Stand-alone Extended Warranties anyone? (1 Viewer)

[Brandon:W]

Does anyone have any experience with Extended Warranties that they purchased separate from the product?

For example, I've been shopping round for a 40" LCD TV. Places on the web, and the brick and mortar stores, have 4 year extended warranties that range anywhere from about $350 to over $600! Talk about markup!

So I found a place online that offers (almost identical to some of the web stores) extended warranties that you can purchase and apply to a TV purchased somewhere else.

They offer a 4-year, in-home warranty for $240!

Sounds like a deal to me. But...is this legit? Does anyone have any experience with one of these "stand-alone" extended warranties?

Inquiring mind wants to know...

Thanks for the help,
Brandon


(I'll send you the web site if you want to know).

 

[Stephen Hopkins]

You just need to make sure it's a warranty company that will be around for the life of the warranty. Philips is big in the warranty (not just for their own products) and will surely be around for quite awhile. I've often bought Philips warranties on higher end products purchased from un-authorized online retailers (Pioneer Elite & Denon come to mind).

 

[Brandon:W]

I have not seen the Philips warranties offered without the purchase of something.

Although, I have seen the Repair Master and the Repairtech warranties offered stand-alone.

I'm wondering if anyone has had experience buying something, say at Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. and buying an extended warranty from somewhere else.

Brandon

 

[Philip Hamm]

Extended Warrantees are the biggest rip-off there is next to high end cables. IMHO of course!

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I agree, Philip. I figure the money I save by never purchasing an extended warranty more than covers the very few items that I ever need repaired/replaced outside the normal warranty before I am ready to upgrade.

 

[John S]

Extended warranties are a personal preference thing, for every angle you can imagine for them being rip offs, you can find a story where it really worked for the buyer as well.


Philips offered me a great deal on an extended for my 60" display. I still did not buy it.

 

[Tim Jin]

Extended Warranties can also be bought after you buy the TV and even 11 months into the purchase. You need to make sure on that one, but even when my warranty was close at being expire, Panasonic called, mailed me many times on extended warranty.

If you have a flat panel, like an LCD or Plasma, it is unlikely the set will break during the first year. If you don't need to get it service during that time, I wouldn't be too concern because flat panels has fewer moving parts.

If you are buying like a DLP or LCD RPTV, then you might want to consider in getting the extended warranty because the color wheel on a DLP is spinning at a high rate. Plus, you need to replace the bulbs on those sets also.

Make sure that if you are buying a DLP/LCD RPTV and getting the extended warranty, be sure to ask if the bulb is cover.

Just make sure that peace of mind is worth the extra cost.

 

[Rich Allen]

I looked into the details of several extended warranties and most considered the bulb in an LCD projection tv to be a "consumable item" and hence not covered. I wouldn't recommend buying one for that unless it's specifically covered.

 

[SethH]

I used to work at Sears and saw how much commission us salespersons made off of extended warranties. I doubt I will ever purchase extended warranties on anything other than laptop computers (they're absurdly expensive to fix, difficult to do myself, and have a relatively high probability of being dropped/damaged).

I tend to agree with the idea mentioned above that if you don't buy warranties on anything then you'll save the money to cover the few things that actually do break.

 

[Brandon:W]

Well, we're a bit off topic....but...

I look at extended warranties as insurance. If I am buying a $500 TV - is it worth $80 to have my TV work for 5 years?

I would usually say no - but my $500 TV just died after 1 year, one month. I paid $160 to get it "fixed", just to have it die again 2 months later due to a different problem. In hindsight, sure, the $80 would have been worth it.

Now that I'm considering buying a $4000 TV, I'm asking myself is it worth $400 or so to have it work for 5 years....


But actually, the real answer is that my wife would kill me if I convinced her to "let" me buy a $4000 TV, and it only lasted a couple of years. So the 10% increase is worth it to me.



Now....back to the topic.

Anyone have any experience with a stand-along extended warranty?

Thanks!

Brandon

 

[Brandon:W]

Oh, I forgot to mention - we recently purchased a $2000 refrigerator that got a big crack in it after 6 months. We had that replaced with a brand new one - a slightly different model too. It got several internal cracks after one month. We're getting our money back.

Granted, those two instances were within warranty - but we've lost respect for large brand-name items. Just because it's Sony, GE, Panasonic, etc. you could still have a lemon.

So, we're on a roll here....