To warranty or not to warranty

[Rodney Naghar]

it's a nice little earner for somebody.

Thats for sure![:-]

 

[joe19]

ORIGINAL: GreigM
my own bitter experience with the porsche warranty has forced me away:

I'm speechless. That does not fill me with confidence. I have just taken out extended warranty on a 2005 Boxster and I found Greig's experiences horrifying.

Joe

 

[channella]

It seems we always forget the Euopean breakdown cover part of the warranty. I don't know how much that would cost without the warranty part of the policy, but perhaps allow £250-£300? The "warranty" is then £600ish. Is that enough for some extra peace of mind?

 

[GreigM]

for equivalent breakdown cover your looking at £100-150, which still makes the warranty portion around £800

 

[Mikomotor]

......decided not to renew mine when it came up in March. Paid £725 year before and thought an increase to £895 was taking the proverbial. I had thought that Porsche's reply to my query re. increase would be to do with age of car, but that wasn't mentioned - more to do with price not having increased for a couple of years so 'catch up' time. Well, don't know about you guys, but if I suggested to my clients that my charges were going up 23% without the courtesy of some form of explanation in writing, I probably wouldn't have quite so many customers - and so Porsche lost my custom. Yes, I'm now carrying a certain amount of risk, but a combination of my low mileage and avoiding being treated this way by Porsche were the winning factors.

Mike.

 

[gdavison]

I watch these debates come up some many times..... its no differenet to a life insurance or death inservice or "long term illness" ... or to be honest .. the pension .... its simple risk V reward ...

evey one of us has a different set of rules .... no one can make the decision for you ... its in your lap .. take it or leave it .. gamble or not .. take a third party one or not ...

but at the end of the day .... live with your own decission ...

 

[insatiable]

I purchased my 03 privately with ext warr. It had 14k.kms., at 27k.kms it had a total engine failure due to an intermediate shaft bearing failure.I can,t praise the warranty service highly enough, freighted the car to and from Sydney (400kms.each way), provided a rental car for the 3 weeks ,did a full service, replaced a wheel bearing, replaced the engine with a new 04 which has 2 years warr.Didn't cost a bean!! I have now done 7k.kms on the new engine and it is loosening up beautifully, goes like a dream!! So guess who renewed his ext. warr. a few months back?
Cheers,
Glenn

 

[GreigM]

Glenn - just to clarify that (certainly here in the UK) any parts replaced under warranty do NOT come with the standard 2 years warranty - I had an engine replaced with 1 months warranty to go and was told in no uncertain terms that if that new engine expired in anything over the next month then it would not be covered by warranty. If you didn't pay directly for the part then the 2 year part guarantee does not apply.

 

[GreigM]

ORIGINAL: gdavison
I watch these debates come up some many times..... its no differenet to a life insurance or death inservice or "long term illness" ... or to be honest .. the pension .... its simple risk V reward ...

I completely agree with this - at the end of the day its premium insurance. I just want to make sure that people are fully aware of what they are buying and that it may not be quite as extensive cover or simple to claim as seems to be the general concensus.

 

[Mark Elder]

ORIGINAL: THX911

ORIGINAL: JCB..

Peace of mind - You should have that already by buying a Porsche.

I understand where you are coming from but I'm afraid if Porsche don't have the confidence to give a 5 years warranty because it is a Porsche then I don't either... Things may have been different in the past but now it is just another business with profits and investors as the top priorities...

But that's the point - £895 for the warranty is a nice little earner for them. They have done the statistics and realize they can make money out of selling peace of mind. Insurance is never worth it IF you can afford to take the big bang hit IF it happens. (Watch this space for mine going bang when I next start it... although it's now too old to get the warranty anyway).

We ought to keep a log of everyone on here who buys a warranty minus the amount they manage to claim (plus the amount they lose on investigative labour). After a year or two we should have a statistically valid answer to the 895 question.

 

[JCB..]

Someone worked out three or four years back that you could probably do it for a very small per head outlay given how many of us there are and how few major faults occur.

 

[Paul Fraser]

We should form an mutual insurance fund to cover the things that people really want protection for: engine and gearbox I suspect...

 

[Mark Elder]

ORIGINAL: Paul Fraser

We should form an mutual insurance fund to cover the things that people really want protection for: engine and gearbox I suspect...

I agree (surely someone must have discussed this before).

I'm making wild guesses with numbers here, but it seems to stack up:

Everyone pays (say) £100 per year.
You have to be in scheme for (say) 12 months before you can claim (to avoid "inspections" etc)
If an engine blows the scheme pays for an Autofarm (or similar) rebuild and fitting.

As an Autofarm rebuild costs around £4k we just have to do better than require 1 rebuild for every 40 members per year! - even Porsche engines are better than that!

Might need a few extra rules - like how we keep the scheme solvent if a few disasters come along together etc.
It would be designed for major items only - it's not for the 997 owner who wants to be able to kick up a fuss when the interior light goes.

(needs a few more careful calculations...)

Is this not what a club is for?

 

[JCB..]

It is in my book!

 

[insatiable]

Greg,--- I fortunately have the 2 year warranty on the replacement new engine in writing. I was even cheeky enough to request a prorata rebate on the cost of the extended warr. in view of the fact that the engine was already covered. The answer? You guessed it, "engine problems are a miniscule component of their total claims!" so NO.
Cheers, Glenn