I have gotten one for each of my 3 MINIs...2 MCSes and a Cooper. Expensive? Kinda. Worth the money outlay? Totally...at least for me!! So much unexpected crapola happens as soon as your car is out of the manufacturer's warranty. I feel that I actually have saved more than I EVER spent on my extended MINI warranties.
As far as I'm concerned they're snake oil. It's just like Las Vegas. You have some people who hit it big but in the long run the house always wins. I have never bought an extended warranty on any product I've purchased and I have yet to regret it.
Jeff I think your experience is the exception not the rule. The odds are stacked in the warranty companies favor. I'm not a fan of them. Put that warranty money in the bank & hold it for a time you may need it. I'm thinking if one takes proper care of their MINI the extended warranty won't be needed.
You have a car with 30k and in three years it will have 50k and they want $2800 - seems like a lot of dollars for a car that should only need normal maintenance. Welcome to Motoring Alliance the bestest MINI forum on the interweb !!
I take good care of my cars and have always had extended car warranties whenever possible, just in case of unforeseen problems. Perhaps I AM an exception, but I have never had a car warranty that did not pay for itself in the end This has been especially true with my wife's S...I'm the 4th owner and it was originally bought in Connecticut...sold in Virginia and then auctioned in West Virginia to the place where I bought it. It's a Pepper White '06 and when I bought it [from actually a Honda reseller near Marysville, OH], it had around 27k in 2013. It had never been serviced according to the MINI expectations, yet it has a "MINI Certified" sticker on the front windshield. I bought the extended warranty and have put it to good use over the last 3 years. It expired this month but I am satisfied that now the car is in as good of shape as it can be mechanically and it has just over 60k.
My wife loves the car and gets compliments every time she drives it. It is a bone stock automatic.
I wish you continued good luck Jeff. Happy wife happy life. :wink: I'd be interested in what numbers you come up with when you add all the warranty repairs up. How much money did you win?
The labor cost to work on MINI's adds up fast because they aren't the easiest vehicle to work on...
It really depends on the engine and or transmission...
You are lucky in some regards that you don't have a "S", your Justa engine seems to be pretty "bullet proof"
Automatics can be expensive to replace.... Manuals can require new clutch and throwout bearings and hefty labor to replace
The jacked up high pressure fuel pump at $1,000 plus labor could take a chunk of that $2,800.00...
You don't have the "carbon" issue with the Justa engine...
In your case you might be smart to not pay for the extended warranty and just deal with the costs when they show up...
Not sure if the extended warranties even pick up labor, maybe only the cost of parts.... Read the fine print...
No high pressure fuel pump on a Justa or carbon buildup problems. As far as the automatic transmission goes have the fluid changed every 30,000 miles or so & you are not likely to have problems with it. Don't believe the myth that MIN I uses lifetime fluid.
There are 3rd party warranties that work just as well at less than half the price. I got one on our last Nissan Murano. I paid $700 for it and got a little more than that back out of it. But if the transmission went (with Muranos they had an issue with that) it would have cost $5k - $9k.
