Motoring Discussion > Warranty for my car Tax / Insurance / Warranties
Thread Author: Bobby Replies: 24

 Warranty for my car - Bobby
My X1 is 3 years old on 30 Sept so BMW warranty will expire.
Should I take out an extended warranty with BMW (assuming they offer such a thing) or an aftermarket one? Or just save my warranty premiums and put aside for any future bills?

If relevant, I hope to use my local indie for servicing - he says he has the gadgets required to update the service history on the idrive.

Thoughts?
 Warranty for my car - R.P.
Is it an X drive Bobby? - My 335 is three years old this week and I;ve decided to keep it. With the X drive it's almost a no brainer to go for a BMW extended warranty. It wasn't cheap but neither is a an x drive repair. There are various versions of the warranty for sale by BMW
 Warranty for my car - Bobby
RP , technically its an x-drive as thats what BMW call it but of course its the bootom of the range version from the Mini that I have in the X1 as certain folk keep reminding me!
 Warranty for my car - R.P.
X1 is a fine motor..! Wished I'd had a 3.0 litre petrol in mine though. Is it 4x4
 Warranty for my car - Bobby
Its a different shape than the one you had - 2 litre diesel, xdrive so FWD normally but AWD available when it decides.
Annoyingly there does not appear to be any way of switching it on manually!
 Warranty for my car - R.P.
Oh there isn't. Hugely complicated the xdrive - hence me going for the BMW warranty for the next year.
 Warranty for my car - Runfer D'Hills
...or, get a Merc, ran up nearly 200,000 on the old one and never had to so much as change a light bulb, 120,000 up on the "new" one and similarly, so far so good !

;-)
 Warranty for my car - Duncan
>> ...or, get a Merc, ran up nearly 200,000 on the old one and never had
>> to so much as change a light bulb, 120,000 up on the "new" one and
>> similarly, so far so good !
>>
>> ;-)
>>

Keep your voice down, you remember what Granny told you about tempting Providence?!
Last edited by: Duncan on Wed 18 Sep 19 at 17:53
 Warranty for my car - Runfer D'Hills
...aye weel, she's deid.
;-)
 Warranty for my car - tyrednemotional
>> ...or, get a Merc,

.....though I understand they can be unexpectedly heavy on expensive wear and tear items such as wheels and tyres.......

;-)
 Warranty for my car - Lygonos
I expect the warranty from BMW will be something like £800/yr.

On an i3 range extender probably worth every penny.

For regular models I'd be less inclined.

Unless you have one of their shonky 4-cyl turbo diesels.....
 Warranty for my car - R.P.
A little less than half that for the 335 Lygonos.
 Warranty for my car - Duncan
Why is this in non-motoring?

1. Buy a car that (you think) you can rely on to be reliable.
2. Sell it if it starts to become unreliable.
3. Only run cars that you can afford to run.
4. Don't buy after-market warranties. They are not good value.
 Warranty for my car - Lygonos
>> a little less than half that for the 335 Lygonos

Looks good value to me.

The £800 price I think was for an i3 REX I saw posted on speakev.com
 Warranty for my car - Bill Payer
>> If relevant, I hope to use my local indie for servicing - he says he
>> has the gadgets required to update the service history on the idrive.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
What does your indie think? Some won't have anything to do with certain warranty companies.

If it is a diesel though, I wouldn't run a newish one without the safety net of a warranty. Just renewed the VW branded warranty on wife's Tiguan for second time at just over £300, which covers everything and has no excess. The emissions stuff (it's EU6) and the DSG scare me.
Last edited by: Bill Payer on Wed 18 Sep 19 at 09:49
 Warranty for my car - legacylad
I’ve another year until the end of my 3 year warranty. I’ll make sure the Macan has its first MOT before then, just in case of anything untoward.
It’s then a question of whether to purchase the manufacturers extended warranty, cost vs risk. No idea what the cost is....I’ll find out soon enough. The longer I keep the vehicle the less the annual depreciation and the cheaper overall ownership cost, presuming that the RFL remains the same ( currently about £39 pcm) and insurance doesn’t skyrocket.
 Warranty for my car - Bromptonaut
As mentioned in the 'Sally' thread I went down the manufacturer extended warranty route with the Roomster. Two years were 'bundled' with the purchase and I bought a further year for around £500. Further years not available as car is on cusp of 100k miles.

One or two minor issues, eg electric windows with mind of their own, were sorted without quibble in first two years. Last winter the glow plug light started to flash on most journeys - the VAG system uses this as a general engine management warning. Diagnostics said it was the EGR valve and associated cooling. Close to a grand retail to fix but done at no cost with courtesy car provided.

Thought long/hard before taking out cover. I'd had inkling of EGR problem before, as a one off, and was aware it is common on EA189 engine and that it wasn't a cheap fix which probably influenced my thinking.

Same cost/risk calculation as with mechanical breakdown insurance. I think the manufacturer products are much less likely to have quibble/decline problems than Warranty Wise, Motor Easy or similar.
 Warranty for my car - Bill Payer
>> I think the manufacturer products are much
>> less likely to have quibble/decline problems than Warranty Wise, Motor Easy or similar.
>>
To be fair, I had a good run with Warranty Direct on my Merc - but I have a feeling they messed up somewhere as the price never changed over 4yrs from when the car was 6 until it was 10, and I liked the fact they cover wear and tear - they paid for suspension parts in the final year that cost the same as the annual premium. I had no excess, no betterment and full MB dealer rate cover.

However the original founder is no longer involved and I've heard some horror stories since - on mine they whacked the premium up dramatically at 10yrs old and reduced the level of cover. They did eventually back down on the cost, but not the scope of the cover.

On the Tiguan, the front console bushes were noted on the health check video (bet they regret sending that) as starting to tear at 3yrs old but not bad enough to change. I said to the service manager it'll be OK as I've bought the VW extended warranty. He sucked through his teeth and said "wear and tear". I kicked up a minor fuss and he pushed them through under the original 3yr warranty.
 Warranty for my car - Duncan
>> To be fair, I had a good run with Warranty Direct on my Merc -
>> but I have a feeling they messed up somewhere as the price never changed over
>> 4yrs from when the car was 6 until it was 10, and I liked the
>> fact they cover wear and tear - they paid for suspension parts in the final
>> year that cost the same as the annual premium. I had no excess, no betterment
>> and full MB dealer rate cover.


If I read that right, you had repairs in year 4 to the value of the annual premium? What happened in years 1 to 3? No claims?

Do you think that was good value? Would you not have been better putting some money each week/month in a pot on the dresser?

This, to me, is very straightforward. The warranty company has to cover the cost of all its clients claims, plus employ office staff, assessors, directors, premises, profit and so on. The total cost to them must be far greater than the total cost of the basic claims.

They have a vested interest in quibbling and arguing with clients about the validity of their claims.

Buy a reliable car. Sorry, I know it's a statement of the blerking obvious.
Last edited by: Duncan on Wed 18 Sep 19 at 17:26
 Warranty for my car - Bobby
Assume you don’t have any insurance products of any kind Duncan?
 Warranty for my car - Runfer D'Hills
I've always self provided for these things. Apart from things you really have to insure like cars and things you ought to, like houses, I've always just relied on my savings to take care of unforeseens.

My father gave me a piece of advice when I got my first paper round, and I've continued to follow it to this day. He suggested that whatever I earned, no matter how little or how much, that I put 10% of it into a separate savings account.

If my fridge freezer breaks, my tv stops working, if I need to repair a car, or even buy a new one, the money is there. Better in my bank account than funding the profits of some insurance company.
 Warranty for my car - Duncan
>> Assume you don’t have any insurance products of any kind Duncan?

What Runfer said at 19:09 first paragraph.
 Warranty for my car - Bill Payer
>> If I read that right, you had repairs in year 4 to the value of
>> the annual premium? What happened in years 1 to 3? No claims?
>>
>> Do you think that was good value? Would you not have been better putting some
>> money each week/month in a pot on the dresser?
>>
I had one other claim (broken spring) which they paid - I was a little surprised they didn't blame corrosion, which is arguably why springs break these days.

In hindsight, yes, it would have been better to save the money, but of course what you're really buying is peace-of-mind (which is why, when you do claim, what you don't want is a load of hassle).

Also, my circumstances where that I was running the vehicle as an opt-out company car, so if it broke down while I was the other end of the country and got taken to the nearest MB dealer by Mobilo then I'd be pretty much as their mercy as I couldn't mess about trying find cheaper repairs. So I wanted a safety-net against that.
 Warranty for my car - stan10
Last weekend a mate told me that his 3+ year old 220d 2 series M Sport auto coupe was "going in" to have it's "broken computer replaced" (his words, courtesy car provided)

He's feeling very happy that he took out the BMW extended warranty - i suspect he's justified.

(Second time the car has "gone wrong", first time sorted under initial warranty - dunno what the exact problem was, but something computerised i think, so could be related ?)

 Warranty for my car - PeterS
I’m with those that say don’t bother, and indeed when mine hit 3 6 months ago that’s the approach I took. However, if you are going to take out the BMW one just check that it doesn’t require you to have it serviced by BMW, given you’re planning on using an indie for servicing! And it might be worth checking whether using an indie actually saves much, if any money. Yours might be different, but my 2 series only needs servicing every 18/20k miles, and some BMW dealers offers reduced rates for cars over 3 and 5 years old. Just my thoughts!
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