Extended warranty purchase?

[sashk]

Hi,

So my lease for my 2019 CX5 GT AWD is ending soon and I'm going to purchase my vehicle and looking to buy an extended warranty. As I plan to drive this car for at least 3-4 years, I'd like to purchase an extended warranty. I've called couple of dealers and it's a pain to get a quote and some kind of information from them. Prices range from 1600 to 2000 for 5yrs/60000 miles warranty from Mazda (none of the dealers provided detailed name). So my question is -- are there dealers who can spend 10 minutes on a phone and provide all necessary information without wasting much of the time (mine and theirs) and sign up for the plan which works for me? Mostly this question is to those who shopped around and found someone reliable.
But please, let's not discuss if I need the warranty or not - it's my decision that I want to have it, so it's not point of discussion

Thanks!

 

[hal2]

For some reason I even had trouble getting them to find an actual copy of the agreement. Jot for mothing, but I think I'd find a dealer that sells the Mazda Protection Plan, it falls under the umbrella of Toyota Financial Services, or something like that.

Call Denton Mazda, I think in Ohio

 

[cz5gt]

mission impossible at least my attempts few months back. May be you will have better luck.
Much easier to deal on oem extended warranty with Subaru Honda Toyota or even the american brands. Some are even cheaper.

by the way your most expensive the powertrain has 5yrs/60k miles warranty. So may be the extended warranty is not really worth it.
Or you can always buy your lease through a CPO dealer option but it will cost youprobably the same. The CPO comes with better powertrain warranty and I think 12mo on top of the 3/36.

 

[sm1ke]

The CPO dealer option would probably be your best bet, but I'm not very familiar with that. @dunhillmc, maybe you can assist @sashk on this matter?

As far as where to buy it, I would send a bunch of emails for quote requests to a bunch of dealers. They don't have to be near you, because everything can be done over email or the phone. When you draft the email, ask for an extended warranty supplied by Mazda only, not a third party warranty. Include the lowest quote you've received from the dealers you've contacted (be prepared to supply "proof" of the quote via screenshot or email).

 

[Tchman2016]

Check out YAA on YouTube and their website. They sell real extended warranties from real providers for much less than a dealer and are totally legit. Those guys are awesome to watch their channel.

 

[hal2]

Check out YAA on YouTube and their website. They sell real extended warranties from real providers for much less than a dealer and are totally legit. Those guys are awesome to watch their channel.

There are exactly zero, nada, none, zip, zilch "real" extended warranties - only the manufacturer can issue an actual warranty, it's the law, and car manufacturers don't sell extended warranties - Look it up, I'm not going to give a single reply to anyone that says otherwise. Every thing else is a service contract.

As far as YAA, once you lie to me, I don't believe anything you say after that. In the YAA video the woman says that "if you go to a dealer to buy a service contract, send you to the service department to inspect the car first - and they charge you for that" - wrong on both counts, So if you lie to me in your advertising video (which is presented to look like a podcast), I'm not believing anything else you tell me.

You may like your YAA contract, but they are hardly "awesome". All the videos I wasted my time watching watched, were just an ad to buy something from YAA, insurance or your next car. They"may" offer some interesting info, but it is hardly a legitimate consumer advocate channel. It's a for profit site (nothing wrong with that) in the guise of a consumer advocate channel.

EDIT: Looking back I suppose I could have said all that in a nicer tone, but it really frosts me when someone pretends to be providing a consumer service when all it is is an ad for their car buying service

 

[cz5gt]

Exaclty. Pretty much everything promoted or even reviewed on Youtube nowadays is for profit and with questionable ads. most is crap anyways.

 

[hal2]

Take your $2000 or whatever it is, and put it into a mutual fund. That way, you're making money with it, but if you need to withdraw it for a car repair, well there you go.

Plenty of 'is it worth it' posts, which the OP knows about, he's looking for different info here.

 

[sashk]

It's been hard, but I think I managed to get what I wanted. Thanks for the help.

I called maybe 50 dealers within 250 miles radius, out of which:
- about 30 never returned my voice mail;
- 17 provided price (mazda, zurich or one more provider, which I don't recall), but never sent plan details via email as requested;
- 3 sent email with requested information, of which:
- 1 (with best price) refused to accept payment via phone and was located 200+ miles away;
- 1 kind of desapeared after email, never responded to email or my calls/voice mail; couldn't reach anyone else in dealership to help;
- 1 sold me the contract.

Was it impossible? Almost. I almost gave up.

 

[cz5gt]

feel free to share the details from the deal and the dealer name. That may help other people looking for the same in future.

 

[edmaz]

It's been hard, but I think I managed to get what I wanted. Thanks for the help.

I called maybe 50 dealers within 250 miles radius, out of which:
- about 30 never returned my voice mail;
- 17 provided price (mazda, zurich or one more provider, which I don't recall), but never sent plan details via email as requested;
- 3 sent email with requested information, of which:
- 1 (with best price) refused to accept payment via phone and was located 200+ miles away;
- 1 kind of desapeared after email, never responded to email or my calls/voice mail; couldn't reach anyone else in dealership to help;
- 1 sold me the contract.

Was it impossible? Almost. I almost gave up.

I'm more than a bit surprised by what you posted above. Being a DIYer, I don't go to the stealerships for service, and have never had any interest in extended warranties. However, I've always been under the impression that extended warranties were a big money-maker for them, and they would always attempt to make a good sales pitch to sell them to their customers.

But based on your actual experience, it certainly appears that's not the case at all, given how dismal they were in responding to your inquiries. And so now I've become really curious about what's really going on with these warranties, and why the stealerships are showing such low interest in selling them. I recall reading something about owners getting a portion of the extended warranty cost refunded, if the warranty ended up being unused or very lightly used. That's purely secondhand information, and I don't have any facts in support of it. But reimbursing part of the cost of the warranty would certainly reduce the profit, and probably also much of the incentive to sell them. Perhaps someone here has factual knowledge of a warranty reimbursement policy (if it does in fact exist).

 

[DG_1234]

I called maybe 50 dealers within 250 miles radius, out of which:

Where are there 50 dealers within a 250 mile radius ?
I live in San Francisco where there are 24 Mazda dealers within a 250 mile radius.

 

[181962]

However, I've always been under the impression that extended warranties were a big money-maker for them, and they would always attempt to make a good sales pitch to sell them to their customers.

I doubt it is a lot of money. It amounts to an agent's commission. After a little googling, a typical breakdown is 65% of premium goes to claims, 25% goes to covering the underwriter's all-in costs besides claims (expense ratio), and 10% goes to underwriter profit. The commission comes out of that 25%. If it amounts to more than 10% of the premium, say $200 on a $2,000 extended warranty, I'd be surprised. It's when all the extra stuff is added up that a dealer gets to meaningful profit--profit on the trade, financing commission, life and health credit insurance, off-sticker dealer options and junk add-ons, whatnot. $ off MSRP (or $ above invoice less holdback and incentives from the dealers perspective) is only one chapter in a deal's story.

The 65% should give one pause. It's why I buy extended warranties on NOTHING. You'd have to be quite unlucky to not come out ahead over a lifetime if you put any priority on reliability track records when buying products. Now, one blown transmission or engine at $4,000 - $6,000, a rare circumstance in general, could set you back a decade or more but over 60+ years of buying stuff that's not going to change the final equation.

This approach requires an emergency fund to self-insure such risks--cash or liquid assets to shell out $6,000 on a new motor on a moments notice with something left over for another emergency before the fund is replenished.

There's also the matter of what an extended warranty does not cover. In that case, the devil is in the details which is what the OP might have been fishing for (a copy of the policy before buying) where only 1 out of 50 was willing to take the time.

 

[edmaz]

I doubt it is a lot of money. It amounts to an agent's commission. After a little googling, a typical breakdown is 65% of premium goes to claims, 25% goes to covering the underwriter's all-in costs besides claims (expense ratio), and 10% goes to underwriter profit. The commission comes out of that 25%. If it amounts to more than 10% of the premium, say $200 on a $2,000 extended warranty, I'd be surprised. It's when all the extra stuff is added up that a dealer gets to meaningful profit--profit on the trade, financing commission, life and health credit insurance, off-sticker dealer options and junk add-ons, whatnot. $ off MSRP (or $ above invoice less holdback and incentives from the dealers perspective) is only one chapter in a deal's story.

....

Thanks for posting your research, and what you wrote makes a lot of sense to me. It's easy for them to push the extended warranty along with all of their other gimmicks at the time of the sale, but they're not willing to make very much of an effort, for what they feel is too little $$. I guess they would rather spend their time patrolling the showroom floor, hoping to be able to pounce on the next potential new car buyer that walks through the door.

 

[sashk]

Where are there 50 dealers within a 250 mile radius ?
I live in San Francisco where there are 24 Mazda dealers within a 250 mile radius.

New York/New Jersey/Connecticut/Pensilvania area. (used random zip code for screenshot)

 

[hollandog]

New York/New Jersey/Connecticut/Pensilvania area. (used random zip code for screenshot)

Do you mind to share your extended warranty details? How much did you pay and from which dealership? I'm also looking for the same for my CX-9. Asked around few dealers now and they don't even respond.

 

[ceric]

The last time I bought ext warranty was on '05 Prius due to its hybrid powertrain.
There was a remote small town Toyota dealer somewhere in midwest. A salesman was selling genuine Toyota ext warranty at 50% price. No kidding. It was legit.
So, why not? I had no confidence in the hybrid tech at that time. I ended up making 0 claim. That Prius was bullet proof for 8 yrs other than 3 recalls.

That tells you that the profit margin is high on ext warranty if that salesman even made some dollars from selling at half price (of MRSP).

 

[sm1ke]

That tells you that the profit margin is high on ext warranty if that salesman even made some dollars from selling at half price (of MRSP).

Absolutely. In the few retail jobs I've had, additional services (TV Calibration, wall mounting, in-home installation and setup, etc) and extended warranties always had a 50% profit margin to work with.

 

[hollandog]

The last time I bought ext warranty was on '05 Prius due to its hybrid powertrain.
There was a remote small town Toyota dealer somewhere in midwest. A salesman was selling genuine Toyota ext warranty at 50% price. No kidding. It was legit.
So, why not? I had no confidence in the hybrid tech at that time. I ended up making 0 claim. That Prius was bullet proof for 8 yrs other than 3 recalls.

That tells you that the profit margin is high on ext warranty if that salesman even made some dollars from selling at half price (of MRSP).

I agree usually it's a bad gamble on the extended warranty on Japanese cars. But in this case the growing coolant leak issue on the 2.5T is concerning.

 

[sashk]

Do you mind to share your extended warranty details? How much did you pay and from which dealership? I'm also looking for the same for my CX-9. Asked around few dealers now and they don't even respond.

I got it from SMITH CAIRNS Mazda in Yonkers, NY. 8 years/100 miles (this goes from lease origination date) with 0 deductible was slightly bellow $2k after taxes.