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[pscocoa]

I would be interested in feedback on experiences good and bad on packages from companies such as Warranty Direct (quoted me £300 per annum on my V6 3.2 2001 reg) , AA Warranty (will not cover above 3.0L I now discover), Vauxhall Extended Warranty etc

Did these companies meet expectations?

[Entwood]

In a word .. NO

They will do anything and everything to wiggle out of doing work.

I had one for free, and when I went to try and make a claim; this was the sequence.

1. I phone the number, it takes 25 minutes to be answered, after going through all the details I'm asked to hand the phone to the garage manager, I say I'm at home, thay say I MUST call them from the garage before work can commence.

2. I go to garage, call them on the mobile, takes 20 minutes to get through, Not acceptable .. the garage must phone on land line.

3. Garage tries 4 times over the day to get through ... no answer ( now.. would you expect  a garage to try for 20-30 minutes ?? .. I guess they might try for 5..)

4. Garage phone me and ask what I want to happen.. I say do the job .. what else can I say ??

5. When I phone on my mobile, 30 minutes to get through .. I'm told they won't pay as the work was not authorised.

Now I was lucky, I contacted the selling garage and had a big moan, including threats to involve Trade Descriptions and newspapers ... and they agreed to pay the bill, so i did not lose out .. but I'll never bother with one again .. especially if I had to pay for it !!

The company was called "Customer Protect" or "Auto Protect" .. I think

[Lazydocker]

TBH they generally will say "Fair wear and tear" but if you have a good relationship with the VAT Registered, approved Garage you'll be using they may be able to wangle something for you.

Biggest downside is that a condition is that the car must be serviced by a VAT Registered Garage for it to be valid!

I wouldn't bother personally... Better advice and experience here

[Kevin Wood]

£300 per annum buys you a lot of parts too, when you consider that it doesn't include routine maintenance and servicing.

Chuck £300 per annum in a savings account and you'll soon build up a good "rainy day repair fund". You won't have as much hassle getting your money back either.

Kevin

[Kumamoto]

I have got AA parts and labour warranty which basically covers for any repair work on your  car (mechanical and electrical) under the following conditions:
Car must be under 10 year with less than 100k mileage when joining and car must be serviced by VAT registered garage(they will ask for servicing paperwork  when claiming).
If all conditions are met you can claim upto 5 times per year with a maximum claim limit of £500 per claim (thats £2500per annum).

The only gotcha is that you must call AA patrol man first and if he is uanble to fix the problem by the roadside then you can take it to any vat registered garage.

With 3 miggies since 2002 i have claimed about 10 times and i remeber the last claim was for a gear selector last year.
The most expensive claim i ever had was for a gearbox job which cost £490, all i had to pay was an excess of £25.

I have had a good experience with AA professional, fast service. But you have to pay the garage bill upfront, then they send you a cheque within a week.

And, the whole services just costs £65 per year!!

Hope this helps

[mark.adams]

I bought a warranty with warranty direct when i first got my car, finding a garage that does warranty work was bloody hard i can tell you, my closest was 30 miles away in Cambridge and they were the biggest cowboy outfit i had ever come across... They did the head gasket, didn't clean the cam cover seal when they put it back on and so it leaked, didn't route the pipework across the front of the engine in the tray, water pipe dragged on belt and wore a hole in it. Didn't fit the correct studs to the exhaust manifold, used odd bolts and didn't do them up correctly, didn't flush the cooling system, left me with no heat in the cabin, didn't plug the radiator fan in properly so it never came on. All these things i found since i came across this forum.
Other downside of a warranty company is you have to have the car serviced by an proper garage and stamped otherwise your warranty is invalid. Personally i would prefer to do it myself and i know its been done rather than let a bunch of monkeys all over my car and the apprentice ends up doing the work (badly)....

[Kevin Wood]

This is the biggest issue for me. You have to entrust your car to the motor trade for servicing and repair work (not even your choice of garage either!). No, thanks. Whilst it might appear to be saving you money, those jobs would be very much cheaper done on a DIY basis.

Even the most disastrous failure is going to cost you a couple of hundred quid on a DIY basis plus your time (e.g. exchange cylinder head / replacement engine from scrap yard / ABS ecu refurb). You aren't then locked into paying 500 quid for every cam belt change and 100 quid for every oil change either.

Kevin

[mark.adams]

In addition.... If you do it, you know it's been done, not half finished by the teaboy while the mechanics are playing football in the yard with a rolled up ball of gaffa tape.

[pscocoa]

Thanks for all this - will leave for the time being until I can check out the answers to all the questions you have raised.

[unlucky mark mv6]

Not worth the paper they are wrote on mate.