Extended Warranty

fatboyonadiet

Not sure if this is the best board??

Looking to get an extended warranty for my washing machine, I used to use Domestic and General but their prices seem to have shot up a little, I've had a look at WarrantyEX and WarrantyCare which seem to be a little more reasonable.

Does anyone have an experience of these companies or can they recommend any others?

McKneff

To be perfectly honest my own opinion would be to leave well alone and save your money.

Say you pay them £15 a month for 3 years. Thats a whopping £540.00 enough
for nearly 2 washing machines.

Say you pay them £15.00 a month for 5 years. thats a whopping £900. nearly enough for 3 washing machines.

Put the money into a separage savings account (by standing order or DD just as you would do to a company and only use for any repairs
over the 3 or 5 years. (personally i have never had a washing machine break down in the first 5 years.)
The likelihood is that you'll be quids in.

delain

I had a washer dryer and cooker from comet and my nan took out their three year insurance for me and this was invaluable as when the washing machine went out with a bang i got a brand new one (although i did have to shout at them - they wanted to repair it) and when my cooker finally died i got a voucher to its purchase value (paid £170 on top and got a zannussi - i will NEVER own another belling!) now they do 5 year insurance (like i have on my new cooker) for £130 which in my opinion is quite good.

so whoever does comet's insurance are quite reasonable, and (with a bit of shouting) won't keep repairing it forever.

fatboyonadiet

The quotes are around £120 for 4 years which isn't too bad IMO, if it was much more than that I wouldn't bother, plus I have had extended warranties in the past and they've always seemed to pay for themselves

ormus

you can buy a new WM for about 200 quid (and with a new minimum 12 month warranty). normally a WM will last about 7 yrs.
i certainly wont use Domgen, my auntie had a bad experience with them. it cost her 75 quid with excess and delivery.
search this forum for domgem problems.

Dubs

My AEG washing machine, bought in 2005 for £450+ has just been written off by Domestic & General. I have paid £210 in total for extended warranty. I'd expected an AEG machine to last longer than 4 years (my previous Hoover WM lasted 16 years!) so I was very pleased I had taken out the extended warranty.

I've been told that I have £125 to pay before they will order my new WM; £60 is the remainder of the policy (fair enough) as I pay by d/debit and £65 is delivery. I will be advised of a delivery date within 48 hours of the order being placed. Considering I could order this same item online from any number of retailers with FREE, next day delivery, I think their £65 charge is out or order. When I told them that, standard reply is "that's what the manufacturer charges us". When I asked if I could arrange purchase with a supplier of my choice, I was told "only if we can't offer you an alternative, then we'd give you vouchers to spend at Comet but they would take much longer to organise".

I strongly object to such a hefty delivery charge and would have thought that getting so much business from Domestic & General, they would be able to offer a better deal; my suspicion is this is just a way to claw back more money.

Not happy!

mikeandrach_2

[normally a WM will last about 7 yrs. sorry, statistically the average is around half that, even worse if you inclue washer dryers.

kwatt

Engineer's take on extended warranties in this article.

In the end it's like anything else, you pays your money and takes your chances. For some people it works, for others it does not.

Personally I'd invest in a better machine up front with a solid warranty and not bother with the warranty extension, especially the store operated ones as they are dodgy for many reasons as are many "manufacturer" warranties. With all the retailers and manufacturers going bust at the moment you could find yourself without any cover, even under a year old which led to this article being written recently.

An example is Empire, they gave a "free" three year warranty which was self-underwritten which, now, is as useful as a chocolate fire guard. Another, MFI, no warranty at all after they went down. Servis UK, another. PAB, another. There's loads.

Domestic & General, despite criticism, are actually one of the best in the business as that's what they do, they specialise in this area. But, like any insurance, it's only good for what it covers although it is obviously a lot more complex than just that.

The average lifespans have dropped of all appliances and are dropping year on year due to cheap, rubbish machines being bought as people try to save money. Only thing is, it doesn't really save money and it certainly isn't environmentally friendly. It doesn't even really do any favours to the UK economy either as many are now made in Asia, or the parts inside them are.

If you really want to see the horrific stats then they are in this article I wrote in 2006. It shocked me as to just how bad it was but, even worse, when you go into the likes of a returns warehouse now you see tons of scrap under three years old due to many of the policies in the industry and the fact that people just think that washers are throw away items now.

You can do a lot better but too many people are fixated on getting the lowest price possible, which is far from being the best machine possible.

K.

CKdesigner

Hi,

It greatly concerns me as Kwatt has said above, that appliance manufacturers build machines to have such a short life and that consumers are prepared to accept this or in fact demand this! Don't get me wrong I'm no 'tree hugger' but what I don't understand is that everyone knows we need to be environmentally aware, but consumers want short life appliances! Its like our government with this £2000 cashback for trading in your 'environmentally harmful' old car for new one, there is much more of an environmental impact to produce the new car than to ever run and maintain your old one! There are so many instances like this today that are harming our environment in name of 'saving it'.

Anyway back to appliances - We have our own business supplying quality bespoke kitchens and Miele appliances. We could easily increase our turnover dramatically by selling cheaper kitchens and cheaper appliances but we won't because we have been in the industry for so long now and seen so many changes, that we know it is completely false economy to buy cheap. For example, the cheapest washing machine you can buy these days is probably £150 say it lasts 2 & 1/2 years thats £60 per year. Where as, you could buy a Miele for £650 but it will last 20 years, thats £32.50 per year! Thats purely the finances and don't forget the environmental impact - you would need 8 £150 machines to last as long! thats 8 x the amount of raw materials, 8 x the energy in producing them, 8 x the transportation impact, etc.

Why are manufacturers and consumers allowed to carry on with these very damaging practices?

CK

ormus

never mind throw away WM we now have the throw away car.

in india they make a car (tatu nano) costing about 1300 quid.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jan/06/india.carbonemissions

stingrayj

Samsung offer a 5 years warranty with their machine WF 8702 - haven't checked but will be just parts I guess.