Peace of mind money

S

Stuart Truman

Lifer
 The Cotswolds
I decided to renew IMmie's warranty for peace of mind. I really can't afford a major failure this year.

For reference this was he quote:

2006 MR current mileage 14321
No modifications from factory components
I opted out of their roadside assist as you're covered more than half a mile from home and I have a full RAC package anyway.

Comprehensive cover

£1020 no excess
£809 £100 excess

I went for the £100 excess as I had for #69

No idea if WD would have been cheaper if I'd spoken to them. A look on their website a few weeks ago showed them more expensive and I hate them anyway. I've had nothing but pushy obnoxious sales people on the phone whenever I've made the mistake of putting my details into their quote system.

As an aside, when I tried to do this on the BMW site it refused to quote saying the mileage I'd entered was lower than they had on record. When talking to them today they said they had a mileage of over 90k on file! Turns out that Lovett had put a works number in the mileage field. He went onto another system to pull the warranty and service history and all was resolved *phew*

Having spent the money, what's the betting I have a massive shiny moment tomorrow :lol:
 
Yeah I think ours is about £500. I'm contemplating renewing mine at the end of Feb.
 
This was cheaper than the Alpina, which was also low mileage with a full bmwsh. Like I said, it's a peace of mind thing and I can't afford for a major mishap so I'll suck it up.
 
It is a gamble, but I have not had warranty for coming up to 4 years now, so that is £3200 - £4000 saved so far. In my case it was the right choice.

My opinion is that if the car is not a daily, and the mileage per year is low, I would not take out a warranty.
 
I'm with PVR, mainly because mines a third car and do a few k per year. So I'm about £1,600 up going on Stuarts prices. I do believe these cars are pretty bullet proof and if you are good with spanners etc you can sort most things yourself for a lot less than dealers would charge.
 
I've always stuck £200 a month in a separate bank account, usually have several thousand saved towards my replacement come time to change.

this time it's been plundered for a new kitchen... :(
 
Had a similar quote for mine with 40k on mine (56 plate).

£1040k no excess

£808 £100 excess

£653 £250 excess

I might go with the £650 one when mines up in several months just incase of any major failures anything less than £250 I can probably do myself for cheap and hopefully no more than two expensive claims in a year and I'll be better off/about even.
 
My warranty is on a rolling contract with BMW no excess....£40 a month....but with no breakdown included as I have it with my bank.....
 
Stark said:
My warranty is on a rolling contract with BMW no excess....£40 a month....but with no breakdown included as I have it with my bank.....
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Is that for an M?
 
Jesus, that's quite some money. I don't think I'd ever take one out, I'd rather just take the risk and hit the spanner if I hit a problem.
 
So far I've not had any issues with my ///M and I have been stuffing about $2,000.00 a year away for any major issue which sooner or later I'm sure will come... :cry:
 
Personally I think these warrantys are a real rip off. As previously stated, stick the £100/month in a bank account. If you're unlucky you spend it on repairs. If your not, upgrades or a family holiday. We own BMW's not TVR's.
 
Mrbodger said:
Personally I think these warrantys are a real rip off. As previously stated, stick the £100/month in a bank account. If you're unlucky you spend it on repairs. If your not, upgrades or a family holiday. We own BMW's not TVR's.
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I've paid out £80/month since I started the warranty 5 years/95k miles ago, so about £5k in total.

It sounds a lot until you realise I've had an engine & VANOS, diff, 2 sets of PDC, a wheel bearing, a wiper relay, 3 replacement cam chest gaskets and some seals/gaskets for the air-con.

Total value of claims (for parts & labour - remembering that the labour rate is the BMW Warranty rate of about £40/hour, not the £140/hour customer rate) is about £20k.

Whilst I may be an outlier on the bell curve and would agree that it's not the right option for a 1000 mile a year car, a new engine could be needed by anyone whether they've done 10k miles or 100k miles. Mine only had 23k on it when the engine went, and there was £3.5k of labour for diagnosis/replacement in that first bill.
 
mmm-five said:
Mrbodger said:
Personally I think these warrantys are a real rip off. As previously stated, stick the £100/month in a bank account. If you're unlucky you spend it on repairs. If your not, upgrades or a family holiday. We own BMW's not TVR's.
Click to expand...
I've paid out £80/month since I started the warranty 5 years/95k miles ago, so about £5k in total.

It sounds a lot until you realise I've had an engine & VANOS, diff, 2 sets of PDC, a wheel bearing, a wiper relay, 3 replacement cam chest gaskets and some seals/gaskets for the air-con.

Total value of claims (for parts & labour - remembering that the labour rate is the BMW Warranty rate of about £40/hour, not the £140/hour customer rate) is about £20k.

Whilst I may be an outlier on the bell curve and would agree that it's not the right option for a 1000 mile a year car, a new engine could be needed by anyone whether they've done 10k miles or 100k miles. Mine only had 23k on it when the engine went, and there was £3.5k of labour for diagnosis/replacement in that first bill.
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Wasn't it the case that they made your engine worse though trying to fix the initial issue?

These things could be hard to prove though if it were the customer having to pay the bill though.
 
srhutch said:
Wasn't it the case that they made your engine worse though trying to fix the initial issue?

These things could be hard to prove though if it were the customer having to pay the bill though.
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Wasn't it the case that they made your engine worse though trying to fix the initial issue?

These things could be hard to prove though if it were the customer having to pay the bill though.[/quote]
That's what I believe as it was a simple misfire with an yellow EML. We'd already tried switching it on/off a few times, resetting the error codes, and swapping the coils/plugs.

The guy who finally came, after BMW Assist telling me to drive it 30 miles to the closest dealer (which was over 200 miles from home), just kept resetting the codes and revving the nuts off it to 'clear a fuel blockage'. It turned out he was a 'general' technician on call, and he wasn't a BMW specialist. Should have known really as his vehicle wasn't BMW Assist branded.

Finally he agreed it was something more serious (still with only a yellow EML light) and towed me the 30 miles to the local dealer.

Then came the argument from the dealer that I'd revved the nuts off it and had caused a bit of a valve to go into the engine - which was disproved when the couldn't find any valve with damage.

Then it was due to a scored camshaft - which was disproved when they showed it to me and I wiped the 'score marks' away with a finger.

Then it was down to a shim falling into the engine - which was disproved when they couldn't show me which shim was missing or how an extra one could have made its way into there.

Every time they came up with a reason we knocked them back when we asked for evidence. Finally they said they'd got a goodwill payment from BMW - which was also a lie as BMW told me directly that they'd paid out on the claim under the AUC warranty. The only thing they wouldn't pay for was (in their words) the excessive diagnostic costs.

I had to pay the remainder for this 'excessive diagnostic cost' and items I was told BMW wouldn't pay for, before they'd release the car.

They wouldn't even give me a copy of the warranty claim/invoice for my records, but I obtained a copy by subterfuge and found out that the costs they'd claimed BMW wouldn't pay we in fact paid in full. So I drove over and threatened to do a charge back on my CC using the invoice and their letters as proof that they were trying to scam me & BMW through double-billing.

Finally got the bill (to me) down to about £1k from about £4k.

Won't mention which barrel-maker dealer it was :evil:

The lesson from that event taught me to refuse any 'technician' that isn't a BMW Assist branded one.

I wouldn't berate/bemoan anyone who chooses to either buy/not buy a warranty, as it's all down to personal choice & circumstances, cashflow and risk factoring, and for me, with this car, doing this mileage it was a no brainer. What I wouldn't do though is buy an 80k mile Z4MC and expect to only have to pay £80/month for warranty, as I was debating whether to cancel mine for a year - when I was not working and thus not doing many miles - but I was shocked that the price of a new monthly policy would have been double what I was currently playing (i.e. close to £2k a year). That would have definitely been a no go for me.

ETA, just re-checked and BMW won't offer a full comp policy for mine as it's over 100k miles, but if I put in 80k miles they want £400 a month!
 
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