[wmquan]

Why in the world would anyone need an extended warranty for a 'Honda' product? Heck, even Ford's quality is good enough to not need it!

Nobody's perfect. My Integra's transmission gave out at 26k, and had to be totally replaced (under the original warranty). At 65k the HVAC system failed and took some other components with it, and that failure cost more than the price of the extended warranty that we actually had.

An MDX subsystem failure could be very expensive to repair.

No doubt that many Honda products will never need a repair under the extended warranty. But some of us like having the protection against an unplanned financial spike of a post-original-warranty failure. And, realistically, we're buying first-year model vehicles here, and the MDX has not been quite as bullet-proof as a first-year Accord (it's a complicated product!).

 

[wmquan]

Another Place for Acuracare Extended Warranties

Competition is great.

Check http://www.acurawarranty.com too. For an Acuracare extended warranty, they quote 7/75k for $980 and 7/100k for $1,475, both with $50 deductibles. $0 deductible is an additional $175/$225, respectively.

5-year, 100k w/$50 deductible is $965. Add $175 for $0 deductible.

 

[wmquan]

When to Buy Extended Warranty

No, one does not have to purchase an extended warranty when they buy the vehicle. You can purchase the extended warranty at any point up to the expiration of the original warranty, or very close to the expiration.

So if one doesn't know if they're going to keep the vehicle past the initial warranty period, they can put it off. It may make more financial sense to do so, depending on your circumstances. Though some like to finance the price of he extended warranty as part of the vehicle purchase.

If you look at http://www.acurawarranty.com (which is really just a dealership selling the extended warranties), they quote different prices for different "ages" of the vehicle, up to the point of expiration of the vehicle.

Basically, as an example, the 7/100 warranty is $1,475 with a $50 deductible if you buy within the first 24/24,000 miles, but if you buy after 36/36,000, and before 48/50,000, it will cost $1,595.

I am not quite sure if these "upticks" in price as the vehicle ages is a legitimate Acura/Honda finance price, or just a way of the dealers to scale the prices up to encourage extended warranty purchase simultaneous to the vehicle purchase. Of course, the price of the warranty may rise, but some pushy finance managers will try to make it sound worse than it may be to get the immediate commission.

 

[wmquan]

I'll give you the "first year" thing but we've got a 40k warranty, correct? If it doesn't fail in 40k, it's likely it won't bust. (We call that ELF, Early Life Failure). Hey it's just my opinion. I'm not bashing, I'm just curious on your thoughts.

Nah, we know you're not bashing. No doubt that if a vehicle fails a lot in the first 4/50k we have, it makes sense to get the extended warranty or, better yet, dump it.

However, with my previous Integra, I doubt if the transmission failure at 26k was anyway related to the HVAC failure at 65k. The latter failure probably would have still occurred even if the first one did not.

Of course, having had the first failure made me more conducive to buying the extended warranty just before the original warranty expired.

That's one of the nice things about the AcuraCare extended warranty. Some manufacturers' ones force you to buy within the first year or upon purchase of the car. With some, you figure that their vehicles aren't too reliable so they don't want to sell extended warranties to people who realize they're "in for it!"

The AcuraCare warranty isn't perfect, though. Some third-party warranties let you "sell it back" if you don't end up entering the extended warranty period, or get a pro-rated refund if you sell the car during the extended warranty period. Of course, that's if the extended warranty company is still in business when that time comes!

The AcuraCare warranty is transferrable to another individual in a private sale, but it can't be transferred back to a dealer to transfer to a trade-in's buyer.

 

[wmquan]

Danny

Check the "When to Buy Extended Warranty" message three messages above this one for answers to your questions. Hope it helps; it's totally up to you whether or not you want to buy one. Personally, I'm going to wait until the fourth year and make a decision then.

 

[wmquan]

rgwomack

Do you / can you sell an extended warranty to a Washington state customer?

When my father-in-law tried to buy a Honda extended warranty from a Midwest Honda dealer (who has a very strong reputation for doing this), the dealer said that there is some arcane Washington state law that prevented him from selling the extended warranty to my father-in-law. Dealer said there are only two states in the union that do this.

As you can imagine, if this is true this can significantly limit the scope of competitive pricing for a Washington State customer like myself.

Thanks!