Re purchasing a warranty & how many km's is too many ?

[mariontl]

Husband and I are in the process of buying a Winnebago Itasca Sunova 2005 Class A motor home. Ford V10. Has 97,000 km. Husband is thinking of buying warranty to cover the coach and the drive train but it costs $4,300 Canadian.Good idea to buy the warranty or not ? The dealership will be doing a thorough inspection. The km's are 97,000 - Is that too many km's ?
Thanks for any feedback

[Executive45]

I'm in the "get the warranty" family. If, for no other reason for peace of mind while traveling. That said, do read the fine print. Negotiate with the dealer, they've already said they'd knock $500 off if you finance with them. If they can match the interest rate of your credit union why care who gives you/them the money? At $4300/year that's less than $3/day for that peace of mind driving down the road.....BTW, I've had two and both have paid for themselves over the years...Dennis

[dpruettsms]

My humble opinion forget the warranty.

Absolutely get a a learned coach mechanic and pay for his outside opinion.

[wolfe10]

ALWAYS get an independent inspector.

How long do you think a dealer employee would last if he cost the sales department an extra $1000 per rig in reconditioning??????

Come on-- this is just basic business.

[OutdoorPhotogra]

mariontl wrote:
Re the $4300 warranty - it is for four years. The dealership is pushing for us to do our financing through them ( we have been approved by our credit union) and if we did finance through them they would knock $500 off the price of the warranty. They just want their commission. I saw mention of the dealership we are using on a post on this forum, where someone said they use the RVDA certification system for inspection. http://www.rvda.ca/default.asp?action=preowned_public My husband was wondering if we need to hire a mechanic to inspect the vehicle. I think we should be able to trust the inspection done at the dealership (rvda). The dealership already put all new Michelin tires on the motor home before we ever saw it.

Here is why not to trust the dealer and why to pay for an independent evaluation. In the posted thread, maybe the dealer knew about problems and covered it up or maybe they just didnt' check the unit carefully enough. Either way the OP had a painful process and was lucky the dealer eventually agreed to fix the issue.

Rot problem on used unit purchased from a dealer

[mariontl]

Thank you to all the great feedback we have received so far, which is much appreciated.

[mariontl]

Re the $4300 warranty - it is for four years. The dealership is pushing for us to do our financing through them ( we have been approved by our credit union) and if we did finance through them they would knock $500 off the price of the warranty. They just want their commission. I saw mention of the dealership we are using on a post on this forum, where someone said they use the RVDA certification system for inspection. http://www.rvda.ca/default.asp?action=preowned_public My husband was wondering if we need to hire a mechanic to inspect the vehicle. I think we should be able to trust the inspection done at the dealership (rvda). The dealership already put all new Michelin tires on the motor home before we ever saw it.

[JimM68]

Jerry, why would you be happy?

The OP says $4300 for the warrantee, I assume for one year since nothing was mentioned...

If you collected $3k, you are still a grand behind...

Back "in the old days", I sold over a half million in annual service contracts, over a couple decades, on electronic industrial equipment. $400k of that half mill a year was profit!

Service contracts and extended warrantee's are EXTREMELY profitable in any and every business where they are sold.

[gemert]

Lots of posts on this and other forums. If you can afford to replace an engine or transmission the you probably don't need a Ext. Warranty. I bought one and it has paid over 3K in the last year. I'm happy. Just research the type such as exclusionary and incidental damages and such. Research!!!

[Golden_HVAC]

Some of the 'exclusions' are anything that is not lubricated bearing. So a failure of exhaust headers, and they start leaking might not get covered.

Also I have heard of a warranty company requiring that you must change the oil every 3,000 miles, or coverage will end. So miss a receipt for a oil change, and basically the company can say "This is why we did not cover anything, you skipped a oil change back in 2017" and your warranty is not valid anymore.

So read the fine print before going to sign the paperwork. How they can say lack of maintenance on the engine oil changes will effect the coverage of the refrigerator is beyond me. . . Yet I can understand that they want to cover themselves by not covering a seased engine caused by not changing the oil every 5,000 - 7,500 miles as recommended by Ford.

Also it is a insurance plan. They plan on charging enough to cover any expected break downs. So the price is $4,300. Some of that will go to the salesman, some to the dealership, some to the actual insurance company as a profit. About $2,000 - $3,000 will actually go into a fund to make repairs. Their hope is that you will not have more than $1,000 in covered repairs. Their fear is that you might have more than $3,000 in covered repairs.

Your hope is no breakdowns at all! But your fear is that should something break, it will get covered, and you will not be out more than the minimal fee for each breakdown. Yet at the end of 5 years you will be out the $4,300 if you buy the policy.

I don't think that the policy is worth $4,300. Ask if you can get a better price. They probably will come down $1,000 or so. . .

Your engine will last well into 150,000 miles. I do not know how many miles you plan to drive it each year. The transmission might have been replaced, or not? It probably should last up to about 120,000 in motorhome service until needing a rebuild. That can cost around $2,500 - depends. That is probably why the insurance is so expensive on such a older coach. . .

Good luck!

Fred.

[bsinmich]

I have had 6 motorhomes with 5 being used. The only one that gave any problems was the new one. I had a Newmar Mountain Aire for 10 years and never spent $1000, in repairs over the 10 years. I just bought a '75 GMC and bought it the idea of spending another $10K to get it in travel shape. Extended service plans aren't even available for that. You just have approximately 60K miles and that is low mileage for a newer gas MH. I would rather have that than one with only 6K miles or Km. Sitting is harder on an RV than driving. If the tires haven't been changed they should be. $3-4000 for a set.

[OutdoorPhotogra]

Ditto. It all comes down to peace of mind. The numbers will rarely justify the warranty. If you have money to pay for the warranty, you probably have the money to cover an issue that arises.

I've purchased one warranty that I don't regret because it was a relatively low price, $1,500 for coverage on an F-150 with 60,000 miles on it. It gave me peace of mind on a used truck but everything that broke (not much) during the warranty wasn't covered and what was, alternator, broke 45 days after coverage elapsed. I had replaced a transmission on a prior Dodge so $1,500 was worth peace of mind but still doubt I'll ever purchase one again.

[midnightsadie]

those guys are right.

[jerseyjim]

What DIAZR2 is saying: READ THE FINE PRINT on any of these extended warranties. Read the EXCLUSIONS! For instance, they might cover spark plug # 4 but not spark plug # 2.
And...in many cases, whatever breaks is not covered. A 2005 is not an old model. It is, however beyond any standard factory warranty period.

When I bought my motorhome (new) I was, like you, offered an extended plan for a couple thousand bucks. I declined. Turned out that many years later I had to replace the fridge. US$1400. MUCH cheaper than any extentend anything.

So, based on MY experience, forget the extended, put that money in the gas tank and enjoy your travels!

[diazr2]

You can rest assured that no matter what goes wrong with your rig after you buy the insurance that particular item or items will not be covered. Drive train is covered until something goes wrong with it. Then it's no longer covered. 🙂