Extended warranty - do I or don't I?
- Thread starter smiffy555
- Start date
Yes Jeff, I did sign up. I missed him at Cornbury as I had to leave by 11.30am and he had'nt turned up by that point, but I did speak to him on the following Monday. Alasdair has tailored a Porsche Owners club package after listening to peoples wants and desires. Basically, I got 2yrs warranty with 'wear and tear' iitems covered (Porsche warranty will not cover wear and tear) for £505 per year. This price can only be acheived if one takes out a 2 yr deal (basically , pay for 18mths and you get 2 yrs cover). If I only wanted 1 yr cover then the price was circa £745. The equivalent Porsche warranty without wear and tear is, as we all know, circa £1080 with the 111 point check. Obviously the proof of the pudding will be when I have to make a claim, which I will keep you all posted of the positive and negatives when that time comes.
Following the visit to CG it brought up the subject of modified Porsches not being acceptable for Porsche's own warranty and Chris at CG did have some Bilstein spring over shocks which are very tempting until thinking of the warranty! One of the guys who came with us has a Boxster Spyder and had also tuned a Gen1 Cayman to 350bhp, really there is such a temptation to tweak our cars that it is hard not to say blow the warranty until, that is, we think of the cost of engine repairs at the OPC. I have 18 months of warranty still left from the last renewal but would like to go for the Bilsteins and an LSD but would UVW cover the engine? Is it a warranty you can tailor to your needs? If so I'll be enquiring.
Kevan, it does make you wonder if many people take out the extended Porsche warranty primarily for fear of the cost of engine-related repairs. It will be interesting to see if there is a change in attitude if improved Gen2 engine reliabilty becomes an established fact. Jeff
Yes - i beleive you can tailor the warranty to suit individual budgets, but I'm not sure if it covers high levels of modification. I had a 111 point check performed on my car before the current warranty expired in case anything needed doing, as I didn't want to carry any inherent issue accross to the UVW warranty. And much to my amusement they picked up on the fact that I didn't have Porsche wiper blades fitted!!! I nearly fell over when they mentioned this to me. They are Bosch blades, the correct length and the passengers side is curved as required. The other issue which made me really angry was they said that 480hrs ago my car had entered in to rev range 3, twice, this then led them on to telling me that in order for me to obtain a warranty from Porsche I had to have a compression check done and an oil analysis check carried out at £400 which I would have to pay for. The head technician told me that it would be OK and Porsche would, he was 99% sure, issue a warranty. Beggers beleif ey - what a scam! I then worked out using my average speed that this rev range 3 had occured some 19,000 miles ago when the car had done 13,000 miles. The car had a new engine fitted by Porsche at 17,000 miles!!!! Ha-haa, can you beleive the stupidness of it all? So, a 2 fingered salute to Porsche warranty. Makes you wonder doesn't it?
Jeff, I do think that is the main reason for people taking the warranty although it raises the question of how much does a 2nd hand engine or a non-franchised full rebuild cost? Probably a lot less than an OPC replacement at C £13K. Hartech's bottom rebuild with upgrades was about £5K a year or so ago. Chris, I haven't worked for the last two years due to other obligations and so not got the finance also what is the chance of finding a Gen2 with the options I'm used to having, not much as most people seem to have spec'd their cars far more basically then whoever bought mine originally, I could check if the original owner has bought another since. But that would reduce my savings and until I'm working I don't want to be reducing the reserves. Also mine has over 50K miles on it and if I'm working it could gain 20K a year so I may as well just run them up on this one. Job seeking now as a contractor in Aerospace so things could change, hopefully very soon! Dan, did you point out that it had happened on the old engine? They had no excuse as it should have been wiped from the memory.[
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]Can I put the fear of engine failure to one side for a moment until the end of my question (I too think it's the most compelling fear to encourage oneself to spend on warranty, but i'm trying to get a feel for the necessity for warranty for the rest of the car). For other failures, does the warranty prove to be cost effective? Taking an arbitrary example, if warranty costs £800 per year, am I expecting £800 of component failures on average per year? Say, if I run an extended warranty for 3 years, am I expecting close to £2400 worth of issues in that time? As I say, I know insurance is NOT about getting all of your money back. Without a warranty, if in say, 3 years I had a single failure that cost £1500, yes it would hurt, but i'd take that on the chin. Or, if something went wrong to the value of £400 each year for the 3 years, i'd take that on the chin too. As I say, it's an arbitrary example so i'm not so concerned about re-working the hypothesis on a cheaper insurance premium from an alternative warranty provider. In people's experience, are they saying that £800 a year is proving to be cost effective on these cars i.e. are they really that bad, or it is that the odd 'few-hundred' pound claim every other year softens the blow of stumping up the £800 a year really only for fear of the engine going?
It's the "component" failure plus the labour that's the worry! On my car, for example, it takes about four hours to get to the plugs! The warranty on the turbo is £1020 and I had more than that in warranty claims last year on relatively minor (and totally quibble free) issues - air con condensers/window regulator etc. I don't think the cars are "that bad" at all and indeed better than most but, in my view, it's an insurance policy I would rather have and not use. After all I have been fortunate enough to be burglar free and my house hasn't fallen down to date but heaven knows how much I have spent on home/buildings insurance over the years! However, as ever, it depends on how much of a gambling man you are.[]
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There is also the fact that the loan car is not a problem and of course the across Europe cover but in over 5 years with my Gen1 Cayman S I have had a chrono pack take out the column switches amongst other things, £500 in parts plus labour and getting the item shipped quickly from Stuttgart. A leaking gasket replaced and fuel filler but very little else, yes my cover has cost far more than what was paid out. But if the engine or something else serious goes it is mostly covered. Electronic faults can prove expensive in parts but a lot of the work is gaining access as with everything. Like most I don't think the cars are "that bad" but insurance is piece of mind like joining the RAC or AA, we never want to be stuck at the side of the road. Having the Porsche warranty does prevent me from fitting an LSD unfortunately. An item I think should have been std as it was on the same year of Carrera. It didn't stop me fitting a short shifter since I bought the OEM item but for the Cayman there was no LSD which makes me wonder if the Carrera LSD would fit and be acceptable to the warranty, it's and OEM part but for a different model[8|] One fact as tscaptian says is the labour cost of things to be done the fuel filler problem I had is a difficult job if it doesn't go right and they don't know how it will be until they get into it sometimes an hour sometimes a b*****d of a job! So the technician told me.
If memory serves me correctly Kevan, the 997 transmission is of Aisin (Japanese) manufacture whereas Getrag make the 987 transmission, so I doubt that there would be any compatibility. I specced the LSD for my Gen2 987, so if the Gen1 and Gen2 gearboxes are identical, or near-identical, it may be possible to have the locking diff fitted to your transmission. It might be worth asking the question of your PC or an Indy with specialist transmission knowledge. It's possible that a PSM software upgrade might be needed though. Jeff
Thanks Kevan I've got some time yet to decide but the engine still feels like the deciding factor for me. The DFI engines have not been known to let go and since 2008 some must have decent mileage on them now (not that mileage was a factor in the gen 1 engine problems). I guess the components that go, engine or otherwise are due to faulty batches in what is otherwise a well designed component that doesn't cause a problem in the majority that are shipped. My car will be approaching 20000 miles by the time the warranty expires at 3 years old. I've had a few things addressed under warranty. I'd like to think that by 3 years that was a good shake down and that a lot of weak/faulty components will have exposed themselves in that time. I could be wrong of course. tscaptain. Your car is nearly new. I'd like to think the reliability would improve once the gremlins have been shaken out, if that makes sense. Of course the reliability will then fall again as wear and tear sets in in later years. Trouble is, we just don't know and i'm just talking from what I want to tell myself. I guess i'm thinking that warranty is something i'd be more likely to consider when the car is older i.e. skip a few years and get warranty when the car is say, 6 years old. No logic around that argument either, just a thought. It's not just about saving money, it just doesn't sit well with me having to be so concerned about a 3 year old car. I never have before but to be fair, the points you make are very valid and sports cars cannot be compared with 'ordinary' cars. Granted, sports cars are more complex, and as you say, it's the higher labour costs to access parts in the beautifully compact design - the engineering is astounding. Remember the video of the 991 being dismantled. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnfp6eoI14Y I'll be watching these warranty threads closely over the coming months until I have to make my decision in December. Thanks
A bit of an update on this with regards to UVW. I've always wondered if they'd pay out in full or find excuses etc not to pay. So, my gear selector cables unfortunately snapped on me on the 30th Dec in the morning. RAC called out and they flat backed the car to Porsche Solihull, and the car was back with me on the morning of the 31st! Great service and all paid for under the warranty with a total bill of £493. All positive so far.
Good news about the warranty paying out, thanks for sharing. Just as a matter of interest, how much was the warranty in the first place & did you have to get the car inspected? My 987 Boxster is under OPC extended warranty until the end if the year but seeing as it's a 2005 car I can't extend the warranty. Considering the options at the moment, even though it is 12 months away!!
Obviously good to hear of an insurance company doing what is expected. I took a look at their policy document and as always there is a list of exceptions including any vehicle modified from manufacturers specification. As tscaptain points out, insurance is a view of risk and consequences and an attractive feature in the WMS product is the ability to customise the cover and claims limits.
As stated at the top of this page (4) it cost me £505 a year. In order to get this figure I had to take out 2 yrs worth of cover. It includes wear and tear and also OPC dealer labour rates. You can get this figure lower by removing wear and tear cover and by using non OPC dealerships, but I wanted an equivalent if not better cover than the one offered by Porsche
Thanks Smiffy. That seems fairly reasonable, especially covering wear & tear plus OPC dealer labour rates. Was there any inspection cost?
As I'd just had a 111point check done, as I wanted to make sure the car was good before it came out of Porsche warranty, they said that a further inspection wasn't necessary. But form memory I think you take it to one of their nominated garages and they check it over at no cost......I think. Better to read the UVW blurb on that one.
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