We are in the midst of buying a new Subaru Forrester. At the end of negotiations we are offered several add=ins…extended warranty, pre-paid regular maint., interior & exterior protection. My wife & I disagree about which, if any are worth the price and which are an effort to negate the negotiations. Feedback encouraged
Skip them all. Extended warranties are nothing more than over-priced insurance policies. With pre-paid regular maintenance, the dealer is making money on the interest you could be earning. Interior protection can be had by going to WalMart and buying a spray can of Scotch-guard. While you are at WalMart, spend $5.00 on some auto wax, use a little elbow grease and you ahve the exterior protection.
Couldn’t agree more. Just skip them all except for the winter mats. They’re high profit items and they’ll push quite a bit and make you feel foolish and guilty for not doing them but hold out. Um, you have to have a united front though. If one person is caving in, they’ll use that to get to the other. (I used to sell insurance many moons ago, and having one of the two undecided was very useful in changing the mind of the other.)
Last minute add ons are nothing but at attempt to sell you something overpriced that you would never considering at any other time. It is an intentional sales trick.+1 to all of the above comments.
All too often, folks spend an incredible amount of time and energy negotiating the price of their car down by a few dollars, only to spend many hundreds–and perhaps, thousands–of dollars for these unnecessary, overpriced (and in some cases–ridiculous) add-ons.
One dealer stated that “I make most of my profit at closing.” His profit = your loss, avoid everything they push at closing.
I have a friend that has been very successful in challenging these insurance additions by merely questioning if their product was in need of such insurance additions, why should he be purchasing it in the first place and that perhaps he should be looking at the competition. He usually won the debate with the seller saying they were not necessary.
Make mine another vote to self-insure. Take the amount that the extended warranty plan would have cost and put it in a new account. Call the account (my warranty account" Then, if something goes wrong that would have been covered by the extended warranty, it’ll be “covered” by you “warranty account”, and if nothing goes wrong you can use it to take a vacation!
The odds are almost zero of having something go wrong
(1) after the manufacturer’s warranty expires
(2) that would be covered by the warranty and
(3) would exceed the warrntee’s cost.
For you to benefit all three of these conditions would have to be satisfied.
Because I was purchasing an expensive Turbo-model, I decided to go ahead with the extended warranty. It promised a full refund if I didn’t need to use it. I didn’t need to use it, but the insurer (which the dealer claimed was backed by Subaru itself) went bankrupt. The dealer (to give credit where credit is due) did find a way to get me the promised refund, although it took a lot of hassle and 3 months.
So, let me add to the agreement here–skip all add ons!
I have a friend that has been very successful in challenging these insurance additions
Your friend and I would get along well. I do this all the time, no matter what the product is. It used to be really fun to do this to Circuit City employees - they got commission for selling useless extended warranties, and also for the item itself. It was amusing to see the panic in their eyes when I said “well if it’s that breakable maybe I should think about buying a different brand from another store.”
I would skip them entirely. When I bought my Ranger a couple years ago they tried to sell me all the extras and I told them no. They countered with something to the effect of “well why don’t you want them” and I simply told them I didn’t want to pay for it. That was the end of the discussion.
take the money they wanted to charge you and go on a nice vacation or cruise
If you must buy an extended warranty, it MUST be an official Subaru extended warranty; the rest are worthless. Also, you have time to make this decision. It doesn’t have to be when you buy the car, only before the base warranty expires, but be aware as time passses, the list price will go up.
Last of all, you can buy the warranty from any Subaru dealer in the USA, which increases your barganing power. Typically, the dealer who sells you the car wants to charge list price, which is at least double what he pays Subaru for it.
3 words: no, no, no
Alternate view. The last car I bought I got an extra 5 years, and 50k miles for $700. No insurance policy you buy do you intend to make money on but have the peace of mind you will not get any financial surprises. As I only put 10k per year on it made sense to me. The money worked into the loan was minimal increase in monthly payment, but knowing I would have no car repair bills outside of routine maintenance while having a car payment let me sleep better at night. Granted I did have a $400 repair under warranty and yes they made money off of me, but I would take that bet again. You have to look at what is offered and see if it makes sense to you. As far as prepaid Maintenance, break down the numbers, as far as interior and exterior protection It would not be on my list, but see what it covers and if you want to take the bet.