QOTD: Do You Buy Extended Warranties?

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Usually not, the only extended warranty I bought was for my Vaio laptop 5 years ago which sustained heavy use 😛

Hopefully there is a notion from EU legislators to affect a minimum 2 year warranty in electronic in all EU countries that still needs to be accepted by all the participating countries.

Here is the link http://www.cedarrapids.org/_include...content&ext=pdf&name=European Union101501.pdf which describes the directive to US corporations.

Good idea for USA to implement it too.

Oh boy some times I am proud to be European 😛
 
It really depends on the cost of the warranty and what kind of warranty it is for me.

Simple replacement plans from staples I find have been great for me. 10 dollars to cover my 100 dollar portable hard drive for two years or 30 dollars for my 200 dollar printer is worth it to me. Plus most of the time the warranty company doesnt ask for the product back so two years from now I can accidentally drop that hard drive and either get a new one mailed to me or my 100 dollars back. Its a winning situation for me.

Other things are ridicilous though. For example I am not going to pay 40 dollars to cover my 150 dollar GPS. Thats just absurd.

I think it also depends on how Im going to use it. Buying a laptop for college Im going to get a 4 year accidental warranty, even if its 20 or 30 percent of the cost just because I know things are going to happen to it. Looking at a wireless router that will sit in one spot forever its not worth it, regardless of warranty cost.

Just my feelings
 
Not on computer parts, electronics, appliances. I think of them as disposable. I got one for my car, but then, I log over 30k miles/yr, often very far from home, and a regular term warranty would have expired before 2 yrs had passed. PS. got a good car, haven't had to use warranty.
 
i bought a laptop from bbuy with an extended warranty in '01. a year and a half later the screen failed for no apparent reason. i took it in expecting to get it fixed for free, but they said the warranty didn't cover the screen. the $250 i spent for the warranty went down the drain. i haven't bought a warranty, or anything from bestbuy since.
 
I never buy extended warranties because if the product is defective from manufacturing problems you will know more often than not long before the limited initial warranty expires. The only time I have ever needed to even use my initial warranty was a little over 7 years ago when I purchased an Apple iBook G3 FireWire SE. It had an issue with the logic board that would not allow it to wake up from sleep about a week into use on it.
 
Never, ever. Most items are obsolete or at least down to bargain basement replacement cost by the time the manufacturer warranty is expired. I used to keep my own 'insurance' fund. Every time I bought an item that had an extended warranty option, I would put 10% of the purchase price into savings. It worked well for a while, but eventually I had to dip into that pool of savings for something unrelated. Even so, the money that I have saved by not buying those plans easily would cover any repair or replacement.
 
Once. I bought an extended warranty on a Force FX Lightsaber, for fear of "battle damage".

In general, it's unwise to purchase an extended warranty on any product you can afford to easily replace, because statistically the company selling the warranty profits, not you. Home and car insurance make sense because most people can't afford to shell out for new ones should something happen. For just about anything else, it doesn't make financial sense.

It's rather like buying a very expensive lottery ticket with a relatively low payout. Yes, the odds of "winning" are much higher, but overall it's the guy you're paying who rakes in the money.
 
I didn't but now I am having to use my warranty on my headset and video card. It is making me start to think that extended warranties wouldn't be a bad idea.
 
I recently payed 10$ extra for a Seagate hard drive 4 year warranty at Microbytes (Montreal). The store will exchange it if it goes bad. Also bought warranties at Futureshop for MP3 players, and had future shop replace the players more than once, with no questions asked.
 
[citation][nom]LATTEH[/nom]i buy extended warrenty's if i know it breaks (xbox 360)[/citation]

😛
My warranty was over, and M$ still payed for both the 3400km shipping and repair on a RRoD, but I had to pay for the packing peanuts... WTF?

[citation][nom]MoUsE-WiZ[/nom]I void warranties, does that count?[/citation]

Ha. Same.
It's so easy to void warranties...


I don't buy warranty anymore.
First off, I had a great marketing class and was taught of the potential profit in the scam called "insurance".

Secondly, I bought a $450 monitor a handful of years back, and $50 for extended warranty... guess what, they didn't want to fix it... Waste of money. I still run the monitor, but it likes to have the issue of not working (but I got a second monitor for free, yay).

Extended warranty is a scam, and only in limited situations is it actually useful. Arguably TVs/Monitors is one though (but not ViewSonic, they refuse to fix my monitor)just because I hate dead pixels.

But no for vehicles. Unless you're automobiligically declined. :)
Mother got a Toyota Camry 11 years ago, and it runs like a champ. What's the secret? Don't slam the gas or brakes, and keep your fluids fresh, that's all.

Useless on HDDs too. My HDDs have a stated 3% annual failure rate, I can live with that.
Modern ones have a 1% estimated annual failure rate. Ignorable to me. (Get me ones with 0.1% plz, me wanna have a reliable raid 0.)
 
For laptops, yes. HP DV2000CTO has had 3 motherboard replacements and a new unit is shipping as we speak. $200 warranty made up for faulty Nvidia graphics chip(which BTW HP will still not admit to)
 
For laptops, yes. HP DV2000CTO has had 3 motherboard replacements and a new unit is shipping as we speak. $200 warranty made up for faulty Nvidia graphics chip(which BTW HP Cleopatras)
 
Never. Consumer Reports and all the various "how to save or spend money wisely" programs and literature will tell you never buy an extended warranty. Odds are, 95% of the time it is a waste of money. Sure, there are people that have gotten some use from one, but it's a gamble, and a pretty bad one at that, the odds are way agianst you ever needing it, or being able to use it. You had better read the fine print carefully before you start dishing out cash.
 
Almost by definition, a warranty will not be good for the consumer. The company would not offer the warranty if it didn't make them money. It's designed, and priced, to screw the customer.
 
Depends on the original price of the item, if it was over $1000, like a TV or pretty nice stereo.. maybe, if the price of the warranty isn't outrageous. Will more likely go for it if it includes accidental damage as well.

That said, I hardly ever buy an extended warranty for myself, for the kid's electronics or gifts, I tend to buy them so I don't have to deal with a hassle if it breaks.

Generally they're not worth the extra $$$ though.
 
I once bought a warranty from bbuy. The only reason I did was because they discounted the price of the laptop to get the warranty. I was glad I did because it had a no lemon policy so after the third time it broke I got a new one. Once it broke the first time, it never worked the same. The motherboard had fried on it so they put in a refurbished board. After using it a bit and noticing that it wasn't the same, I decided to put it through it's paces to break it again. I had to do this three times to get a new laptop. The first time took me about 2 months, the second time 1 month, and the last time a week. The problem was that I was without a computer for at least 6 months, but I did get a new one for all of my hard work.
 
No, it's never worth the money.
Although, if I was dumb enough to buy a VolksWagen I would want one. LOL!!!
They have an 80% chance of major failure in the first 5 yrs. -Consumer Reports
If you have one and you didn't know, sell it, it will just give you headaches if you don't have a nice extended warranty.
 
Yes, if I use an item constantly, and if the price is worth it. I bought a $20 replacement warranty at the "old" CompUSA on my first LCD monitor; 30 months into the three year term it stopped working. They replaced it, and for another $20 I reupped. Last month I called the "new" company, which honored the replacement and now have a third new monitor for the same investment. I live in the lightning capitol of the US, warranties are worth every penny. Office chairs from Office Depot for my home office, same thing, I'm on my 3rd chair in 6 years.
 
I used to more than 10 years ago. It was good on a Wok that I bought from the defunct Lechmere. Now, I think it is a waste of money. Most everything that I have bought since then has not failed. This is one area where I think Consumer Reports is dead on. They recommend not buying extended warranties.
 
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