Extended warranties. Are they of any use at all?

cepheus

I have a friend who is a bit of a sucker for extended warranties, but are these of any use at all rather than just poor value? It appears that the items purchased will be covered under the Sales of Goods Act for up to 6 years. Perhaps if there is an extended warranty being peddled with them this is sufficient proof that they may be expected to last at least as long as the extended warranty and would therefore subject to a claim under the Sales of Goods act anyway. So what’s the possible use of extended warranties?

This site http://whatconsumer.co.uk/extended-warranties/ suggests

"you would probably wonder why you should be paying for an insurance policy you effectively already have under the Sale of Goods. The only difference with extended warranties is that they provide additional cover for damage cause by misuse and possibly loss / theft"

Could someone please find me an extended warranty that explicitly states they will provide cover for misuse?:rotfl:and surely loss theft is usually covered on some other insurance policy. I have searched the INTERNET and every extended warranty policy I have seen (not surprisingly) specifically excludes misuse.

So I ask again what is the point? as far as I can see, some can offer new for old rather than repair, not a lot.

smcaul

You are misreading the 6 years thing, all it states is that you have 6 years to make a claim. Goods do not have to last 6 years, they must however be durable!

I am very dubious of extended warranties, in fact there are only 2 that I will ever pay for, and that is more for convenience then anything else. One is for a washer drier and the other is for a fridge freezer, both items that in a house with 2 young kids are a real PITA when they breakdown.

Having said that, only this weekend I have had a Washer Drier replaced that was 14 months old with a brand new one. This was not done under the extended warranty but under the SOGA as it lacked durability. 1 repair in the first month of ownership and 3 more repairs in the last 2 weeks!! I gave them the opportunity to rectify the fault, but they failed so the retailer replaced the machine. All very civil as well, was purchased through a well known supermarkets web site.

cepheus

Did you quote to them the SOGA? The weakness seems to be is that it is vague. What happens after 2 or 3 years?

Actually you are misreading me, I am not suggesting a reasonable lifetime is 6 years but the length of time of the extended warranty itself. This is typically of the order of 3 years from purchase, since this implies they are reasonably confident it will last that long. If so this would strengthen the claim.

smcaul

Yep, I did quote the SOGA. It also depends on the fault etc, our problem was a major fault, not just brushes wearing out or an inlet solenoid failing, for which a repair would have been quite acceptable.

But, trying to find a retailer which has actually trained it's staff in the SOGA is hard to find. Many times I have come up against the "our T&C's say....." line and have had to point them to the paragraph they always contain that says "this does not affect your statutory rights".