They don’t even make much on used cars. My wife is in banking and dealt with a handful over the years with commercial lending. It’s crazy the small used dealers survive. The larger dealers with both new and used do better but the margins are thin.
Consumer Freedom and Scout Motors in South Carolina
- Thread starter codythacker
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I just looked at the OTD worksheet 'contract' they sent me. It explicitly stated the "protective coating" and "Theft Protection" were optional and pointed that out. They said, that they were already installed. I refused them and eventually they dropped them and an additional $900 off when I said 'no thanks'....
Gotta keep them honest. Even if it takes a nudge. Good for you.
We reject all of the extended warranties, gap insurance, the $20 extended warranty on a TV, etc., etc., etc. We’ve been putting all of the money we don’t spend on those nonsense products into investments. I added it up recently and rejecting all of those scams and investing the money instead is what paid for our last two vehicles plus some.
I will say that the gap insurance is possibly worthwhile if you trade your cars in before the payments are done with and end up in an accident where you do indeed have the gap, as is the tire insurance. I got it on the last two cars. It wasn't that much, as I recall. I didn't end up needing it, but I'm glad I had it after my first car got t-boned by a chemical truck.
We busted a few tires on our Prius (the stock tires are utter shit to start with) and they covered replacements for five years and I think they covered replacements of our choosing (I'm partial to Michelins because that lovable rascal Bibendum sure can sell a tire, but YMMV) but not all of those deals are that good. I don't know if that just happened to exist at my dealership or what. I also talked the guy down on the price. It was still probably a ripoff in some way or another, but I didn't have to buy tires. It paid for itself. I do agree that generally speaking, that stuff is crapola garbage nonsense. Extended warranties are a joke.
You just never know. That lifetime warrant on the Jeep has saved me many times. A friend of mine got T-boned in her X5 after she had had it 3 months and without gap she would be still paying on a totaled car.
And I bought a warranty for a fridge a while ago that ended up having a known issue with the ice maker. They replaced it a bunch of times and then we’re going to replace the door and later that night I got an email from Lowe’s with a gift card for the full price of the fridge! So I got a new fridge for the cost of the warranty.
You just never know when they will help, but I do agree a lot of them are a waste of money.
Most are. But, if you can ever find an extended warranty that is backed by the manufacturer and extends the base or basic warranty with the same coverage it’s worth looking at if you plan to keep whatever product longer than the base warranty period. It also depends on what type of product it is.
My Jeep warranty is MOPAR through the manufacturer. I really think that’s why I have gotten so much covered.
Yes that lifetime warranty is GREAT. These days some manufacturers offer lifetime powertrain warranties. Not the complete vehicle though.
I do recall that my parents had an extended warranty on their Saturn that involved prepaid maintenance and such that was pretty decent, so that is true. I was thinking of cellphone extended warranties and small appliance extended warranty kinds of third-party trash bag warranties, like what @SpaceEVDriver mentioned. Will agree that manufacturer's warranties that have less Lionel-Hutz-lawyerish-sounding-language are usually pretty okay.
Any extended warranty that requires extra payment is, on the whole, better for the house than for the player.
The house always wins is a cliche for a reason.
Do players sometimes win? Sure. Otherwise the house wouldn’t be able to keep players coming back nor would it be able to attract new players. But those wins are rare and are rarely worth the cost of playing.
We began “self-insuring/self-warrantying” when we were poor students and I would just fix whatever it is that broke. After more than 30 years, the money we didn’t spend on those scams has added up. The interest/returns on that money has added up even faster.
Remember, an extended warranty doesn’t mean the car won’t break. It just means you pay ahead of time in case it does break. Put that payment in an account that earns something and you’ll be better off.
The extended warranty market is a $72B industry. Vehicles lead the market share with 30%.
Example:
In about 30 years, we’ve driven about 750,000 miles and only had to replace tires due to warranty-covered (but not purchased) damage twice; the rest of the times the damage would not have been covered by the warranties. Assuming we had to replace tires every 50,000 miles due to wear, that’s 15 sets of tires (60 tires). If we’d been buying extra warranties at $20 per tire (for our truck tires, it’s closer to $70/tire, but I’ll use the cheaper certs), we’d have paid $1200 extra for tires. To save the cost of two tires at less than $200 each. But after 30 years of $40/year investment ($1200 of investment) at 6%, we’d have $3400 in the investment account. This is a conservative estimate; the annualized return for the past 30 years is closer to 10.3%. Using the 10.3% annualized return, the investments would be worth $7300.
Run that for every kind of extra-cost warranty, insurance, replacement, pre-paid maintenance, etc. You very quickly end up spending way more than you expect if you buy warranties. If you’re trying to avoid spending money, don’t waste it on purchasing extra coverage.
If those warranties give you peace of mind, that’s different, and perhaps they’re worth the peace of mind.
The house always wins is a cliche for a reason.
Do players sometimes win? Sure. Otherwise the house wouldn’t be able to keep players coming back nor would it be able to attract new players. But those wins are rare and are rarely worth the cost of playing.
We began “self-insuring/self-warrantying” when we were poor students and I would just fix whatever it is that broke. After more than 30 years, the money we didn’t spend on those scams has added up. The interest/returns on that money has added up even faster.
Remember, an extended warranty doesn’t mean the car won’t break. It just means you pay ahead of time in case it does break. Put that payment in an account that earns something and you’ll be better off.
The extended warranty market is a $72B industry. Vehicles lead the market share with 30%.
Example:
In about 30 years, we’ve driven about 750,000 miles and only had to replace tires due to warranty-covered (but not purchased) damage twice; the rest of the times the damage would not have been covered by the warranties. Assuming we had to replace tires every 50,000 miles due to wear, that’s 15 sets of tires (60 tires). If we’d been buying extra warranties at $20 per tire (for our truck tires, it’s closer to $70/tire, but I’ll use the cheaper certs), we’d have paid $1200 extra for tires. To save the cost of two tires at less than $200 each. But after 30 years of $40/year investment ($1200 of investment) at 6%, we’d have $3400 in the investment account. This is a conservative estimate; the annualized return for the past 30 years is closer to 10.3%. Using the 10.3% annualized return, the investments would be worth $7300.
Run that for every kind of extra-cost warranty, insurance, replacement, pre-paid maintenance, etc. You very quickly end up spending way more than you expect if you buy warranties. If you’re trying to avoid spending money, don’t waste it on purchasing extra coverage.
If those warranties give you peace of mind, that’s different, and perhaps they’re worth the peace of mind.
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Had that same issue and had the warranty as well. Being in that industry I know all the hazards and when to protect myself with a warranty. Ours was an ice maker issue too and it’s been fixed once and replaced once
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