About the worst thing that can happen is a major automotive failure when you’re on the road with your family, loaded with a week’s worth of luggage, on your way to a vacation. The other thing a good car warranty provides is additional services when you’re out of town. If you’re within the strict mileage and year of manufacture caps on some of these service plans, they offer a much better product, with repairs that are going to last longer than those using aftermarket parts. In general, we’d choose a warranty provider using factory trained technicians and OEM parts before we chose anything else. The complaints about “bad” car warranty companies come in two categories: The first is “They won’t stop calling me.” The second is “I thought my timing belt was covered but it wasn’t.” Frankly, if you didn’t know what was covered in the warranty, you should never have signed the contract. At this point, we’ve read about 93,397 complaints about car warranty companies in our research on this topic. The idea is, should something fail on your car, the policy will then kick in and the cost of the repair will be covered, if that certain repair is covered in your contract.Ī good car warranty is one that clearly explains what it’s going to cover and not cover long before you need to use it. These policies consist of a monthly fee that is designed to give you peace of mind for the future health of your car. That’s why reading the contract and understanding the advantages and disadvantages is so critical.Įxtended car warranties are coverage policies that help cover the cost of repairs on your vehicle, after your factory warranty has expired. The plan that allows you to use your gas station guy might force him to select the cheapest replacement parts available, which you’ll be replacing again in a much shorter period of time. The plan that makes you use a dealership might seem like it’s at a disadvantage, but consider this: Those plans also require the repair to be performed by factory authorized technicians, using only OEM replacement parts. Some plans will let you use any ASE-certified mechanic for a repair, so you can use the guy you like who happens to work out of a gas station in your town. Say your transmission falls out at 92,000 miles: Some of these plans are only affiliated with franchised new car dealerships, so you’ll have to have it towed to a dealer. How these plans differ is the rules under which they’ll pay for a repair. Figure you’ll trade this car in at no more than 80,000 miles? You can find a service plan that will cover the gap between there and the end of your original warranty. Thinking of keeping your car to 120,000 miles? There are service plans out there that will cover you. Prepaid service plans will vary all over the place in terms of both time and mileage. With all that out of the way, what is a prepaid service plan? It’s a service contract, where you pay a monthly fee to avoid having to pay a huge bill if something really bad happens to your car when your original new car warranty runs out of time or mileage. It’s not an “extended warranty,” no matter what these companies, or people like us who have to live by the vagaries of Google search optimization would like to call it. Everything else - Literally everything else - is a prepaid service plan. The only car warranty that exists is the warranty your car came with when it was new. Official Ratings: We consulted a wide range of verified review sites to extrapolate a ratings score for each.Įverybody - including us now - is using “car warranty” incorrectly.
Car Talk reviewed the following important criteria for each company:Ĭonsumer Satisfaction: Cross referencing multiple trusted resources to pull our fair and balanced customer reviews.Ĭost: Utilizing our secret shopper initiative, we got comparable quotes across all companies so we can validly compare pricing.Ĭoverage and Offerings: Our research team delved into the coverage and offerings for each company, comparing what is available, including extras and discounts. We compiled over 700 data points across all reviewed companies to refine and inform our selection process. Our process for deciding on the best warranty companies is exceptionally thorough, involving in-depth research and our unique secret shopper initiative. Our Methodology For Best Warranty ProvidersĬar Talk has spent the last two years diving deeply into the warranties industry for the benefit of our readership and long-time listeners.
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