Have a extended warranty,when purchased they told me it was bumper to bumper. While doing under body inspection at England Green,notice rear half shaft boot leaking and torn. Also head gasket and plugs leaking oil. After spending the day trying to get a hold of warranty co.,had to send e-mail. Told that they might not cover these items,now that's not understanding of bumper to bumper.

 

You spend 1500-2500 for a warranty and most of them the dealer sells you arn't worth the paper they are written on.
Sorry, I had the same issues.
What does your policy say?

 

I bought an extended warranty for my C5. It was a five year warranty for $1850. After a couple of years, I had a little repair job that I thought might be covered. It wasn't of course.

Then a year later, I had the gas gauge problem, so tried calling them to see if that was covered. They never answered the phone, it just rang and rang. Finally found out that they where out of business and took my money with them.

 

Warranties sound good and all. Coverage sounds appealing. The tough part is getting the underwriter to uphold the warranty. It seems that they will try to get out of paying at any cost, pardon the pun.

When I bought my Vette last month, they tried to sell me a warranty. All the while during the pitch, I just thought to myself yeah, right. Just try to collect when there is a problem. yeah, yeah, blah blah blah. I didn't say anything, however.

A bit off topic; but, I know someone who had a cottage on a lake and tired to collect on insurance after a storm. Insurance told them anything and eveything to get out of paying.

Warranty coverage is very similar to insurance if not the same. 9 out of 10 times, I think it's a sham.

Okay, I'm done my rant.

 

See there you go, when I first visited this thread, Mr Bill's post was the last post in the thread. While I was composing my post; unbenounced to me, GHL4505 had chimed in. How à propos. That's exactly what I was stating. There's a real life example.

 

Contrary to all the posts here, I've had pretty good luck with extended warranties. Minor things with the repairs may not have been covered (i.e., some fluids, filters, etc), but for the most part, the expensive portion of the work was covered.

Your warranty packet should state what is and is not covered - and should be specifically excluded if not. Check it over carefully and if you feel that the warranty company should cover it and won't, contact your state's Attorney General office and see if they can help.

BTW, mind sharing who you have the extended warranty with? Some companies are much better than others.

 

Most after market warranties are scams. I've been screwed before by them. The best extended warranty is the GMPP warranty.

If you've never used this warranty for any work, get your money back. They'll tell you that they cannot give you your money back, but inform them that they'll hear from your lawyer if they don't honor the warranty or refund you your money... That usually works.

Then use the money you get back from them to pay for fixing the car.

Leaking oil from head gaskets and plugs... Sounds like too much oil pressure and bad head gaskets, but I could be wrong.

That sucks about your situation. Good luck with everything.


EDIT:
I realized I should explain how I got my money back from the warranty company.

Back in 2001 I bought a 97 Formula Firebird (LT1) and got an extended 3 warranty. The car had issues right away. The 2nd day I had it, the transmission blew up. The warranty company told me that I was on my own for that one. Their reasoning was that I'd just bought the car and there's a grace period before THEIR warranty started due to people buying garbage cars and using the warranty to fix all the problems with it. LOL (Yeah, like they'd pay anyway...)

So after fixing the trans ($3K later) my optispark went out. Brought it to GM to have it fixed. Warranty did not cover it. They said they don't cover engine related electrical. I couldn't figure out how that's possible.

2 months later, the water pump went out. That means the opti went out too. So brought it back to GM and the warranty didn't cover the water pump either. So 2 opti jobs and a water pump in 2 months.

4 months later the head gasket blew. Warranty didn't cover that either. That job cost me $1300. I got hosed big time.

Finally the last straw, my power steering pump went out, and they said they'd cover $25 of the pump cost. I told them to keep the $25 and send me back all the money I paid for the warranty. (I think it was $1900) They told me they cannot do that. I said, you haven't covered any single thing on my car. Your warranty said you cover engine and electrical, but nothing at all has been covered. I'm out over $7,000 in parts and labor at this point. So you guys can either send me a check for the full cost of my warranty or I'll have my lawyer give you a call.

Needless to say they didn't miss a beat when I said that. Their manager immediately got on the phone with me and told me to expect a check in 2 weeks.

I was out a LOT of money at that point, but I learned two things:

A) Don't EVER buy an extended warranty unless it's a GMPP warranty.

B) Don't bring your car to the dealerships to get fixed. I got a job working at that dealership only to find out that they purposely screw up cars in non-WO related areas so the car has to keep coming back for work.

After I stopped bringing my car to the Stealerships for work, my cars stopped having problems. Found a reputable mechanic and that was the end of my GM whoas. Now I fix everything myself and save a crap load of money.


Moral of the story, don't trust warranties.

 

My GMPP through Fichtners has just been great over the years.

 

My GMPP has been great as well.

 

It's covered plenty of things I never assumed would be covered. No complaint here. Oh, and I like my dealership too.

 

Most extended warranties are not bumper-to-bumper. They are usually limited to drive train. Even then, yours sounds like a drive train issue and it should be covered.

Check yur paperwork.

 

I also haven't had any issues with the GMPP warranties on our cars. Your relationship with the dealership service department plays a big part in this as well. GMPP has different levels of coverage, depending on what you're willing to pay for. I would think that most extended coverage contracts have similar.

But if you buy an online warranty because it was cheaper and didn't take the time to read what's covered and what's not covered before you sign the contract, you're going to be surprised a lot...

 

Have you ever read the warranties for these scammer companies?

Basically they have loop holes for everything.

They'll say something along the lines of:

"Engine Coverage - Engine components and labor are covered by this warranty excluding components that are maintenance items, gaskets or gasket-related items. Damage due to gasket or heat related issues will not be covered. Damage caused at the time of engine use to any engine component is excluded."

"Transmission - All transmission parts are covered except on days that have names ending in 'y'."

 

GMPP or forget it. The rest of them are crap.

 

I had a extended GMPP from Ken F. I had an issue with my F55 shocks (leaking), took it to a dealer and they said shocks were not included. Ken said the same. At 13K miles on the 04, it seemed to be a good idea, but was not for me. I don't think I'll do that again. Like to deal with Ken and group, tho.

 

Some people had "magic service writers" that got their F55 shocks replaced for them. I'm guessing they sent it up as "bad shock sensors" (because they are part of the shock) and got them all replaced that way. Still, that bit of creativity with warranty claims makes it all the more confusing when searching the forum for people's GMPP experiences.

That said, after 3.5 years I'm finally getting some use out of my GMPP warranty.

 

Yeah the guy that owned most of the aftermarket warranties went belly up not long ago. He lived in the St.Louis area and had a humongous mansion and estates in the area,,,,he skipped on that too!! One of the St. Louis Cardinal players is looking at the mansion now!! Kinda like the old song,,"Take the money and Run"!!! It was amazing,,Rusty Wallace and his kid were still pitching the service while the news reports were full of the bankruptcy proceedings of the company and skipping out on employee payroll as well!!Nice guy!!!