I know this isn't exactly an insurance related question but I didn't know where else to put it. My father has a 5 year old Mercury Grand Marquis that has about 52,000 miles on it. He keeps getting these invitations to purchase an extended warranty from a place in Washington called Consumer Protection Services. I guess it will cost about $2300 for three years of warranty with a $50 deductible. He has to send them $230 up front to get started and then has 30 days to look it over. Is it worth it? The warranty covers everything mechanical and electrical except for serviceable items that are periodically replaced like ball joints and the like. Does anyone have any experiance with this outfit?

Mike

These generally aren't worth it. They are expensive and you need to read all the fine print as there are a lot of exclusions to what is covered and at what rate. Also who can perform the work, ( sometimes a specified garage, not necessarily near you,) and the type of parts used, ( some recommend used parts for repairs.) There have and still is a lot of complaints against companies that offer these warranties for non compliance and failure to cover repairs or reimbursement.
A good thing one can do is to put that money that would otherwise be used to pay for the warranty into an interest bearing savings account to use for any necessary repair, kind of like a "rainy day fund".

Thanks for the info. I too have heard some bad stories about these places. Very good point about the rainy day fund. I hadn't thought of it that way. :bigthumb:

Mike

Rainy day fund.... :bigthumb:

And anytime I get an unsolicited mailer like that, I suspect a scam. Hell if I'll be sending money to some unkown outfit just because they sent me a letter.

Rainy day fund.... :bigthumb:

And anytime I get an unsolicited mailer like that, I suspect a scam. Hell if I'll be sending money to some unkown outfit just because they sent me a letter.
Now that you bring that up it reminded me that I still get those offers for vehicles that I no longer own. In fact a few of those vehicles I haven't had in my possession for 10 years! I read somewheres that these companies get names and mailing lists from DMV records and auto dealerships among other sources.

Dad said he started getting them even before the warranty was up on the car. I was getting them for a car I recently traded in and it was 7 years old with 113,000 miles on it!

Mike