Used car extended warranties, dont waste your money.

I recently was scammed by a local car dealer on a used car warranty.  the finance guy promised that if I did not use it I would get my money back, yadda....yadda..  I did have to use it, only after I knew it was about to expire.   I had 3000 miles before it would expire so on a nagging feeling I went to the dealership and started asking very VERY pointed questions.  and suddenly I discovered that I was in fact lied to, although they will not admit it was a lie but a "erroneous educational event" and I was able to use the warranty to get some small items fixed that I was going to fix on my own.

It seems the "promise" of giving back the cost of the warranty if you don't use it is ONLY if you don't use the warranty AND trade in the car to them on a new car before it runs out.  This is not spelled out on ANY paper, and after searching my paper packet when I bought the car, the one that i was shown that DID say I got the money back was missing.  Yes I was stupid and did not look through all the papers in the envelope that the finance guy handed me.  I was stupid and trusted him.

So I was out the $1900 for the bumper to bumper warranty that I had 3000 miles left on.  I ran over to the service department and talked to their manager, who rolled his eyes until I said, "you can keep the car for a week,  find absolutely anything wrong and fix it."

A week later, they replaced all the motor mounts to the tune of $800. he said only 1 was needed to be replaced, and I knew this, but he reported that all of them were bad so he could get them all replaced.   He then shared with me that this is a known problem that the maker is keeping quiet, but would have been replaced for free if the car was brought in 20,000 miles ago with the problem.

I lost $1100.00 on that warranty.  I would have been far better off keeping that cash in the savings account.   In fact, after doing some research..   a transmission failure would cost me $1100,  and a whole engine replacement is $2100.00

In reality, any warranty you have to buy is worthless.  the cash you spend on it will cover 90% of any repairs that may be needed. My Honda is still running great, and now with non defective motor mounts, I am sure I'll go 250,000 miles without any major problems.

When you buy a new car or used car,  do NOT buy that extended warranty.   It's a waste of money no matter how you look at it.   Yes there is the 1 in 1,000,000 guy that it has saved money.  But that is gambling with an awfully expensive lottery ticket.

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