NO, NO, NO!
Firstly, you could just go buy a Jayco or KZ which both have 2 year warranties. Well worth the piece of mind built into the purchase price. Secondly, research on the internet until you are sick of it in order to try and determine which brands/models are better quality. Not an easy task though. Don't impulse shop at an RV show. If I were to do it over and had some extra cash laying around, I'd be looking closely at an Outdoors RV Winder River model. Great quality, design features and options. Way ahead of most of the others. Stay away from ultra-lite units if you can. "Ultra-lite" by definition means lesser overall quality and durability in order to save weight. But just because it says "ultra-lite" doesn't actually mean it's way lighter. It sure can be confusing when trying to compare apples to apples and even apples to oranges....
Between DW and myself, one is a CMA (accountant) and one an engineer with MBA. When we bought our new TT earlier this year, we looked long and hard at the extended plan that was offered to us. We spent many hours doing our due diligence by reading anything we could find on the internet. In the end, we decided against the extended plan. This was some of our reasoning:
I don't know about your particular make, but I have read all too often about owners that have problems while still under warranty and they get refused coverage anyway. Trailer Life mag. always has stories on this. If you fight hard and/or take the right approach, sometimes you will finally get covered but sometimes not. For example, if you get end up with frame cracks or damage, they will try and blame it on you when in fact it's substandard design.
If you have a 2 year factory warranty, then 2 years is plenty of time to deal with the "usual" things that typically happen. Even within one year it can be okay, especially if you stay on top of things and keep looking for things that break, fail or don't seem right. Even if you can't get it in before the end of 12 months, if you can notify them in writing, you should get covered. For example, it took us over a year to get faulty brakes fixed on our last TT but because we had started the complaint process before the end of 12 months, they paid for the repair. (Brakes were faulty when they left the factory)
After the expiry of your initial warranty period, things that go wrong hopefully will be of a smaller nature and not too costly to repair. If you are handy, it may not be worth the aggravation of having to go to a shop and it's easier to just fix it yourself.
Despite what you may be told or think to yourself, you may simply not have your brand spankin' new unit as long as you think. If it's your first one, it's part of the learning curve. After a year or two, you may be at an RV show and see a nicer longer and fancier TT that you just hafta have. Ex. - it happened to us at the beginning of this year after owning our last one (and first) 20' TT for only a year. We swore up and down it was all we ever needed. This happens a lot...
In the first few years, your TT value plummets. If and when you go to sell it or trade it in, dealers and others will go by the blue book value. Won't matter what mods or upgrades it has or what extended warranty goes with it. It's shocking how much value they can lose. That extended warranty that gave you piece of mind at first could really be a loss in the end...
You need to read the fine print in those warranty plans. If you look at things really closely, you may very well find that things that don't usually break are covered and the expensive things that can or do like fridges, AC units, TVs, furnaces, etc. are not covered or are very restrictive.
When we were reading on forums what others said about the extended warranties, it seemed like a significant majority were saying don't spend the money. I'm very handy with building and repairing things so am not afraid to tackle most things and can't see paying the extra on a warranty for someone else to do it.
The plan that we were offered was a generic RV one plus it included a number of things that we didn't even have in our TT. We would therefore having been paying for things that we didn't even have. Not great right there...
If you do get the extended warranty, sometimes you also need to consider what the dealer's service quality is like. With some, it can take many, many weeks to fix things. They give you an appt. to have it looked at (could be 1-2 weeks). They ask you to leave it there. Then they wait for authorization for repair (could be another 1-2 weeks). Next they order parts and wait to arrive. Easily couple of weeks sometimes. Then they schedule your work into their "busy" schedule which can be another couple of weeks. Overall, it can be between 1-2 months. BTDT. You have to ask yourself, is it really worth having your unit sidelined that long, especially if in the camping season? I'd rather fix it myself and be done with it or maybe go to an independent shop (depending on cost).
There's also the question of how well the factory/plant supports warranty issues. Some are really bad and sometimes you get passed off to a 3rd party like Lippert even though you have no direct contractual relationship with them. I'd be checking brand/model-specific forums for info. on this.
Learn what problems and maintenance things you need to look out for in the first year. If you aren't comfortable with checking your unit thoroughly, take it to an independent shop and pay for an inspection before the 12 month warranty period expires. On our current TT, we found out just weeks after we bought it that all the plastic spring bushings were shot. Just the 2,000+ mile delivery trip from the plant to the west coast was enough to wear them out. We only found this out because we took it to a frame shop for inspection several weeks after we took possession of the trailer. And we only took it to a frame shop after an independent repair/parts shop I took it to (just one day after we got it) for some LP fittings under the TT noticed something wasn't right with the suspension. If you start discovering problems like this 13 months after your purchase, you will be SOL. So don't wait for things to break, check everything out thoroughly before the end of 12 months. That will go a long way to not needing the extended warranty plan.
If you have lots of spare money floating around, go for it. I'd rather keep the money and spend it on some nice RV goodies instead.
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Gil & Deb & Dougal the Springer Spaniel
2013 KZ Spree 261RKS & 2009 F250 with LB & V10
Langley, B.C.
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