Extending warranty on V8 Vantage

[993Targa]

Hello everybody,

I recently purchased a 2006 V8 Vantage which had the balance on AM's Premium Extended warranty which expires towards the end of May when the car will be 4years old.

Rick has kindly given the car a once over (thanks Rick )and apart from a couple of defective items it was pronounced to all be okay. The items needing repaired will be carried out under the AM warranty.

I know there has been a fair amount of debate on here about the value of AM's extended warranties and what is and is not covered, however what I haven't been able to establish from my searching

1. Is the premium extended warranty equivalent to the AM 3year manufacturers warranty?
2. If not, what are the T&C's, exclusions of the Premium warranty, does anyone have a copy?
3. Have most folk that have the extended Premium warranty found they have had to negotiate with the dealer to get repairs done because the interpretation of what is and what is not covered is a bit grey.

In other words the relationship you have with the dealer counts for a lot. If that is the case then it won't be great for me as I intended to get the car serviced & repaired by Rick.

Thanks

John

[V8VKK]

I have a PDF of the policy, if you want to pm me I will email it to you

[nw28840]

OP,

When you say Rick has given the car the once over ?
Who is Rick ? did you have him check the car before you bought it ?
I would probably go ahead and do the deal with having the car checked over if it still has an AM
warranty on it - my thoughts being that as long as the paperwork is in order and i am happy with the car - any issues would then be covered under the warranty - or am i missing something ?

I'm possibly thinking of looking at a 55 plate Vantage V8 and it has AM warranty until July - so am very interested in the conclusions gathered by this thread.

One other thing - if you don't mind, would you be prepared to share with me the deal you got on your car ?

Here is the advert to the car i have been admiring :

http://pistonheads.com/sales/1253378.htm

Cheers,
Nick

[993Targa]

nw28840 said:

OP,

When you say Rick has given the car the once over ?
Who is Rick ? did you have him check the car before you bought it ?
I would probably go ahead and do the deal with having the car checked over if it still has an AM
warranty on it - my thoughts being that as long as the paperwork is in order and i am happy with the car - any issues would then be covered under the warranty - or am i missing something ?

I'm possibly thinking of looking at a 55 plate Vantage V8 and it has AM warranty until July - so am very interested in the conclusions gathered by this thread.

One other thing - if you don't mind, would you be prepared to share with me the deal you got on your car ?

Here is the advert to the car i have been admiring :

http://pistonheads.com/sales/1253378.htm

Cheers,
Nick

Rick is the owner of Derby Motor Services and highly regarded on this forum for his service on Aston's. My dealings so far have been very good and i will not hesitate to use Rick for servicing my V8.

Rick regularly posts on this forum and can offer excellent advice.

John

[bogie]

theres been quite a few threads on the extended warranty in recent months ....basically, it just like an insurance policy - you pay £1400 ish every year and maybe nothing goes wrong ....or you dont have it, and you get stung for a few grand one year

Using a dealer to troubleshoot an electrical fault, you could easily run up £1500 a year in labour alone, which is kinda the issues reported so far; "niggles" rather than engine failures (fingers crossed!)

the oldest cars now (like mine) are over 4 years old and getting some decent miles on them - 44K here, but Ive seen some with 50 and 60K miles. So theres a bit of info out there on potential issues.

Personally im into my 2nd year unwarrantied, and fingers crossed, Ive had a thermostat issue, and a coolant sensor...

Your luck may vary

[Neil1300R]

1. Is the premium extended warranty equivalent to the AM 3year manufacturers warranty?
2. If not, what are the T&C's, exclusions of the Premium warranty, does anyone have a copy?
3. Have most folk that have the extended Premium warranty found they have had to negotiate with the dealer to get repairs done because the interpretation of what is and what is not covered is a bit grey.

In other words the relationship you have with the dealer counts for a lot. If that is the case then it won't be great for me as I intended to get the car serviced & repaired by Rick.

1. No! doesn't cover in car electronics e.g sat nav, stereo etc. Doesn't cover most of the interior e.g. trim / seats
2. I see someone has said they will send it to you
3. Yes! But can be used at any dealership.

I've found that you can phone up the Warranty company and argue the case yourself. The Warranty is based on everything is covered bar exclusions

[993Targa]

Thanks for the replies so far. V8VKK has sent me the document with T&C's, thanks!

Based on the information and feedback from other owners I have gleaned from this forum I am leanng towards not bothering with paying for the extended warranty as the general consensus is that the cars are robust and reliable with a few niggles which from what I can gather have either been sorted or don't exist on my 15k miler.

Cheers

John

[Montezooma]

Closely related, so I won't create a new topic, hope you don't mind me asking in yours!

I'm still toying with the idea of paying for an extended warranty on the V8V I am buying, but was just informed that AM have recently changed their policy, and that they now "...require the car to have been owned by the individual requiring the cover for 90 days and require a copy of the registration document as proof."

This strikes me as a little odd, anyone else heard of something similar? Last time I spoke to a dealer they didn't mention this...

[Montezooma]

In case anyone is interested - I did some more investigation and yes, this is one of the conditions of the extended warranty. Exact terms in the Key Facts doc are: "Proof of ownership for a minimum period may be requested as a condition of acceptance or registration" which the warranty person at AM informed me meant I would need to have owned the car for 90 days before they could do the inspection / sell me the warranty.

I'm coming round to the thinking that I'll do without the warranty and keep my fingers (very!) crossed that nothing goes wrong!

[993Targa]

Thanks for the clarification Montezooma, my 90day ownership period is up 4days after the current warranty expires.
I've also been told that even though the car will be going into the dealer for warranty work next week and was serviced by the same dealer in January and has only driven about 600miles since the service in January they will still need to carry out an inspection at a cost of £288 before issuing a fresh warranty at £1100.

Reckon i'll keep the ~£1400 in the bank as well.

John

[Zod]

I've just extended for two years. It's having some warranty work done at the moment, including suspension bushes, oxygen sensor, door handle, dashboard rattle. The warranty pays for itself when you need that kind of thing. Then again, my M5 is in extended warranty too, but they wouldn't cover replacement rear brake discs last month.

[Murph7355]

Zod said:

I've just extended for two years. It's having some warranty work done at the moment, including suspension bushes, oxygen sensor, door handle, dashboard rattle. The warranty pays for itself when you need that kind of thing. Then again, my M5 is in extended warranty too, but they wouldn't cover replacement rear brake discs last month.

Does it though.

I wonder how much those items would cost an indie to fix...500 quid? How much was 2yrs' warranty...2,000 quid?

How many miles has your car done?

[bogie]

surely brake discs are consumable items, like clutches, tyres, cam chains etc and are not covered anyway ...no surprise you couldnt get new discs under warranty, you cant on a new car

at the end of the day its just an insurance scheme...you are betting on your car needing £1400 of warranty work per year ....or not

[whoami]

Zod said:

Then again, my M5 is in extended warranty too, but they wouldn't cover replacement rear brake discs last month.

What was wrong with them?

[DSLiverpool]

I had a major oil leak and a roof failure all covered on extended warranty no quibble, I hate to think of the cost otherwise it was in for days for the oil leak

Im swapping in a few months and depending on how good a year we have had will depend on the Aston (Signet or DBS Volante) hence Im not sure about renewing the warranty which expires in June.

If Im selling privately then its a major incentive but I will probably px however if I px I will get less money - hmmm