Ask Lemmy

I bought the extended warranty on an mp3 player I really liked at the time (3 years instead of the usual 1), and I got lucky enough that it dies 2 weeks before the end of the warranty.

Got a sweet upgrade out of it.

I know a lady who bought a jeep with one of those forever warranties. She's had everything but the frame replaced at some point and refuses to let the dealership buy her out with a new car.

My mom bought a Jeep. It paid out over what the car was worth in warranty repairs. After the warranty was up the car became mostly reliable for the next 5-6 years.

I think the real pro tip is just never buy a Jeep.

Not me, but my mom bought a Sentra SER lightly used, and got the $1500 dealer special warranty. The warranty had all kinds of stipulations like she had to have the maintenance done at that dealer, with nissan parts, etc, all ways to weasel out of it. Also had to have the service records in full.

Year 1: manual transmission stopped going into reverse, replaced

Year 2: engine failure, replaced

Year 3: manual transmission started popping out of all gears, replaced.

Year 4: bought a Mazda

Each time they tried to deliver the bad news that she'd have to pay $4500 or whatever, but she kept meticulous records, serviced it exactly on time at the original dealer, and insisted on nissan parts so there was nothing they could say. They even tried to say maybe she didn't know how to drive manual, but she'd been driving exclusively manuals for decades, and you guessed it, she had all the documentation to prove it.

That $1500 warranty probably cost the dealer at least $10k

This consumer electronics store here in Norway offer what I refer to as dumbass-insurance. If you break your TV/phone/whatever, they give you a new one if it can't be repaired. And it covers literally everything, as long as you still have the damaged devices.

It's relatively expensive, but as a parent of four, this has covered the cost of quite a few things in our household.

It might take a while for them to replace it (they may not have the exact device in stock), but it's worth it for me.

Bought a "gaming laptop" (needed it at the time. Not the best call in retrospect). Bought an extended warranty for 5 years, at it was fairly expensive.

Mere days after the manufacturer warranty ran out, one of the keyboard keys stopped working. I sent it in for repairs. They estimated 2 weeks, including shipping both ways.

Weeks later, they finally claimed they couldn't find replacement parts (for a laptop less than 1 year old?) and refunded me the entire cost of the laptop. The warranty itself cost roughly ~20% of the laptop cost, so I figure I effectively "leased" a laptop for a year instead of buying it.

Hey, they also sent me back the HDD, which went on to serve for another few years in the desktop I built with the returned funds.

The real issue was buying a Chrysler.

When RadioShack was still a thing. I was in a band that used in ear monitors. I bought a pair of decent earbuds there for $25 with a $5 extra warranty, which states I'd have to pay $5 for a replacement. Between jumping on stage, forgetting they were plugged in or just plain blowing them out, I went thru 6 pairs jn 3 years, each time paying 10$ (5 for the replacement and 5 for the warranty)

Never. I sold these things long ago and learned quickly back then they are just scams.

You being lucky is an edge case.

Like you, OP, I benefited hugely from a car extended warranty. Audi hatchback, 4 year factory warranty was extended to 8 years for like $2k? Didn't seem like a lot to spend for the added insurance in case something catastrophic happened. And something catastrophic did happen! In year 5, a factory sparkplug came apart and bits of it got sucked through the cylinder, gouged the cylinder walls, got sucked through the turbo, shattered all the turbo fins.

Without the warranty the car would have been a write-off. The entire engine plus turbo were replaced under warranty. They don't make that particular engine anymore so the replacement was used but had lower mileage. A lot of parts connected the engine are considered single-use by Audi as well. Engine mount pads, bolts, nuts, hoses, clamps, etc., their policy is to replace those parts when the engine is replaced. The list of parts replaced was four pages long.

All told, between all the parts and labour I'd estimate it was at least a $20k repair. Utterly worth the $2k I paid on the extended warranty. Oh, and I had a loaner for about six months while they were sourcing the replacement engine, so six months of putting wear on someone else's vehicle. Probably the best $2k I've ever spent.

American Home Shield, which usually sucks, just came through with $920 to replace a 10 year old washing machine.

Literally every time I've purchased one for my child's or wife's electronic devices, especially those with large glass screens.

I paid an extra $20 to extend the warranty of my $150AUD gaming headphones from 1 to 3 years.

Just over a year of owning them and the microphone boom broke. I never used the detachable microphone but the arm itself was rattling in the headset, so got it replaced at the retailer.

It's been about 12 months since then, and I may need to take them back at some point again soon as the plastic has fractured right where the headphone cup attaches to the band. It's not completely broken but its not far off

I had one of the earlier model iPod Touches, maybe 2nd Gen? It was the first one to include Bluetooth (if memory serves, and it may not, I vaguely remember at launch Bluetooth that was disabled and I had to jailbreak it to use it, pretty sure Apple eventually enabled Bluetooth with a software update)

Around that time I'd also gotten my first job and had purchased a new laptop for myself, and sprung a little extra to get one with Bluetooth.

I saw the future, I was sick of wires and dongles, I got a Bluetooth mouse, a pair of Bluetooth over the ear headphones, and for my iPod I went to Best buy and got a pair of rocket fish "earbuds" (it doesn't feel right calling them earbuds, since they were connected with a rigid band around the back of your head, but that's what they were calling them) and sprung an extra couple bucks for the warranty because why not.

Those earbuds were a piece of crap. They worked fine, but they weren't rugged enough to deal with everyday life. Getting knocked off a coffee table onto a carpeted floor was enough to break them.

So for a couple months it became almost a weekly ritual for me to go back to best buy to exchange them, until they just stopped stocking them and gave me my money back.

In those days, there weren't many options for smaller profile Bluetooth headphone, you could get bulky over the ear models that were never really my thing, or you could get a mono earpiece. I'm pretty sure that those were literally the only model I could find at any reasonable price point.

It actually kind of soured me on Bluetooth headphones until fairly recently, and honestly if my phone still had a jack I'd probably still be using the Shure 215 earbuds I bought after that.

(Also, if you're in the market for wired earbuds, I'm no audiophile, but I do not regret getting the shures one bit, they definitely sounded better than the Skullcandy buds I upgraded from back then, and they are damn-near indestructible, there may very well be better, cheaper, and more rugged earbuds out there, but for the $100 or so I spent over a decade ago, mine have gone through the laundry a couple times and had just about every other kind of abuse you could imagine inflicted upon them and they're no worse for wear, and the wire is replaceable if that ever gets fucked up but I'm still on the original)

Not an answer to your question, but years ago I used to work at best buy. My employee discount was 5% over cost. I could purchase their $200 service plan on an appliance for about $15. With the discount, definitely worth it.

I usually get AppleCare on my stuff since I’ve had great experiences with it. They cover accidental damage and replace the device for a small fee.

Last time I needed it was 2021 when I messed up my iPad Pro during lockdown. Apple chat me online, ran a diagnostic, charged me only $100 and a new replacement was on my doorstep in 36 hours. A+ experience

Both times with the new car.

Both times transmission within a thousand miles of the warranty being over (both times on the wrong side of the warranty, but they were cool about it).

I'm 42 years old and I've never used a warranty in my entire life

Put a bunch of money in my pocket when I was selling them, that worked out pretty well. 😁