Manufacturer extended warranty - worth it?

egyptiancotton

The manufacturer's warranty on my SEAT recently expired, so I purchased their extended warranty at £173 (ish) for a year - all parts covered with no excess. I noticed this week that one of the rear speakers in the car has blown, so that should be covered under the extended warranty. I checked with my local dealer to see how much the part would cost to replace if I were to pay for the work myself, and they said £115 for the part and labour.

Is it worth keeping the extended warranty and getting the speaker replaced, or cancelling it and paying for the work myself? The extended warranty is only £58 more than paying for the work myself, so at least I'd be covered if anything else were to go wrong. Saying that, there's a £90 diagnostic fee (which is waived if the fault is not as a result of wear and tear, accidental damage, etc.) when claiming on the extended warranty. Would appreciate any advice. Thanks.

Grumpy_chap

If you have already purchased the warranty, then that is a decision already made.  Why are you asking the question now about cancelling, rather than simply getting the speaker fixed under the warranty?

egyptiancotton

Grumpy_chap said:

If you have already purchased the warranty, then that is a decision already made.  Why are you asking the question now about cancelling, rather than simply getting the speaker fixed under the warranty?

I'm still within the cooling off period to cancel the extended warranty. I'm weighing up whether to cancel it (and save £58) or keep it and get the speaker done myself.

facade

Depends on whether you feel lucky.

You are betting £173 that something costing more than £173 will break (not wear out) in the next 12 months.

If you claim for the speaker, you are already £115 there, so you only need have a £58 part break to win- how likely is that?

Forget the £90 diagnostic, unless you do your own you'd pay this anyway if something breaks.

born_again

Are you sure that a speaker is covered?
As there are 2 levels of cover.
Even if it is, then if anything else goes wrong then you are in credit.

Ectophile

The advantage with a manufacturer's extended warranty is this should actually pay out if something expensive goes wrong with the car.  The third-party ones are designed not to pay out on anything ever.

Exemplar

I bet a speaker off eBay will only be a few quid and fitting it yourself should only take a few minutes.

AdrianC

Exemplar said:

I bet a speaker off eBay will only be a few quid and fitting it yourself should only take a few minutes.

Upgrade them, even... OEM speakers are usually fairly lousy.

I'll put money on a speaker being knocked back from the warranty, because the usual cause of failure is having music turned up too loud.

egyptiancotton

AdrianC said:
I'll put money on a speaker being knocked back from the warranty, because the usual cause of failure is having music turned up too loud.

Decided to keep the extended warranty in the end. Had two speakers replaced out of it so far. 

AdrianC

There's a turn-up.

But I idly wonder what a pair of decent quality speakers from an audio specialist would have cost, relative to the warranty?