I have a 2004 525 BMW with 40,000 miles and plan to keep it for many years. BMW offers estended warranties for up 85,000 miles and 4 years for $2600. It covers bumper to bumper. I have had no problems to date.
Is an extended warrranty worth the $ ??
this is a tough one. With proper maintenance, you should have no major problems up to 100k, but just one problem can run you many thousands of $$. I’d say no.
Doesn’t the original warranty offer any remaining coverage, drive line, etc.
I’m assuming you bought the car new and have maintained it properly.
Most purchasers of extended warranties, which are merely insurance policies, never recover even a fraction of their premiums. The insurers find one reason after another to tell their policy holders they are not covered for a particular repair. A few purchasers get back some of their money. In general, stay away from extended warranties.
see this post: http://community.cartalk.com/posts/list/841816.page
also about BMW extended warranty. This one, and perhaps the one you are being offered is a maintenance “warranty” only, ie, pays for regular maintenance only. Read the fine print carefully.
Well any car can have major expensive repairs.
The profit to the salesman and company is usually over 50%. So for every $1,000 you spend the insurance company has less than $500 to pay for repairs or they will loose money, something insurance companies do not do. Some peop;le will get nothing back and some will get a lot more than they pay. Most will get far less. In addition you need to keep in mind that the insurer has worded it to eliminate as many expensive things as they can.
Remember that the seller is out to make money and they get to write the rules and set the price. They are not going to sell them at a loss so one way or another they are going to have you pay more than they will pay out.
Would you gamble with a car dealer who gets to set all the rules and knows all the odds?
Your decision has to do with the value of the piece of mind it gives you. If that is worth the $500 then buy it. Don't expect it to cover everything however, most are written to keep cost down and exempt what they know will cost them money.
Good Luck
A few people will recover the cost of the insurance policy but most won’t. The insurer makes money on the whole and the only way to do that is to collect more money than you expend. If you put the $2600 in a certificate of deposit that earns 5% annually, you could have almost $3200 after 4 years if there were no repairs needed. As long as you maintain the car per BMWs requirements and don’t thrash it, you should not have expensive repairs until well past 100,000 miles.
So you are paying $2600 for an other 45000 miles, or 5.78 cents/mile. This is about what Craig58 pays for all maintenance AND repair on his 20 year old Mercedes. You are really buying very expensive maintenance, and with this maintenace htere is very little chance of anything going wrong with your car.
I have a Toyota, and the dealer offered me the same thing, but at half the price you were quoted. I still turned it down.
For the same period, my Nissan incurred $2400 in maintenance and repair, tires ,etc. in total. Repairs due to falilure were negligible.