12-04-2006, 08:00 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 6,305
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Why You Don't Need an Extended Warranty
"This holiday season, shoppers are expected to spend a whopping $1.6 billion on extended warranties for laptops, flat-screen TVs, other electronics, and appliances. And almost all of it will be money down the drain. Retailers are pushing hard to get you to buy extended warranties, or service plans, because they're cash cows. Stores keep 50 percent or more of what they charge for warranties. That's more than they can make selling actual products."
Ekkie Tepsupornchai over at Pocket PC Thoughts has done a great post about an issue I love to talk about. Extended warranties. Usually the only time I get these things is for laptops and monitors. Over the years and 4 laptops later I have never used them. To be fair though, I never have had a laptop for more than 2 years. I used to have a 21" CRT that failed after 6 months. I had a contract, walked right into Fry's and they gave me a brand new one, no questions or hassles. How do you feel about extended warranties? I would never consider one for a Smartphone.
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12-04-2006, 08:38 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 716
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I just use my Amex Blue which extends the Manufacturers warranty for another year so most things are covered for 2 yrs. Most major credit card companies do this.
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iPhone
Tmo Dash
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12-04-2006, 09:09 PM
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Oracle
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 853
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If you buy a lot of electronics, but never (EVER) get the warranty, you are, in essence, insuring yourself. That is, take the money you would have spent on all of the warranties, and it's probably more than enough to pay for all of the products that have ever failed on you.
Considering that most extended warranties do not cover damage (i.e., they only cover defects), it's the best way to go.
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12-06-2006, 09:50 AM
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Mystic
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,632
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I only buy them when they explicitly say that the cover accidental damage, like dropping them. I make the salesperson show me where it is written in the contract. If they cant show me, then I dont get it.
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12-12-2006, 06:13 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 170
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Depends on the Product
Typically, I do not purchase extended warranties. However, as there are exceptions to every rule, there are a couple of areas that I do break this rule. And just recently I have expanded the envelope.
Over the ears I have read many articles about this same subject, with all coming to a similar conclusion. So I was an early "adopter" of not purchasing the extra warranty. The one area I made an exception was with my laptop. As I travel frequently, I wanted to make sure that if I was away on an extended trip and something happened, I had a safety net. So, for each of my three laptops I have purchased the "deluxe extended warrany".
Just recently though, I had a new experience. As I also do a fair amount of driving, I decided it was time to upgrade the sound system in my truck. I purchased a new head unit, an amplifier, a sub and four door speakers. The head unit had a "touch screen" display and I must admit that when I was cashing out I did consider an extended warranty because of this display. Unfortunately, I didn't buy it and about 3 months later I decided to add the satellte radio option to my head unit.
After installing the satellite radio module eveything worked fine for about a week. Then one day the satellite radio stopped working. Because it was only a week old, the store replaced the module with a brand new one. It also worked fine for a week. Then the radio tuner started to go wonky, with the radio frequency and station name disappearing from the display.
At this point, because the head unit was about 3 months old they would not replace it with a new one but told me they would have to take it out and send it away for service. Well, after careful thought and some forum reading, I decided I wanted something different.
So this time I purchased a head unit with a 7" pop-up display. AND, I purchased an extended warranty. Good job too. After just one week (seems to be the magic number), the radio tuner started messing up. This time it was not in the display but after about 30 minutes of listening (and more important) when the unit got warmed up it would lose the stereo signal and just play in mono. But this process took about 15-20 minutes, during which time the volume kept going up and down, depending if it was in stereo or mono.
I am scheduled to have a new head unit installed later this week and I will let you know how I make out.
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