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?
Top graphic images: DepositPhotos.com
I’m guessing that excluding having an EV battery or entire engine replaced is implied?
Because the cost the dealer billed to Hyundai for my Kona EV battery was like $17k
Replacing the starter on my Saab 900S. The whole engine had to come out to get to it.
I purchased a used 2013 Toyota Venza earlier this year for my mom. It had 126k on the odometer so I bought the extended service plan they offered. At around 133k miles the engine started sounding like a diesel engine, a lotta clattering. Took it into the dealer and they diagnosed the problem as a failing VVT system. The bill was a bit over $6400. I paid a $200 deductible and that was it. The car has run like a champ ever since.
The engine on my 2011 Tucson seized up and my mechanic told me it might qualify for a free replacement under warranty. I paid to have it towed to the Hyundai dealership and a few weeks later drove home with a new engine on a car with 125k miles for nothing but the cost of the tow.
What’s this “warranty” you keep talking about ?
~$21,000? The whole truck. Brand new B4000 extended cab manual. Had it 2 weeks before rhe transmission seized at about 60mph. That was the most exciting moment I k ow of anyone having in a B4000 and lived.
Well, I can tell you about the most expensive repair not made under warranty. There was a differential (rear) leak on my 2015 Frontier while under warranty. Spotted during an oil change. Scheduled it, was told it was fixed. About a year later, in for service, now out of warranty (at an independent, told they did a crap repair, got shown pictures and had to pay out of pocket to get it done right.
I bought my 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan new, during the relatively brief period in which a Lifetime Powertrain Warranty for the original owner was included for free. It was originally my wife’s daily driver. At this point it’s an extra car that we use for hauling stuff and towing the racecar around. Expensive stuff replaced under warranty: the entire transmission assembly (about 4 years ago) and the complete set of rocker arms and rocker shafts on the 4.0L V6 (about 2 years ago). It’s at 181,000 miles now, and I’m going to keep it forever. I do all of my own maintenance and repair, so it’s not very expensive to keep around.
I bought a Mazda B2200 from a coworker, a few weeks later I noticed a ticking sound coming from the engine. It had a 3/36 warranty that was almost due to expire. In fact, it had just over 36k miles, however I looked in the manual in the glovebox and it noted a mileage of ~150 at delivery to the new purchaser. Mileage was at like 36086. I had it towed to the dealer and it was diagnosed as needing lifters and a cam. They initially told me it was out of warranty, then I pointed out the mileage at delivery to the original owner. They called me back in about 5 minutes and told me it was completely covered by the warranty.
Not sure if it was the two sheered engine bolts that slightly dropped the VR6 in my VW Atlas, or the time my Honda Element had a cracked power steering unit that leaked all the fluid out for some reason.. they said that was an odd one. I don’t remember the costs, but they were covered.
Had a 2011 golf tdi that got a new high pressure fuel pump under warranty, the job involved flushing the entire fuel system and I think new injectors, iirc the total was around $8k, then a couple years later if was part of the diesel emissions cheat buyback and vw paid me $17k which was only $1000 less than I’d bought it for. They definitely did not make any money off that car
Probably a toss-up between the automatic transmission in my ’86 Accord LX-i that ate itself alive and the high-pressure injection pump on my ’01 Jetta TDI. Curiously, they both let go at about 65K miles.
Honda overhauled the transmission and it soldiered on without issue for at least another 100K miles before I lost contact with the person who bought it after me.
VW put in a rebuilt pump and it failed at 101K. And after all the progressively less pleasant conversations I had making my way up through their service and warranty pecking order, they would only give me was a $500 credit towards a new VW. Uh. No. You just lost a customer for the rest of my life. Too bad, because I really did like that car.
The frame replacement Toyota did on my 2006 Tacoma in January 2015 came to 16790.53 . That included frame , 3 wiring harnesses , all steel brake lines , both rear leaf springs and 6 months(first 2 months F150 crew cab,next 4 Tacoma crew cab 4wd) rental of a truck from Enterprise as the truck was my only vehicle and deemed not safe to drive in August 2014 .
Still kind of hard to believe they paid that much for an 8 year old truck with 48K on it at that time . The truck now has 105K on it and drives like new .
Thats crazy. I heard of those recalls but didnt believe they would actually do them.
Toyota dealers literally had frames for Tacomas/Tundras/Sequoias stacked up on flatbed trailers being delivered for installation . I had to wait until they were done with Gen 1 Tacoma replacements and was told I was the second Gen 2 done at that dealer . It took 2 guys who did nothing but that 3 days to do each replacement at that dealer . I wanted to take some pictures of the process , but unfortunately that wasn’t allowed .
Brand new Equinox EV, emergency charger release cable was broken (apparently somewhat common). It was like 7-10 hours labor (had to drain coolant and everything) and the cost of the replacement charging port for a total somewhere around $2,500.
I can’t give you a dollar value on this one, so you will have to use your imagination. When I was a kid in the early ’70s, my dad inherited some money and we bought a Rolls Royce (which is a crazy car for a college administrator to own). One day my dad was driving it, there was a big “CLUNK” as something in the rear suspension broke, rendering in un-drivable. The dealer in New York City sent a flatbed to upstate to collect it, and ultimately had to take the rear end of another, brand-new Rolls apart and swap out the whole rear suspension. My dad sold the car back to the dealer for exactly what he paid for it just before the warranty expired.
The new HV battery in my 2017. Nothing wrong with the old one but I wasn’t going to turn down a brand new battery, that was 10% larger, and came with a new 8 year / 100K mile warranty.
Hopefully, the day trip with your “Mom’s friend (a guy) with a Porsche” is now your stepdad. Great story.
I had a VW (2013 Passat) with an extended warranty, and that must have saved me $3k in total in so many issues. To this day, I’ll never drive a VW or Audi.
I have only made one warranty claim and that was for a minor engine repair on a Jeep that would have cost ~$300. I have owned three new cars and four new motorcycles, as well as two used cars that were still under warranty when I bought them.
I’m convinced that warranties are, at best, overrated. It would be nice if there were an option to opt out of the warranty and pay less for the vehicle. Warranties raises vehicle prices – if you don’t make a claim you have wasted your money.
Look up “bathtub curves”. They describe the failure rate of a product. The first region is due to manufacturing defects, the center (low) section is normal usable life, and the final rising section is wear and end of life.
Warranty exists to cover those first portion of failures- things that are fault of poor manufacturing. Sure, you can give up your warranty, but a new car is not less likely to break than a middle aged car, quite the opposite. So how would a company ever survive if a new vehicle cost more, failed more often, and then required you to pay again to fix those failures? They wouldn’t- thus, a warranty.
Those same bathtub curves are also a good visual representation of why an extended warranty is almost *never* worth it, vs a manufacturer warranty.
I’m aware that manufacturing defects usually show up early. My contention is that defects have become rare enough that buyers can purchase a product and be confident it will not have a major defect from the factory. My other contention is that manufacturers use warranties as profit generators, and therefore warranties are less valuable than they appear.
Warranties usually exceed the period where manufacturing defects show up. If manufacturers offer a 7 year warranty but the vast majority of defects show up within the first year, the extra years of warranty are not valuable to the consumer.
Manufacturers wouldn’t offer warranties that cause them to lose money (either by being too short and forcing buyers to pay for manufacturing defects or by being too long and covering “wear and tear” problems that arise with use). Manufacturers factor the cost of these warranties into vehicle pricing.
Companies would have no problem surviving if they offered a warranty that covered the manufacturing defect period and not the “low failure” period they cover today. However, they use lengthy warranties to maximize profit in a way that does not provide economic value to customers. I don’t see anything wrong with this, but customers need to be aware that this is happening. Customers may still be willing to make the irrational choice to pay more for a warranty it is worth. I just wish I had the choice to opt out of the “useless period” of the warranty to save money. Manufacturers presumably don’t give me this option because it is not in their best interest, even if it is in my best interest.
Again, warranties are highly overrated. It is time we acknowledged this.
A mechanic caused an engine failure in my 92 Toronado by using RTV instead of gaskets (I don’t remember what the original repair was). Some RTV came loose, found its way into an oil passage and the engine spun a bearing. Since the car was over 100k miles, I paid for a Goodwrench engine and they covered the labor. I specified proper gaskets were to be used.
Two weeks later a rod made a window in the block of the new engine. Turns out the same thing happened – the mechanic had used RTV instead of gaskets again despite my instruction (and I’m sure GM’s policies).
GM eventually covered the warranty replacement of the engine at a GM dealer and I never heard what happened with the mechanic, who I never used again.
You guys buy cars with warranties?
Had a ’13 Dodge Dart, and when I bought it FCA was still selling lifetime warranties – apart from normal wear items, everything is fixed until any given repair exceeds the value of the the vehicle, at which point they buy out the contract with a check for the car’s value and we part ways calling it even. I paid for that warranty with the intent of running the wheels off that car.
Turns out it was a Dart, so that didn’t take much.
Anyway, it started missing bad and the dealership couldn’t diagnose it properly, so under warranty they ended up fixing this one issue by replacing ECU, TCU, multiple turbos, and finally (the actual culprit) the fuel pump. No idea what the bill would have been, but I figure it was more than a little.
I bought a 2011 Mercedes E550 with lots of bells and whistles from a guy that bought it from CarMax. Transferred the warranty, and Doug DeMuro’d it. Biggest specific thing was new headlights (the originals were cloudy from being cooked on the inside by the zenons), but the warranty pays out up to the purchase price of the car. I believe it worked out to $22K or something like that, but the PO had already used $5K of it. Still have the car, and like it very much. Now that it’s out of warranty, I’m on my own for repairs, but I’m a pretty solid wrench. Just did an overhaul of a significant portion of the air suspension, and about to replace the computer that controls the adaptive suspension. I’ve mostly purchased genuine Mercedes parts, and it’s actually been pretty reasonable. Also surprisingly easy to work on, especially coming from BMW with all their proprietary computer crap. I’ve been able to do everything so far with a plain jane Autel shop scanner.