Dear Honest John
The three-year warranty on my VW Phaeton will be up in January 2008, but I have already started thinking about buying an extended warranty as I wish to keep the car for several more years. I am looking for a package as good as the manufacturer's warranty and would be grateful for your advice.
Kind regards
Deepak Tripathi
Surrey, UK
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Open a building-society account named "Phaeton". Put into it as much as you would have to pay for a top-notch warranty. If you need the money, it's there; if you don't, it's there anyway and you can spend it. At least a warranty company won't get it.
I would have faith in the Phaeton and would also bet on any warranty company being extremely skilled at avoiding a pay-out on any claim. I ran after-market warranties on two MBs for a total of three years; the only claim I tried to make was rejected. Few of the other things that have had to be fixed on my cars over the past five years would have qualified for warranty claims; those that might have done cost far lesss than the warranty premium.
Take care of your Phaeton: get it serviced properly and give it fresh oil frequently. I envy you. I trust that you are enjoying it.
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Roger Jones for Chancellor of the Exchequer! What a very sound and 'prudent' piece of advice!
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Hard work pays off in the future - Laziness pays off now!
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Ditto health insurance, household appliance insurance etc.
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Health insurance is slightly different. You can rack up bills of several thousand pounds quite easily, and without health insurance private hospitals and consultants will think very carefully about even talking to you till they have established the state of your finances.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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without health insurance private hospitalsand consultants will think very carefully about even talking to you till they have established the state of your finances. ------------------------------ TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
"Think very carefully", thats an understatement, they don't even let you past the reception desk until they have full payment, and this is the voice of very costilly expierence talking!!!!!!!!!!!
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Mother in law had an operation privately recently. Did not have health insurance but didn't pay until after the operation. The BMI hospital also had finance product so you could borrow the money. It did costs thousands though.
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Private Health is Very expensive buying as an individual.
If you want to cut costs dramatically take the first £2000 or £3000 of any claim.
That way if you are really ill then you pay something - minor complaints pay with the cash you have saved on the much lower premiums.
Phaeton Insurance? Big parts bills if something major goes wrong but then again some of the parts are from the VW bin and might be less expensive then unique Phaeton parts.
Toyota used to charge more for car parts than van parts for a common engine. Some Computer Companies charge more for disks for a UNIX box than a PC even althought the disks are identical
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Yes but how often do you need the cover? I have known people pay health insurance premiums for years and never make a claim. Also when you get older and are more likely to need treatment, the premiums go ballistic. I only take out cover when going abroad, in the UK I think it's unnecessary, if I need private treatment I will pay out of my savings and I have done this in the past. A lot of private hospitals also do 'deals', about ten years ago when I was shopping around for wisdom teeth extraction, it was amazing how the price fell once they knew I was paying myself and not on insurance...
But back to motoring - I would put the money into an account for a rainy day.
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". . . it was amazing how the price fell once they knew I was paying myself and not on insurance . . ."
Now, doesn't that look familiar: body repairs, glass replacement, etc. Insurance cover = gravy for the suppliers and inflation of premiums for the rest of us.
I take no credit for my suggestion above. Someone else on this board made the same suggestion several years ago, and good sense it is too.
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Jones new Wed 11 Oct 06 10:36
". . . it was amazing how the price fell once they knew I was paying myself and not on insurance . . ."
Try renewing AA cover by saying you don't want to renew by phone. They will cut your premium in half .. we found.
I regularly ring up my broadband supplier (NTL) every 6 months and get a price reduction..
"If you don't ask, you don't get " as the bishop said to the actress...
madf
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I am looking for a package as good as the manufacturer's warranty and would be grateful for your advice.
Do VW themselves offer an extended warranty (or at least one in their name, even though it may be underwritten by a 3rd party)? This would probably provide the most comprehensive cover, and it would probably also provide a breakdown/recovery service too, which otherwise you'd have to pay for separately (if you chose to have such cover). They would also cover the cost of having rpairs done in a VW garage.
I note the comments from others about putting the money in the bank, but one thing to consider is that, if your car needed very expensive repairs, could you afford to have them done? If not, then buy the warranty.
The other thing is that what you're really buying is peace of mind and the value of that varies from person to person. I would be wary of some of the 3rd party warranty providers though - they seem to frequently want to weasel out of paying and they pay minimal labour rates to dealers so some won't deal with them.
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Hi Roger
Thanks for your useful input. Otherwise, I was wondering whether I had started a thread on car warranty, health insurance or savings accounts!
Actually, VW UK Luxury Cars Division is, in my experience, very good in its customer relations and staff there answer my questions politely and helpfully.
My information is that VW does have its own extended warranty package, but it is about £1600 per year, four times more expensive than the RAC Gold Star, and only one year at a time. I understand that VW UK is working on a package with another financial house that will be more competitive, but it may take a year or so. It may well be on the market by January 2008, when my manufacturer's warranty expires, if I am lucky.
Kind regards
Deepak Tripathi
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"but it is about £1600 per year,..."
For once, I am speechless...
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VW UK realises it, because it is not selling. Besides, the warranty package was not yet approved by the FSA until a couple of months ago. It explains why efforts are under way to come out with a new, sensibly-priced extended warranty package.
Kind regards
Deepak Tripathi
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Yes, it depends on your attitude to risk. Mine is that there is a small chance of something very expensive going wrong with a modern car that is well maintained and a large chance that it will not be accepted as a claim if it does occur.
As someone whose eyes glaze over when people start talking insurance, I choose the self-insure option. I would also say that my position is informed by owning seven cars over the past 15 years (company cars previously), four of which I still have. The few expensive jobs that have come up (notably head gaskets) would not have stood up as warranty claims; indeed, it was a head-gasket job that was rejected by a warranty company (I had forgottent this, which means that there was another claim that also failed). I can't pretend that either head-gasket job was a surprise, because my mechanic knew about these weaknesses before I chose to get them fixed (they could have been tolerated for a lot longer), one after purchase (hence the warranty claim) and one before purchase (hence a chunk knocked off the price).
Finally, be aware that warranty companies have their own rates for the job. Your dealer may charge £100 an hour, but your warranty company may pay out only £40 an hour.
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Thank you for your reply.
Kind regards
Deepak Tripathi
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I have similar views, Roger.
When I personally ordered my V70 2.4T SE from a Dutch dealer in December 2002 for March 2003 delivery, I did so knowing that on one hand I was saving £6500 on UK list price and bettering even the best broker deal but on the other I was only going to get the manufacturer's two year warranty; the third year, normally provided by the dealer in the UK, I was not going to get. It was going to take a lot going wrong in that third year though before I was out of pocket, and on previous family Volvo experience that was a risk worth taking.
So, did I buy an extended warranty to cover the third year? No, of course not.
Do I have one today? After all the risk of expensive failure will have increased. No.
Instead I invested the "saving" as premium bonds and have continued to invest what I would have spent on a warranty, likewise. They are currently tracking ahead of my savings account, with the (small) possibility of a large win, tax free, and easy to get at if the car goes Pete Tong big style. Of course I also don't have the worry about whether something is a claims item or not.
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"Finally, be aware that warranty companies have their own rates for the job. Your dealer may charge £100 an hour, but your warranty company may pay out only £40 an hour."
True, but what dealers charge you and I and what they charge leasing and warranty companies are 2 different things, I suspect.
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True, but what dealers charge you and I and what they charge leasing and warranty companies are 2 different things, I suspect.
my leasing company pays a fixed price + consumables. ( and they dont get charged for rubber gloves and screenwash gunge)
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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"Finally, be aware that warranty companies have their own rates for the job. Your dealer may charge £100 an hour, but your warranty company may pay out only £40 an hour." True, but what dealers charge you and I and what they charge leasing and warranty companies are 2 different things, I suspect.
The dealership may well decline to do the job at the warranty company's rate, of course....
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> The dealership may well decline to do the job at the warranty company's rate, of course....
'I need twice that a minute just to get out of bed, squire....'
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