Having a warranty for your car can mean the difference between a slight inconvenience and a month-ruining four-figure repair bill. My disposition to constantly buy cheap, high-mileage hoopties from Facebook Marketplace usually puts me in the latter when my cars break, which happens often enough that I constantly think about giving it all up and leasing something new.
The beauty of a warranty is the freedom it gives you to drive your car without that nagging feeling in the back of your mind that it might suddenly, randomly, empty your bank account without warning. Even the most reliable cars sometimes break, and if there’s no warranty there to back you up, there’s only one person to cover the bill: You.
If you do have a warranty, it’s a different story. Sure, if your car leaves you stranded, that still sucks. But with a good warranty, you’re never hit with the second gutpunch of paying a tow truck to lug your car to the nearest shop, that third gutpunch of paying for a loaner car while yours is in said shop, or that fourth gutpunch of paying said shop for their parts and labor. Everything’s just… taken care of.
I’ve never personally gotten a warranty to pay for anything major, simply because I’ve only ever owned one new car—my Ford Fiesta ST—and it was perfectly reliable the entire time I owned it. But funnily enough, I was the cause of some necessary repair work on my mom’s old BMW 328d.
The story goes like this: About a decade ago, I had borrowed my mom’s turbodiesel-powered BMW 3-Series, which she was leasing new, to go for a day-long back road drive with a friend in his Porsche 944. While we weren’t doing anything crazy, I was certainly pushing the car pretty hard, with constant trips to its 5,500-rpm redline. At the end of the day, the car threw a check-engine light while we were cruising back home on the highway.
The car didn’t feel like it was broken or running poorly, so I just let my mom know the light came on and went about my day. She took it in for repair work a week later and told me it needed all of its injectors replaced—which happened fully under warranty, of course. Had it been out of warranty, it probably would’ve cost over $1,000, including parts. I definitely didn’t have that kind of money to cover that at the time, so I’m thankful the warranty was there to have my back.
Your turn:
What’s The Most Expensive Repair You’ve Gotten A Warranty To Pay For?
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Blown transmission on a Jetta Hybrid. Paid $7500 for the car, $1500 for the bumper to bumper warranty, transmission went 3 months later (known issue on the Jetta Hybrids). Couldn’t get the transmission from Germany because of COVID so the warranty paid me the $11k for parts and labor. Kept the money and scrapped the car but I wish I hadn’t.
I still miss that Jetta
Cracked head on a Saturn, they replaced it and anything plastic or rubber in the cooling system, plus paid for loaner rental. Not a problem, hardly an inconvenience.
A water pump on my Fiesta was only other warranty repair I have ever had done.
A question for other Autopians: Do you feel a slight sense of relief when you vehicle crosses out of it’s warranty coverage period because this means you will not have to deal with potential dealer and manufacturer shenanigans should there be a breakdown? Like Hyundai and Kia dealers trying the you did not do oil changes here so your seized engine is because you did not change the oil, not because our engines have a perfect track record of seizing etc around 75k. I do.
Having worked at multiple dealership brands now, Hyundai and Kia are just the worst about customer service and the American brands aren’t too far behind. It’s not perfect, but the Japanese brands are so much more accommodating when it comes to the warranties
Thank you, good to know as I bought a Subaru last year.
Coolant leak that caused an overheat and fried the head gasket on a 2016 Jaguar XF R
Hybrid transmission replacement in a Pacifica hybrid at 32k miles.
$12k in parts and labor plus it cost Chrysler another $10k because we sued them over it taking four and a half months to fix. On top of that the well known resistance heater failed as we drove it home from the transmission fix. Another day in the shop and we promptly traded it in on not a Chrysler product
2018 ford fusion (2.7 TT) engine rebuild at 10k. Lasted me until 40k when I sold it, but never trusted it again.
My daughters 2012 Hyundai Sonata had a new engine replacement in 2024, and over 80,000 miles.
I never would have belived that an automaker would replace a 12 year old engine!
When the motor seized just running down the highway, the tow-truck driver told my daughter he had seen this before and should take it to a Hyundai dealership…If he hadn’t told her that I probably would have scrapped the car.
Still runs fine, for a Hyundai…it’s still a steaming pile.
Expensive for what it was:
The radio in my 2009 prius, that I bought from a dealer in 2013.
The FM reception was sort of off. It sounded ok, but with more static than what I was used to.
Dealer installed a complete new radio unit. And even replaced the internal wiring in the ceiling to the antenna. It was better but not quite perfect.
I later found out that the static was comping from one of those 12V to usb phone chargers I had in the car. I still feel bad about it.
Just downright expensive:
The motor on my 2019 eNiro.
Car was offered on a lease as part of my salary. It developped a noise from the drivetrain after a few spirited launches. At first, the dealer sead it was normal. But I found a line in the lease contract stating I got an immediate replacement if I felt unsafe in the car. Complete untill the moment this was resolved.
The car was with the dealer for about a month. They replaced the complete drive unit, including motormounts. This is a common error in the early eNiros and Kona EVs.
I drove one month with a brand spanking new BMW x1 Xdrive30e.
spit my coffee about that static hiss. damn dude!!!!
Nope. Them not being able to properly diagnose problems is not your problem. “Unplug everything” is Step 1 in the Troubleshooting for Dummies manual.
Short block replacement at 23k miles due to head gasket failure (2018 Ford Fusion 1.5 Ecoboost)
I’ve been extremely lucky I guess. As far as I remember I’ve only paid for an extended warranty once and it was a 91 SVX for $5000 at a shady car lot then added a $1900 2-year warranty. About 4 months later the center diff explodes. Warranty covers it for roughly 3k. Almost a year later same thing happens. Warranty covers it Again but insists on using a more reputable shop this time. Less than a year later it goes again. I take it back to the shop and they honor their own 1-year warranty. Right after that I sell the car for 3k.
I replaced it with an RX8 I pre-ordered well in advance after realizing a 350z isn’t as good a car as I thought. At about 40K I tell them I track this car often and it sometimes grinds going into 3rd gear but only after 10 minutes of abusing it and asked what oil I should switch to. To my surprise Mazda authorized a new trans and a different weight of amsoil along with a factory modified modification sticker specifying this as the standard oil.
5 years later I go there to buy a new heater control knob at 75k miles and ask them about a problem I have where it’s really hard to start when warm unless you let it cool 10 minutes. It’s out of warranty by now and tell them I’ve money shifted it from 3rd to 2nd 3 times now. I want confirmation that my apex seals are now shaped like a crescent moon before I decide to rebuild it myself. They convince me to leave my car which I didn’t want to do as I didn’t want to pay for a diagnostic fee when I was already convinced I should rebuild the engine. They call me up the next day saying mazda authorized a new engine.
WTF? It’s out of warranty, and they know I autocross and track the car often. I asked how much it would take to keep the old engine and they told me in no uncertain terms Mazda wants it back. Dunno why, maybe they wanted to see what happens at the intersection of extremely well maintained and extremely abused.
Brake system on a 2020 Subaru WRX. Was in a new area, new dealership. Within 5000 miles they claimed I needed most of the braking system replaced. Oh, this was a Brembo equipped model. Wear, corrosion, all that kind of thing.
I threw it back at them, and said, fix it, but call corporate. This is my 5th Subie, my second WRX, and I’ve never had an issue like this.
Subaru stepped up and investigated… I’m not sure what happened, but between my loaner and the repairs, and the fact that they are REAL nice to me there from now on, I think they realize I’m not a mark.
Cars come with warranties??? I’d sure love to try that someday.
Pentastar lifter tick. 2013 Caravan, 90k miles with the 100k mile powertrain warranty. They said it would have been $4000+ out of warranty, and receipt showed all lifters were replaced. My brother still has this thing and running great at 230k miles. I used it for business running 40k miles/year.
I had a 2000 V6 Accord that was slipping 1st gear with an hair over 50k miles. Apparently, unknown to me at the time, Honda can’t make automatic transmissions and V6’s coexist together. So this transmission is taking a dump and Honda had a very narrow window and specific criteria to cover there shitty transmission under warranty. The guy at the dealer was like “that’s some bullshit, we’ll make it happen.” No shit, they replaced the transmission and it didn’t cost me shit. Now I drive another automatic V6 Accord… yeah
I made the mistake once of buying a CPO BMW X3, with the remainder of the factory warranty and an extended CPO warranty. A few months into owning it, the check engine light came on. Took it in, they said it had a bad sensor, replaced under warranty. A month later, light is back on and it’s shifting somewhat hard. Took in back in, another sensor and a reprogram for the transmission. This kept repeating every month or two for the next two years until they had replaced: every sensor that could throw a check engine light, the entire wiring harness, modules controlling the engine/transmission, the transfer case, and the entire top-end of the engine (new head and up). The service guy started picking it up from my house and bringing me a loaner so I didn’t have to take it in. Next step would have been a brand new engine (for the light) and new transmission (for the hard shifting). Then, unfortunately, I moved to a new state. When the light came back on the new dealer said they couldn’t find a record of anything (despite the other dealer saying they literally sent all of the records directly to them, me showing them a copy of each record as I had them, and obviously BMW having a record for the warranty). So they wanted to start over and replace a sensor.
I was done at that point. I’m pretty sure the total repairs were well north of 20k, maybe 30k. And it would have gotten worse if I had decided to keep it (I was considering driving it back to the first dealer for the new engine/transmission). But I was done. Way too much time dealing with that, and it completely killed any desire to ever own another BMW.
Probably was a faulty light it the cluster or something…
Not me, but a loser friend of mine used to change his oil on the dirt/gravel roadsides in rural Michigan. Just drain it on the ground, refill and drive away. He had owned his new Chrysler Pacific crossover a couple of months when he pulled this shit, somehow forgot to replace the drain plug and less than a mile later the engine seized. He replaced the plug, filled it with oil and had it towed to the dealer. Apparently they never caught on and installed a new engine that he said would’ve cost ~$8000 without the warranty. Clever but so dishonest.
He is the reason why Chrysler went bankrupt.
3x cam phasers and a full front to back ac system replacement in my expedition max. Cam phasers 2 times were due to improperly installed, ac was due to metal debris that contaminated the system. Total amount is $34k
Carmax maxcare is amazing
Would you mind telling what year Expedition you have?
2019. It’s been pretty stout overall and aside from the 1st gen 4Runner I have, it’s my favorite car I’ve owned. Cam phasers have been an ongoing issue with everything ford has built for 20+ years and there’s a tsb for the debris in the ac.
Ah OK, got a 2017 so mines the previous generation. No cam phaser issues but I did have to replace a $40 throttle body.
I really like the expedition and the eco boost. The first cam phaser swap isn’t too surprising, lots of issues with them, but the subsequent 2 were down to improper installation
I used to work for an extended warranty company, we had some real doozies.
Brand new transmission on my wife’s 2018 Lexus RX. The total bill was a little north of $12k, I believe?
Not really me perse, but my dad got Chevrolet to pay for a full re-paint on his 89 Corsica when the paint started peeling off the roof and hood at 1 year and 10,000 miles.
I had the fuel system from the pump to the fuel rails replaced on a Kia Stinger. I don’t remember what the total cost was, but it wasn’t cheap and it took a little over three weeks. There may have been a service bulletin about the issue.
We had a very early first generation Prius— from the initial pre-order days when Toyota of America sold them directly (tho paperwork was done at a dealership), to circumvent dealer markup— it went out the door at exactly the very reasonable sticker price. The hybrid system’s components had a super long warranty (5 or 6 years??), and the battery pack gave out with three weeks to go on that window. It would have been a multi-thousand dollar event a month later, but the fix was not only free, Toyota gave us a loaner car for two weeks while the replacement battery set was shipped and installed. They really wanted that first-gen car to succeed in the US market.
Like the author, I had an injector issue with a 328d. Mine is a 2015 wagon; in the first three years I had the SAME fuel injector throw an error code multiple times – at least 4, maybe 4 ? I think the code on the OBD reader was PO2C ? Always ran fine, just threw the code. After the third time, the dealer took apart the entire engine and thoroughly cleaned it, took several weeks. Then a few months later…same fricking code on the same injector. Finally, without me asking, and basically just after the initial 80K ( I had bought an extended warranty ) had run out, they replaced THE ENTIRE engine for free. Even though it was past warranty, obviously the problem had been manifesting long before the 80K. Took about a month ( since by this time the diesels were no longer being imported into the US ) . Had an X3 loaner in the meantime. I wanna say the tech said the new engine would have run well over $15K, maybe closer to $20K. Has never had the same problem since. Awesome car., have almost 170K miles on it now .
I will say I had ok experiences with BMW warranty, though my problem wasn’t as big. I took it to the dealer for service and repair while on warranty. A month or so before it went off warranty, I paid the labor fee for a safety check… basically fix anything before the warranty expires. Two months after the warranty ends, the wiring harness needed to be replaced. They covered 80% of it, which was fair. I was young and it was a stretch to be able to afford that car, and I was loyal, so they gave me a break.
My Subaru Impreza’s CVT blew up at about mile 99,000+ of its 100,000 extended warranty. I never got a full price breakdown – the service lady just shook her head and told me I was $1000’s of lucky it didn’t happen a few miles later.
Just got a wonderful idea. Visit a few lawyers get a card from each. Then if you need warranty work and the dealer or manufacturer hems and has just say don’t tell me tell him, and hand them the lawyers card.
Well I got Jasper to replace 2 complete engines in my little p3500 because they no longer build them like they used to now they build them to last out the warranty but many don’t. Never buy shit from Jasper as they refunded my money when I needed a 3rd motor after only 12,000 total on the first 2 engines