexplicably failing to start one day. However, you generally only hear those horror stories, and not about the millions of new cars that run perfectly fine for a long time to come. The chances are, believe it or not, that a brand new car will not give you a lot of problems. In fact, the factory warranty which comes with your car should cover everything that could go wrong for a decent amount of time. If you have not had a single problem by the time that the factory warranty expires, than you are very unlikely to have any problems with the vehicle the rest of the time you own it. Of course, if you are experiencing a lot of problems in a very short amount of time, it may be a much better bet to try and return the car yourself rather than purchase additional warranties to keep fixing something which is broken.
You have to remember that dealers are not trying to save you money. Car dealerships are generally only out for their own profit, and the extended warranties are little more than additional attempts to make some money off of you.
There are tried and true secrets to keeping a car running, and they have nothing to do with expensive pieces of paper. To keep a brand new car running smoothly, one must only make sure that routine maintenance is done, such as oil changes, tune ups, brake service, and everything of the like. The bottom line is that if you take care of your car, especially a new car, you should have no problems about keeping it running smoothly for a long time to come.
While warranties may often seem like an incredible deal, buyers should approach the situation with some reason and common sense. Remember that anything which sounds too good to be true likely is, and that you are saving yourself more money by not purchasing the extended warranty than by purchasing it. Just be careful in reading all the contracts, use some common sense, and think reasonably, you will realize that you are perfectly capable of keeping a car in great running condition without a thousand dollar piece of paper following you around.
