Squaretrade warranty, worth it for large home appliance?

[alia176]

What say you, worth it? Pros/cons? Horror stories? Good stories?

 

[rusty_tlc]

I'm not familiar with that particular one. We have had extended warranties on appliances in the past which worked out okay.

Our new strategy is to buy cheaper stuff and replace it when something major goes wrong. I can usually fix the simpler stuff myself, the cheaper products also tend to have fewer "features" which translates to "more crap to go wrong". We still buy major brands, we just get the basic models.

If you combine the upfront purchase savings and the extended warranty savings replacing stuff every few years makes sense.

 

[warezdog]

never do it unless its a HUGE ticket item with a short warranty. Best Buy makes more money on selling extended warranties than they do products!

 

[e9999]

I just watched a video by a service Tech yesterday, who was lambasting (home) warranty policies as a scam and the bane of ethical service techs. His basic point: they will always choose the absolute cheapest solution to fix a problem even if it makes no sense, and for example even when a few more bucks could have gotten you a new unit and you offer to pay the difference, but no, cheap fix and you still have the old one to deal with. Admittedly though, he was talking more about home-sale appliance warranty policies, but the main point is still likely valid. Prepare for the cheapest fix.

 

[tclark]

These guys are shot in you straight; extended warranties on most anything are a step above a scam.

 

[alia176]

I agree, I've never bought an extended warranty but mom is insisting on buying one, hence the question. Thanks for the inputs.

 

[e9999]

if you need heavier ammo than MUD (is it?), Consumer Reports is very much against them

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Good reviews on Costco for Square Trade for laptop warranties. Some bad ones too of course.

The mark up on them is nuts. Friend worked part time for Best Buy several years ago, we had him get us a new camcorder with his employee discount, saved us about 30% off retail. He also got the the 4 year full replacement warranty which normally was about $120 for something like $14 at the employee price. And he hinted that I really should dunk the camcorder in a sink full of water 3 years and 11 months later, said customers did it all the time. Nice ethics.

 

[rusty_tlc]

I just watched a video by a service Tech yesterday, who was lambasting (home) warranty policies as a scam and the bane of ethical service techs. His basic point: they will always choose the absolute cheapest solution to fix a problem even if it makes no sense, and for example even when a few more bucks could have gotten you a new unit and you offer to pay the difference, but no, cheap fix and you still have the old one to deal with. Admittedly though, he was talking more about home-sale appliance warranty policies, but the main point is still likely valid. Prepare for the cheapest fix.

Not strictly true, GE basically rebuilt my washer rather than replace it. When they were done all that was original was the sheet metal, and the effing thing still didn't work right. Finally we went back to Home Depot and the store manager made it right, gave us a 100% credit to a new washer/dryer set.

 

[alia176]

Well mom bought whatever warranty the appliance store offered Her money!

I did have a good experience with the Costco concierge service when my LED TV went tits up with a BANG. I actually saw spark come out of the side. Instead of replacing the whole TV, they simply replaced the three component boards and we're back in bidness. Now that I know that there are only three component boards in a flat screen, think I can pretty much do the same thing to any flat screen TV