Warranty Direct, RAC & other aftermarket warranties

Neil_C_4

First post!

I've just bought a 2002 Golf V5 through Autotrader;
- 5 Dr
- 23,000 miles
- silver
- climatronic, 6 cd
- 6 months MOT and road tax
- full VW service history

Prior to the purchase I had the car health checked by the VW dealership that sold it to the previous owner. The price was adjusted to accomodate any work that needed doing;

- £400 for new radiator fans
- £100 for a new plastic lid that surrounds the boot latch

The only mechanical problem was that the radiator fans needed replacing. After a bit of research, I've found out that this is a common problem with MK4 Golfs with Climatronic, and the general consensus is that it is a VW design flaw. I was expecting to pay £400 to get these fixed anyway, but now I'm hoping I can get VW to contribute to fixing this inherent fault.

Obviously I don't want to be paying out £400+ everytime something goes wrong, so this is where an aftermarket warranty will hopefully come in.

Does anyone have any experience with Warranty Direct? I've searched the forum, but there didn't seem to be many first hand experiences of their service.

Warranty Direct seem to have the best reputation when it comes to expensive claims, e.g. gearbox, head gaskets etc. But aftermarket warranties seem to have a bad rep in general, mainly due to the 'wear & tear' exclusion policies, which Warranty Direct claim not to have. I know alot of people believe that aftermarket warranties aren't worth the paper that they are printed on, but surely someone out there provides a decent service?

Any stories good or bad? I really need to hear some first hand experiences of these warranties!

pompeyrich

I too, was unsure of after market warranties following a previous experience with one that required the car to be serviced every 3,000 miles, despite Ford quoted 12,000/ 1 year service interval.

The last car I bought came with a warranty from Olympic Warranties and I have to say they have been very good. They have paid for a new clutch slave cylinder, which is a £5-600 job on my Rover as the gearbox has to come out, they wouldnt pay for the clutch plate though but as the box was out I supplied one and the garage fitted it free.

They also paid for 2 central locking motors and an electric window motor that also packed up, no wonder Rover went under !!

If you put your car details into this site,

http://www.warrantyworks.co.uk

you can get an online quote, I would recommend the £1,000 platinum option.

You can see what is or isnt covered on the above site, however the usual "mechanical failure" as opposed to wear and tear applies and they have a labour charge cap of £35 - £40 per hour, which even my local independant garage charges, you can pay any excess yourself direct to the garage.