Extended Manufactures Warranty, whose taken one up?

[pepperpolo]

Hi,

My 3 year polo warrantly is about to expire in October and I wasn't going to bother with an extended warranty but VW have sent me a letter and I decided to investigate it further.

- The VW letter says it is an extension of the new car manufacturers warranty. In calling VW they say it is underwritten by allianz but it is the same as the factory warranty. It is the only warranty supported by VW.

Now the funny part, the letter says 2 years for the price of 1.... this price is $1870 which doesn't seem to be cheap enoguh to call it 2 years for 1...

Anyone else take it up recently? Does the price seem reasonable? in reading previous posts the price being called 2 for 1 sounds like B/S....

I've read the extended warranty threads in other car sections... but thought I would see if anyone has done it for a polo?

[gvas]

I didn't even get a letter and my Polo warranty expires this month (September).

When I made an enquiry during my 3 year service, I was quoted $2050 for 2 years. No mention about any 2 for the price of one offers.

I would have accepted it for about $1200, since I paid about $1700 to extend the warranty on my Volvo XC90.

[Bassik]

I heard that Allianz have up'd their prices so calling it 2 for 1 would probably be right but if you want just a standard year it could be close to $2k anyways.

I know I got quote $1680 for 3 yrs with my Golf but then after the price increase it went to $2400. Having said that it's all dependent to when your warranty is due to expire. If you purchase a month before the date you'll pay a higher premium if you buy a year or 2 in front the premium will be less.

[pepperpolo]

Thanks. rang around. Same warranty (ie same PDS in all options) and best quote 1495.

Stuff it, took it up against my original thoughts of never taking it up... media hyperbowl into the reliability issues ground me down.

[Hail22]

^

I'll be getting the new Renault Clio RS...in about 8 months time as my Warranty expires this week, however the driveline warranty (gearbox, mecha, clutches etc) are still covered for another 2 years.

When I purchase the Renault I'll be pushing for either a reduced extended warranty or free 3 year servicing (if i get 3 years free...I can then gear the saved money for the extended warranty).

at the end of the day...the most you want to pay for a warranty extension of 2 years is around $1200 max.

[Ryan_R]

I got 2 years unlimited KMs for my MY10 MK6 Golf for $1890, so far have probably got a few hundred $$$ back from various niggles (one year in).

[gerhard]

All wise men take out insurance.

Shop around for the Allianz one and get the best price. There is a high retail markup on the product, similar to the paint protection and tinting sold by dealers as add-ons. Not too hard to get 33% off retail quote.

You never see the whinging posts like "my car is one month out of warranty and xxxxx failed, VW should pay, cry, moan, blah blah" from people with the Allianz extended new car warranty.

Peace of mind

[Guest001]

My Polo with an Allianz warranty through a broker was approx $1450

[Transporter]

I've paid $1200 for extra 3 years when was buying Tiguan in 2010.

[gavs]

Extended Manufactures Warranty, whose taken one up?

All wise men take out insurance.

Shop around for the Allianz one and get the best price. There is a high retail markup on the product, similar to the paint protection and tinting sold by dealers as add-ons. Not too hard to get 33% off retail quote.

You never see the whinging posts like "my car is one month out of warranty and xxxxx failed, VW should pay, cry, moan, blah blah" from people with the Allianz extended new car warranty.

Peace of mind

No you don't, but as a consumer there are laws protecting you as a buyer so if something like a gearbox or engine fails, then VW should replace it out of goodwill within what is deemed as reasonable service life. What is reasonable service life? Well, you expect a $20 Chinese copy of something to fail pretty quickly but you don't expect a $15,000 gearbox to fail after 38 months for example. Realistically, a reasonable service life for something like an engine and gearbox should be realistically covered up until 300,000kms, minimum considering there is an 'unlimited kilometer warranty' on the cars.

I'd say that if something that is major enough to fail on the car that would offset the price of the warranty, then you should have ample grounds to challenge under the Australian Consumer Law for repairs to be carried out, BUT ONLY IF TOU BOUGHT THE CAR AFTER January 1st 2011.

[gerhard]

If you bought the car after 1st Jan 2011, you couldn't possibly be whining about a component failing outside warranty yet. Edit: I guess you could, on a distance basis...

I recently had my mechatronics replaced, with VW coughing up "goodwill warranty" but I was asked to pay half the labour cost. I felt that was an OK outcome, and since the car was due for a DSG service anyway I was well in front in $ terms. The vehicle was just under 5 years old, with 45,000ks travelled.

Then I discussed the situation with Allianz, and after some clarifications and discussions between VW and Allianz as to what the VW warranty policy actually is (as influenced by the bad press), Allianz re-imbursed me for the labour cost I had paid. It seems VW made an unconditional 5 year drivetrain warranty statement on their website when what they really meant was "case by case review and goodwill wty for 3-5yo vehicles".

I hadn't actually considered the 2011 ACL and how it will affect the Allianz Extended warranties. Among lots of other things, a brief scan of the ACL reveals that it does expressly state that it's an offense to charge money for protection that is already available to the consumer under the ACL.

As I own 2 vehicles that fall into this scenario, I will have to study and research this carefully early next year, before the first of them hits 3 years old in Feb 2014. I have no doubt that the Allianz PDS will be right on top of the issue.

I agree that it should be pretty easy to quantify what is a reasonable service life - maybe we need a quango to specify what that is for every product available to the consumer, but the idea of that is a pretty big ask, and I can't see it happening.

As we are still seeing warranties expressed as years or kilometres or any combination, car manufacturers will probably still deny warranty on a 4 year old vehicle with 60ks that burns pistons or blows a gearbox.

The consumer will then be obliged to fight (expensively) for a legal remedy, in the absence of a clear definition of "reasonable service life".

Perhaps that is where the extended warranties will provide a benefit for cars sold after 1/1/2011 - insuring against legal action costs rather than parts and labour?

[knightza]

Got 2 years VW (allianz) extended warranty for $1000 for my Polo GTi. But I had to bargain a bit.

[POW]

Nice price.would you mine sharing where you got it from?

[wai]

All wise men take out insurance.

Shop around for the Allianz one and get the best price. There is a high retail markup on the product, similar to the paint protection and tinting sold by dealers as add-ons. Not too hard to get 33% off retail quote.

You never see the whinging posts like "my car is one month out of warranty and xxxxx failed, VW should pay, cry, moan, blah blah" from people with the Allianz extended new car warranty.

Peace of mind

Not really. Insurance is taken out because people are fearful and not wise. Insurance companies do not get rich writing policies where the risk is high, and then meet claims. They make their money by writing policies where the risk is low and they are never really going to have to meet a claim. Their primary and only responsibility is to shareholders. All your premium does is pay a dividend to shareholders.

Insurance is the biggest scam around. It is a bit like playing the pokies or gambling at a casino. Sure, there will be a few winners, but the House makes 5%, so on average players will always lose.

To show you how insurance has invaded every part of our life, you can insure almost everything. You can insure against getting a terminal disease, or funeral expenses (where the premiums end up being many times more than any payout), or now even for pets (take a look at the exclusions). The business model for insurance of all kinds is to write policies, but then have conditions or exclusions that mean they will never have to pay out. Sure there will be someone (or their heirs and successors) who might benefit, but for the rest, they will never ever lodge a claim, or have a claim met.

Here's a clue. If you are provided a PDS to take out a "warranty extension", then it is NOT a warranty extension but an completely separate insurance policy. After all, if it is an "extension", you will already have the conditions of the warranty.

How many people have actually had a claim met under a warranty extension insurance policy that would not have been covered by standard consumer protection law?

If you want "peace of mind", then by all means take it out. The chances are that when you actually want to claim on that peace of mind, you are unlikely to get anything. If on the off chance you do have a claim met, chances are you would have been protected under standard consumer law anyway.

[Transporter]

Insurance is the biggest scam around. It is a bit like playing the pokies or gambling at a casino. Sure, there will be a few winners, but the House makes 5%, so on average players will always lose.

I couldn't agree more.

Still, ...if you're sensible, polite and don't have unrealistic expectations, you get some benefit when you're unlucky and something fails after your 3years new car warranty expires. But, I strongly believe that it's still the car manufacturer's good will (or worry from a bad reputation, if you want to speculate) that they fix your car when it's a bit older, just because someone think that it is not unrealistic that the engine should last more than 200,000km (like someone here mentioned) and the consumer protection law should kick in and you get what you want.

Don't forget the manufacturers have lawyers too.