Helpful consumer hints...extended warranties are a waste of money

I bought a nice mower at Beers several years ago. Bought the three-year extended warrany. Couple weeks after it expired, mower needed fixing. Pissed me off to no end.

 

No kidding. Pilot's story resonates with me. I worked in automotive rental for 2.5 years, including my first year out of school. When I moved to the counter, I had to offer insurance protection options. They were helpful if your insurance company didn't cover you while in a rental ... understandable and was glad it helped some customers. I didn't oversell - I despise sales - so I simply told the customers to make sure their insurance carrier or credit card (AMEX platinum) would cover them and left it at that. But it's an obvious cash cow, as evidenced by the regional counter sales rep, the revenue manager and all that crap. Basically, they're grossly overpaid cheerleaders who are supposed to teach the minions every sales trick in the book.

My stepfather worked RadioShack (Tandy) for eight years. He and I share similar philosophies ... neither of us will get wealthy in sales because we won't oversell anything. They made him sell service plans and would gladly discipline those who didn't drink the Service Plan Kool-Aid.

I was offered the same thing with an HDTV I just purchased two weeks ago. No ... it's a CRT, therefore much more likely to remain dependable than a rear-projection unit whose bulb fades after 2-3 years.

 

The only one that's worthwhile IMHO is an extended warranty from the ORIGINAL auto manufacturer. 7 yrs, etc. At least you get some piece of mind for that period of time rather than worrying about your electronic ignition system frying.

 

My response to those selling those worthless things is: "Well geez, if you think it's going to break that soon, maybe I just shouldn't buy it!" If Pilot's Asian dude has a comeback for that one, he'd be the first.

It's right about bigscreens though. Just pay the money, for as long a contract as they'll sell you.

 

Join the crowd, BYH.

Last spring, while I'm in an Irish pub drinking after a golf tournament, my wife calls all frantic. She's typing out a test for her college class and she can't get the computer to work. I make my usual suggestions, all of which she's tried and none of which worked.

My alcohol-clouded remote diagnosis... fried hard drive.

She calls the Geek Squad (a racket if there ever was one), who come out later that week and confirm it. $500 or so dollars later, we've got a new Seagate drive, but she's lost all of her college stuff, not to mention hundreds of other files we didn't back up. Naturally, this was 3 1/2 years after buying the computer.

Three months later, I'm in Michigan with my company's remote Dell. Turn it off after doing some work to take a shower. As I'm in the shower, I remember something I needed to do. Computer doesn't come back on, save for some esoteric error message I've never seen. Call our IT guy back in SoCal, who tells me the piece of shit crashed.

Had to go out that night to the Wal Mart SuperCenter and buy another computer -- a Toshiba.

Won't touch another Dell. Absolute worthless shit.

 

My son's Ipod has broken three times in two years. Best Buy has fixed it three times for free. I'm told if it breaks a fourth time, we get a new pone.

 

If I can't get a Mac after the warranty on this hunk of shit blessedly expires (and I shouldn't complain about THIS one, but this computer is like the guy who does his job well but is always yelled at because he succeeded a dumb, lazy bastard and all his co-workesr can do is remember what a dumb, lazy bastard his predecessor was) I'm going to go to Best Buy or WalMart or Target and find the cheapest laptop PC I can find. If I'm going to pound the shit out of it, and it's going to crap out on me, I may as well not pay anything for it. And if it dies, it dies.

 

Outing alert! BYH is ...

 

The AppleCare is worth it.

As is a manufacturer's extended warranty on a vehicle. My first car in high school was my mom's '94 Buick Skylark and what a piece of shit it was. Alternator, rewired dash (three times), brake problems (those are really, really fucking fun to find out), steering wheel that fell off, anything controlled with buttons like windows or door locks and, of course, the transmission.

Fuck Buick.

 

I am a heck of a mechanic, pulling a check out of my tool box.

 

Please tell me the steering wheel didn't come off while you were driving.