Folks: I have an aging F-150 pickup, and while it’s been a great truck over the 10 years I’ve had it, my luck is starting to run out. I’m staring at a repair of at least $800 in the next couple of days (rear bearings), and there’s probably more where that came from.
Do any of you have experience with auto repair insurance/extended warranty companies? I’m talking about companies like US Fidelis and Mogi. (I’m aware that US Fidelis is currently in trouble for illegal telemarketing.)
Well the one I had with my 2001 dodge ram ( I can’t remember the name of the company off hand ) worked out pretty good. I needed over 2k in repairs and it only ended up costing me 150 bucks. Though it was my understanding that once you used the warranty that was it and you couldn’t use it again.
All in all I was pretty happy that I bought it because with a repair bill like that it would have been a bitch to come up with that out of pocket.
Marcus, how does it benefit them to have you enrolled just to kick you out after you have one big repair - if it then means they’ve got a negative income from you?
Insurance is only worth it if you really can’t afford the downside, like a $300K bill for the wreck you just caused. If you feel like you need warranty coverage for an old vehicle, then get rid of it.
I don’t know what’s involved with a rear bearing repair on a truck but $800 seems a touch high. Might be able to shop around and shave a hundred bucks.
And drive what? I’m not interested in getting into a car payment again. The idea is to hold this vehicle together for as long as possible and as economically as possible.
A car payment for a nice low mileage used vehicle might not be a bad idea if your current one is really starting to fall to pieces. Might be less than the insurance even.
My grandfather, who was wise in the ways of cars, told me that if ever the annual repair cost of a car approached or exceeded 1/2 its value, sell it. This maxim has worked well for me several times. I’m sure he was around he’d agree that these coverages aren’t worth it
Also, $800 does sound high for just rear bearings…get more estimates.
$800 to change some wheel bearings is definitely a robbery. An F-150 has two rear wheels, not four, right?
The last time I had to change bearings, on a Golf 3 GTI, it cost about €100-120, parts and labour. I’ve just checked, a cheap complete set of rear bearings can be had for as little as €5-10, so I’d say if you’re buying a set of fairly good bearings, €50 per wheel (there’s two bearings per wheel) sounds fair.
That’s not hard stuff. Sounds like more work than it is.
Today, I took out the gearbox, transmission shaft and the driveshafts of a BMW I’m scrapping for parts. Didn’t really take long.
The description in your link sounds like an hour worth of work, two hours max. A cheap extractor to pull out the old bearings costs €10-20, and if you’re really strapped for cash, you don’t even HAVE to use a press to get the new ones in. A few strokes with a plastic hammer and they’re in.
When I had to change the bearings on my Golf I only paid a shop to do it because I didn’t have a proper jack at the time, and didn’t feel like getting my hands dirty :)
Anyway, originally I wasn’t really suggesting he change them himself, I just meant to say that for a garage with a pneumatic wrench and a lifting platform, that stuff is done in way less than an hour, and bearings are cheap. $800 is a ripoff.
The vast majority of these extended warranty places have a ream of fine print based around what you can and cannot claim.
My dealer and I just had a long conversation about this, as I’ve been satisfied with the “Service Plan” warranty that they sold me when I bought my car, but the “Tire Protection” warranty appears to be a crock of shit. They only protect against blowouts, they consider three years to be the “life of the tire”, and they will only cover replacement on the tires that technically fit the car, and not the suggested, speed-rated tires that the manufacturer originally puts on the car.
