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Smart Shopper Extended Warranties
2873 messages, Last post on Dec 02, 2009 at 2:13 PM
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Edmunds article: Third-Party Extended Warranty Scams
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Replying to: akg (May 29, 2007 3:48 pm) |
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Hi, I bought my Buick 5 years ago, and purchased a GMPP warranty- 6yr/75k miles/0 deductible. I am almost at the 75k. My question is, can I extend that warranty another 2 years/100k miles? (2/25). I dont want to pay a lot of money for this and have debated selling the car. At the dealership where I bought the car, the only thing they offered me was a 3rd party, not as inclusive warranty for about $1700. I could use that money towards a new car! The reason I would want to keep the car is it is paid off and running well at the moment. However, in the past I have had problems with this car, even getting a new(rebuilt?) transmission from Buick(GMPP) under the warranty and am leery of keeping this car without a decent warranty. I would like to keep this car another year or two, but if I can't extend the warranty, out it goes! I'm kicking myself for not buying the 7yr/100k warranty when I bought the car new(would have been an extra $200). Do you think I could have any recourse with GM at this time, extending the warranty for the above mentioned? I would be willing to pay around 5-7 hundred dollars for the priveledge. Right now I think the car is running well and externally the car looks great, I would have no problem selling it for the right price. If anyone has any info on how to extend and "extended warranty" please let me know. Thanks in advance!
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Replying to: olddog7 (Jun 02, 2007 10:04 pm) 5). I Currently have a GMPP on my vehicle, can I purchase more GMPP coverage ? If your current GMPP plan has a minimum of three (3) months “AND” 3,000 miles remaining you can purchase additional GMPP coverage. |
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I have an 2005 Armada SE with about 35,000 miles on it and am looking to maybe get an extended warrantee through Nissan. I am the original owner. I'd like to have the best service they offer, I guess that would be bumper to bumper. I'd prefer not to have a deductable, but would do so if the cost differential is outrageous. I'd like to extend the warrantee to about 100,000 miles. What kind of price am I looking at? Can I negotiate? Any ideas of where I can go to get this info if not here? Thanks in advance for any help... |
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Replying to: olddog7 (Jun 02, 2007 10:04 pm) You are in a nice situation. You have a car that is paid off with only 75k miles. Even with a rebuilt transmission, the car should easily get you over 100k miles. I would not be in such a hurry to ditch this car simply because the warranty is about to run out. You even say the car is running well and looks great. I don't know your financial situation but if it were me, I would keep driving it for the next year or so and then re-visit this again. i wouldn't even worry about the extended warranty since the only large item that it will cover is the transmission and quite honestly the rebuilt transmission may not be covered if you were to extend your coverage. You would have to check the language of this warranty very carefully as there may be a clause about "original" parts. BTW what kind of Buick do you have and what other problems have you had? One thing you can do is check on the Buick forum to see what others are having problems with. I do this with my Olds Intrigue. |
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| Ok, I went to my dealer for service on my 02 Chevy Trailblazer and I mentioned to him that I have the API Platinum Ext Warranty. He told me that API was being bought by another company and that they were not paying any claims and that I'd have to pay the dealer for the repairs and then submit the claim to API. After getting the diagnosis today and asking some more questions about API, I started to get suspicious of what the service advisor was telling me, so I did a Google search and found a brief post on another forum that API went bankrupt. Does anyone have any information about this? Thanks. | |
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Replying to: varsitysg (Jun 06, 2007 12:00 pm) Don't know if they are in BK or not but make sure you get prior apporval for the repair or if they are like mos after markets they can deny the claim. Call the phone number on your Service Contract and ask BEFORE they begin the work. |
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Replying to: varsitysg (Jun 06, 2007 12:00 pm) |
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Thanks for the responses. Ok, API is not necessarily bankrupt, but they are out of business. I was able to get through to someone at their 800# and found out that their insurance company who backed the warranties is paying out claims to dealers, however, they are paying by check which many dealers won't accept. They are accepting claims filed by customers, but, of course, you have to pay the dealer out of pocket first. I did buy the warranty from the dealership that I use for service. They were dishonest with me initially the other day saying that API was being bought out by another company and not paying claims. When I found out that the insurance company was indeed paying claims, but the dealer wouldn't accept their paymeny by check, I got pretty pissed and raised hell with the dealer. I got a sheepish phone call at about 7pm from my service advisor who said that he called API and as of today, they are paying claims. Coincidence, huh? Not. They've been paying claims, the dealer just didn't want to wait for their check. I have to say that I've been pleased up to this point with the 7/100 ext warranty from API. It cost a pretty penny and I think I could have negoatiated the price down a little, but I've more than got my money out of it with no problem up until now with about 6k miles left on the warranty.
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Replying to: varsitysg (Jun 07, 2007 5:16 am) API is a piece of a larger holding company, NServ Inc. Nserv is owned almost exclusively by James Hawk and his son, James Hawk Jr. Nserv consists of four companies, API (Automotive Professionals Inc), SRI (Service Resources Inc), BPI (Brokerage Professionals Inc) and IWS (Intercontinental Warranty Services). API sells auto warranties through dealerships, IWS sells warranties through credit unions. These warranties are advertised as being backed by "major insurers". In fact, the vast majority of API's contracts, and ALL of the IWS contracts are backed by Marathon Financial, a risk retention group. It is critical that you understand this, in order to follow what they are trying to do. Part of your warranty may have been the "GPR" or Guaranteed Price Refund. The GPR is a loser for the company... a real loser. And this has been known for over a year, actually closer to two years. Yet the company continued to sell GPR until 2/1/2007. And they shut down the business on 2/15/2007. More importantly they continue to happily sell GPR through IWS today, along with those Marathon backed contracts through www.iwsgroup.com. The way things are structured, the dealer sells you the warranty. There is a lot of fat in that price that you pay. A lot of fat. The dealer clips that off that top and hands over the rest to BPI. BPI skims some off the top, and then places some in an off shore account that is the "reserve" that is put in place for the dealer to pay claims. If the reserve goes negative... then the insurer has to pick up the tab. BPI then sends the remainder to API as the price of the contract. Some of that money goes to the insurer as a premium for insuring the reserve account. The rest is API's profit. Then when you call to make a claim, you talk to SRI. And they charge a fee to handle that claim. That fee is paid by BPI who takes the fees back out of the reserve accounts. All of these companies are in the same building... in the same room even. Why it was setup that way became obvious when they pulled the rug on 2/15. It was incredible, cold hearted and cowardly what was done. They simply stopped answering the phones. But the setup prior to this was even more sickening. All through December and January they accepted GPR claims, and told customers their claim was approved and the checks were 'in the mail'. Right. Then people had cars in for repair and were trying to call. Nothing. No message saying we're out of business. Nothing. Just a happy voice mail. Thousands and thousands of voice mails came in. When the box got full -- they dumped them. I heard women crying on the phone, people begging for someone to call them back. Now keep in mind that the calls were coming into 'SRI' who continued to operate full tilt. They processed claims for Intercontinental Warranty Services and any API contract that wasn't backed by Marathon. But because it was known that Marathon would most likely not survive API's default, and couldn't pay the fee to SRI, they just acted like they didn't have to answer the phone. All the same company. All the money goes into the same clowns pockets. The Hawks. About a week after the mess started the Illinois Dept of Insurance shows up. They setup an office and start auditing. Oh... and Allstate Insurance is onsite, because they backed about 70,000 contracts starting mid 06. They were a real piece of work too... they actually convinced API to continue to sell contracts the same day they closed. Yep... you got it... we stop taking phone calls on claims and are stiffing people right and left... but you could still unknowingly by an API contract. In fact I am almost certain that Hoffman Honda had been rolled over to Allstate. So probably while you were standing there screaming about being screwed by API they were still selling API contracts. There were certainly other dealers all to happy to screw people as fast as they could. So the Dept of Insurance is really an interesting bunch. They basically can't find their rear using both hands. And they do NOT want API to go under because then they get handed the bill. Do you really think the state of IL wants to send money out of state to pay claims???? Hardly. The DOI begins making the company take claims calls. But almost everything is still routed to vmail. Allstate wanted the DOI to go away. They actually instructed the claims adjusters to tell callers that got through to call the IL DOI and complain because they are the reason their claims are not being paid. And Allstate has lots of pull in IL. Their offices are right there. next...... |
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