1 day left to extend my warranty

Gah! I've left some admin to the last minute. I've got until tomorrow to decide whether to renew my warranty.

So, on a '56 plate M Coupe with 20k miles that's used as a weekend / treat car, my options are:

1. Me and the missus save £x into our shared account to cover the worst happening.
2. Driveline £250 + assist is £474
3. Named £250 + assist is £590

I'm in two minds at the moment. On the one hand, I like the security of the warranty and the bonus you get at re-sale (although I'd like to keep this car for a year or two more at least, it's brilliant).

On the other hand, I can appreciate the "just save for the worst and if nothing happens you're in the black" position.

I'm sort of 60% decided on the driveline, just to cover a massive gearbox / engine horror. 3rd party warranties don't really interest me, I've been bitten by those before.

Oh, and I've already read all the threads found under "extended warranty"

I rang up BMW warranty as I bought a second hand car outside of warranty. They told me I could take out a warranty on the car as long as it had full BMW service history, nothing wrong with it and it had done under 60,000miles. The policy would be a lapse policy, which means it takes a month before it takes effect.

"This cover is subject to your BMW having been serviced in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommendations and that it has not been modified in any way. Please note that the policy would commence 1 month from date of purchase and that this product does not cover faults that existed at the time of purchase or prior to the policy start date"

http://www.bmw-warranty.co.uk

I would have thought that most of our cars come under these requirements.






So from what I can gather based on the above, there isn't actually a rush to get that form done? or I could be completely wrong....

Thanks for posting that list, it's very useful. I couldn't find the specifics of what's covered under each policy on their website.

It looks like named would be my choice, what's the point of getting it if there's a £5k limit?

It seems odd that suspension falls outside of named component into comp.

Are those renewal quotes different due to the lapse or mileage? I got Named £250 and assist quoted at £590 for example, not £710.

Hello

If its any help I just renewed mine for £951 (Comprehensive, BMW Emergency and £0 Excess).

Cheers
Scott

ScottK said:

Hello

If its any help I just renewed mine for £951 (Comprehensive, BMW Emergency and £0 Excess).

Cheers
Scott

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It would help if you paid mine :wink: Just kidding.

Stupid isn't it? I've just paid £400 to ruin my tyres at a carlimits day, £200 to ruin someone else's at a rally day the week before, I'm contemplating spending £400 on an espresso machine, just spent £400 on a snowboard I can't use for 9 months and yet I'm quibbling the cost of this.

Raify said:

Stupid isn't it? I've just paid £400 to ruin my tyres at a carlimits day, £200 to ruin someone else's at a rally day the week before, I'm contemplating spending £400 on an espresso machine, just spent £400 on a snowboard I can't use for 9 months and yet I'm quibbling the cost of this.

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Not at all. It's down to the fact that all those other things you've paid for have resulted in a physical item being gained by you.
In the case of the warranty, you don't get any value out of it unless you need to claim.

True. I've been lucky with the car too. Aside from the parking graze and fake wheels I didn't spot at Dick(head) Lovett's , the car hasn't missed a beat.

It's a risk versus reward argument. Do I think the rear springs will break (in which case I'd need comprehensive), or the lambda sensor fail?

Out of interest did you get a discount on those prices as they are lower than the ones Booner posted (unless I'm missing something!)

glastoveteran said:

Out of interest did you get a discount on those prices as they are lower than the ones Booner posted (unless I'm missing something!)

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I asked the same question. I presume that either the mileage of the car, or the fact that the policy has lapsed makes a difference. I just poked around the bmw warranty site to get my quotes.

Those prices are odd.

I pay £69pm for fully comp without assist. Excess £100.

I imagine they are charging Booner a premium as the car was out of warranty for a while.

Don't do it !!!!!!!!!
Okay, I don't really want to pursuade you and have you shout at me when your car goes wrong, but its an insurance policy and like all insurance policies, the 'average' person does not gain from it.
As you car is a weekend toy, clocking up few miles probably, I would be even more tempted to skip the warranty completely. Instead, put the equivalent savings you make from not taking out the warranty (say £850 a year) into a special savings pot. I would place a good amount of money on you running the car for say five years and even though you might make some repairs, that savings pot will be overflowing with cash.

£250 for driveline with a £5000 limit IMO is expensive also. How often does the driveline need work these days? Only if very unlucky

IMO of course

daz05 said:

I pay £69pm for fully comp without assist. Excess £100.

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Well I just tried an online quote and for that package it quoted me £90pm or £984 annual, so yours seems like a very good deal in comparison.

That price is also higher than the corresponding price on Booner's list as well, so not quite sure why they are proposing to sting me so much?!

This is an interesting question.

I had a CSL 2 years ago and bought it second hand with the one *must have* being the BMW extended warranty - for pure piece of mind.

2 months after I bought it, the vanos had major issues and it was fixed at BMW for £3500 - obviously all covered under the 'no excess' warranty.

Granted, if I didnt have a warranty, I would have cried (a lot) and then taken it to a specialist and the bill may have been half that so the above cost avoidance isnt strictly accurate.

I have just bought A z4mc from Dick Lovett - with normal *real* wheels and the 12 months AUC is very important to me - hence why I went down that route.

Another recent 'warranty' scenario relating to my recently sold e90 m3. The car was brand new and 2 months in, the Power Steering blew up. Ok, it was all covered under manufacturers warranty but I would rather not ever have to think about paying a dealer, at dealer rates for a repair of that nature when the car is out of warranty.

My opinion is, I would rather have a specialist work on my car all day long (ie. Phil Crouch @ CPC). However this would invalidate my warranty and would also laughably render my car less complete to 'the trade' as it would not have a full Main Dealer service history. I think most enthusiast independants do a much better job than certain dealership apprentices.

So Raify, if you plan to skip the warranty, I would start getting the car serviced outside of the BMW network also. Other than inflated prices, I do not see any value in using a dealership other than potentially some good will gestures if the sh1t does hit the fan.

But if you are contemplating not taking out a warranty due to the risk of a major failure being unlikely, then I would hazard a guess that you will not think 'BMW goodwill' will ever be required or is highly unlikely.

Having said all the above, I ran my Z3M Coupe without any warranty 2 years ago for 2 years and had no issues to speak of.

My major problem area is the doubt with regards to the reliability of the S54 engine at times and this would ensure I always had some BMW insured warranty.

Don't forget the plus sides of the warranty - some bizarre things get pushed through - I had new RTAB's and a full KDS and new brakes all round laughably paid for under warranty on my CSL. It is certainly worth something as long as you do claim.

Rgds

Rags

I'm with DarrenM on this one, it's a lottery. Chances are you'll be wasting your money, it's all down to peace of mind. If a complete failure worries you so much you cannot sleep at night, then pay the money. If not, blow it on more nice things, you're only here once.

I'd be more gutted if I'd spent a grand on a warranty and not used it!

Rags, is that entirely accurate? I know that here in the US, you CAN have warranty work done by independents but you have to document to the nth degree.

Rags said:

I have just bought A z4mc from Dick Lovett

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My condolences. I hope you suffer none of the rubbish I did.

This is partly why I'm considering it. When my car was under the AUC warranty, neither the dealer or BMW customer services had any "good will" to offer me for the sake of an £800 set of wheels. If the gearbox went pop on a 20k mile car, you'd expect some goodwill from BMW, but I wouldn't.

Darren M said:

£250 for driveline with a £5000 limit IMO is expensive also. How often does the driveline need work these days? Only if very unlucky

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If it was only that much, I'd get it just to cover a potential VANOS. I've been quoted £396 for no assist and £250 excess driveline.

This comes up heaps.. the law was changed so they couldn't refuse an independant servicing it to ruin the manufacturers warranty, but the extended one is different. Not only does it require you to keep servicing it with BMW during the extended, it would have had to have been all the way through.

My choice is pretty clear I think - either service it at Indis all the way through and know the warranty will lapse at 3yrs with a bucket of money saved, or stick to dealers and probably renew.

Having said that - on a recent ring around for Insp 2, one dealer said they'd match Indi prices - Sytner i think, so this makes this argument kinda redundant too.

Mine is one of the very earliest about, I got a warranty, I haven't used it once and the 12months is almost up, but I can drive safe not caring.

I'm sure people have said before that a third party warranty isn't really worth considering, yet given that many of them allow repairs to be completed at any VAT registered garage (presumably including BMW), why not?

Is it a case of them trying to weasel out of claims, or possibly generally very low claim limits?

Sorry I'm sure there are loads of threads on this.

Raify said:

Rags said:

I have just bought A z4mc from Dick Lovett

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My condolences. I hope you suffer none of the rubbish I did.

This is partly why I'm considering it. When my car was under the AUC warranty, neither the dealer or BMW customer services had any "good will" to offer me for the sake of an £800 set of wheels. If the gearbox went pop on a 20k mile car, you'd expect some goodwill from BMW, but I wouldn't.

Darren M said:

£250 for driveline with a £5000 limit IMO is expensive also. How often does the driveline need work these days? Only if very unlucky

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If it was only that much, I'd get it just to cover a potential VANOS. I've been quoted £396 for no assist and £250 excess driveline.

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There's your answer... You couldn't get them to sort the wheels... What's to say you won't have to argue everything when it comes to claiming on the extended warranty too. More so in fact, I bet.

My dealer has generally been quite good, but I have had to argue some things and demonstrate some things myself just to get them to look at it, and this is under the standard warranty.

I totally agree with Rags' post, the warranty is a must for me on these cars. I extended mine last year and have had a gear box replacement and an airbag warning light issue paid for so far. I have a list of faults needing rectified under warranty when I next get it serviced, nothing major but which will add up to a decent sum which I'm glad I don't have to fork out for. As I've said before it all depends on your attitude to risk, if you can live with a bill of several thousand pounds in the worst case scenario then don't renew the warranty. If you can't, renew it. I'm not as impressed with BMW reliability as some posters are in this thread.