are warranties provided by used car dealers any good?
Discussion
most used car dealers (trade) provide some form of warranties which are handled by third party companies.
anyone has any experience how these work? and are they actually any good? can you rely on them?
how they compare to main dealer new car warranties or warranties you get with other items you buy in general?
anyone has any experience how these work? and are they actually any good? can you rely on them?
how they compare to main dealer new car warranties or warranties you get with other items you buy in general?
All warranties are basically insurance. You pay a (small?) sum (often included in purchase price at car dealers) to protect you from having to pay a large sum if something goes wrong.
But that cost to you is based on averages, and the warranty company need to make a profit, so you can be certain the average cost of repairs is lower than the fee... so it's already a poor deal for you.
The exception here is when you could not afford to cover the potential loss (at max - scrap the car for zero return) - in which case, choose very, very carefully.
That's before you look properly at the paperwork and realise that the limits for payouts are laughably low (eg max £350 towards an ECU that will be £1000+), and that upon reading the long lists of covered items, most of that list is actually excluded items!
And that's before they wriggle like an eel out of ever paying anything ever.
Their main reason for existing appears to be to allow car dealers to attempt to off-load their statutory requirements to repair things, and to provide something that looks like value-added to the punter.
They may also snare some trusting-but-nervous private individuals as a bonus.
Don't touch with someone else's barge pole.
But that cost to you is based on averages, and the warranty company need to make a profit, so you can be certain the average cost of repairs is lower than the fee... so it's already a poor deal for you.
The exception here is when you could not afford to cover the potential loss (at max - scrap the car for zero return) - in which case, choose very, very carefully.
That's before you look properly at the paperwork and realise that the limits for payouts are laughably low (eg max £350 towards an ECU that will be £1000+), and that upon reading the long lists of covered items, most of that list is actually excluded items!
And that's before they wriggle like an eel out of ever paying anything ever.
Their main reason for existing appears to be to allow car dealers to attempt to off-load their statutory requirements to repair things, and to provide something that looks like value-added to the punter.
They may also snare some trusting-but-nervous private individuals as a bonus.
Don't touch with someone else's barge pole.
Dbz2021 said:
most used car dealers (trade) provide some form of warranties which are handled by third party companies.
anyone has any experience how these work? and are they actually any good? can you rely on them?
how they compare to main dealer new car warranties or warranties you get with other items you buy in general?
The warranty company exists to outsource the dealer's legal responsibilities towards problems that arise with their cars after purchase.anyone has any experience how these work? and are they actually any good? can you rely on them?
how they compare to main dealer new car warranties or warranties you get with other items you buy in general?
The law is quite generous to customers; any fault you experience in the first six months, the law assumes was present when the car was sold unless the dealer can prove otherwise. And if they fail to fix it first time, it's a refund.
Who wants to deal with that hassle? Warranty companies have banks of trained staff, ready and waiting to explain to the customer how their snapped cambelt is 'wear and tear', or to offer to pay the ten pence for the failed washer that's wrecked the gearbox, while declining to fund the several grand rebuild cost since that's 'consequential damage' to the gears after all the oil fell out. Far easier for them to have the argument with the customer, leaving you to get on and sell more dodgy cars.
And even better, you can present this dodging of your legal responsibilities as a positive benefit you're giving the customer out of the kindness of your heart!
So yeah, bottom line I'd say, know your legal rights and don't place much weight on a 'free warranty'.
On the flip side - I believe the approved used warranties from manufacturers appear to be quite good.
Lexus offer 12months on all approved used, which can be extended upto 100k miles and 10yrs old by having the vehicle serviced with them for example
I have however never used the above, just seen from browsing for an rx450
Lexus offer 12months on all approved used, which can be extended upto 100k miles and 10yrs old by having the vehicle serviced with them for example
I have however never used the above, just seen from browsing for an rx450
Jakey123 said:
On the flip side - I believe the approved used warranties from manufacturers appear to be quite good.
Lexus offer 12months on all approved used, which can be extended upto 100k miles and 10yrs old by having the vehicle serviced with them for example
I have however never used the above, just seen from browsing for an rx450
Yep, approved used type warranty or don’t bother.Lexus offer 12months on all approved used, which can be extended upto 100k miles and 10yrs old by having the vehicle serviced with them for example
I have however never used the above, just seen from browsing for an rx450
I had one pay out the majority of a chunky DSG rebuild after a Mechatronic unit failure on an Audi A3. The only cost I had to pay was the difference between what the AA warranty were prepared to allow for labour costs and what Audi main dealers charge. So a return to a fully functioning DSG box only cost a few hundred instead of a few thousand.
Pilotguy said:
I had one pay out the majority of a chunky DSG rebuild after a Mechatronic unit failure on an Audi A3. The only cost I had to pay was the difference between what the AA warranty were prepared to allow for labour costs and what Audi main dealers charge. So a return to a fully functioning DSG box only cost a few hundred instead of a few thousand.
I’m interested to know more about what happened as I’m looking for an automatic Audi A3 (2007-2010) myself.did you buy from main dealer? how old was the car? when did the DSG problem start?
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