Do warranty companies overplay unreliability reports online?

[LimaDelta]

Are modern cars, particularly the more expensive stuff, as ruinous as people online make out or are warranty companies using some form of guerrilla marketing to sell their product? Are they 'gaming' reliability surveys to their benefit? Why is it always the premium brands which score the worst?

Would you consider a 3-4yo car without a warranty a liability, or are people just overly cautions these days? How many people never make a claim on an aftermarket warranty? After all, if it didn't make them money they wouldn't offer them in the first place. Is it all just playing on unfounded fears? Or is a few hundred pounds for peace of mind a good investment?

[captain_cynic]

I've always been of the mind that 3rd party warranties are not worth the paper they're printed on... And most won't even print the policy out any more.

It's a little bit of both IMHO. Yes they want to use scare tactics to get you to buy a policy of dubious worth (with loads of clauses to deny claims) but OTOH 3rd party warranty companies will attract the worst car owners, those who abuse and neglect their cars until something breaks and then ignore that for as long as possible.

When your statistics are derived from the worst car owners, you don't need to exaggerate much.

[Wills2]

I think there is something in that, always the squeaky wheels filling out the surveys, many people do abuse their cars (often without realising it like those that idle a cold engine to warm it up thinking they are doing the right thing) then many spend nothing on them and of course the fear of something happening does drive a warranty sale.