When I’m in a hard-sell situation I turn into a broken record. ‘I’m not interested. I’m not interested. I’m not interested.’ After the 3rd denial, I politely leave without purchasing if they continue to insist. No need to get huffy about it or take it personally.

.

On appliances see if the warrenty comes with a maintenance/repair service. We used this to have our treadmill serviced three times for free over so many years, chairs replaced and repaired on our kitchen table, and they’ll be coming out to do maintanance on our washer this weekend, etc. You have to read the warrenty, keep the paperwork, and be clear what you can and can’t get done.

The dealership tried to sell me on extended warrantee on my new car, which I declined. And that was it. Unlike the other dealership where I was thinking of purchasing the car from who kept tut-tutting that I was making a big mistake by not purchasing the extended warrantee. After about 5 times of this patronizing attitude toward me, which I related to the fact that I was a woman and they thought they could bully me into the warrantee, I just got up and said thanks – but given the pitch it was clear they didn’t have confidence in the quality of their vehicle. And I left…

I’ve seen electronic stores push warrantees on $40 and $50 items. It’s silly.

I want the straight story, no frills, no hoops or hype.

I have purchased service agreements for new cars. They cover the required service for keeping the manufacturer’s warranty and cost less than what I would pay for that same service without the agreement. Plus, they usually throw in valet service and free loaners.

1. Extended warranties, as Trent says, are usually not worth it (not “always”, but usually). Extended warranties are basically an insurance policy – you trade money for peace of mind, plain and simple.

2. Read the fine print. Salespeople are often pressured extremely hard to sell warranties, so while they might not lie to you, they might not be giving you the full story. There’s often clauses and caveats. It’s not always as simply as you just ‘getting a new one’.

3. Ask the store/salesperson what the *actual* procedures are if something should happen. Sometimes the store will simply tell you to ship it off to some repair depot (at your expense) and wait months. Sometimes, it could take weeks/months to get fixed. It’s not always a matter of walking in the store and the staff happily giving you a brand new product.

The reason why salespeople push it so hard is because of, well, commission. Most warranty companies aim to sell the warranty at a 100% markup, so the store is usually profiting about 50% on the warranty – it’s pure $$ for them. Same thing with things like cables and accessories. While the store will probably make $200 in a plasma TV, throw in some monster cables, some accessories, and a warranty, and that profit easy doubles or triples (along with the commission).

Most stores will act all high and mighty and say the don’t hard sell or fear sell warranties, but the reality is that most do.

Sometimes, it’s also a very aloof customer. I’ve had customers over the years that would buy HD-Megahertz-fluid for a camera if I sold them one. Sometimes, I would have customers that would ONLY buy a product if they could buy a warranty on it.

As far as the ‘odds’ of something happening – read consumer reports. As time goes on, electronics tend to get more and more reliable (not just cheaper). Same thing with cars, modern cars, even from ‘average’ brands like GM, are vastly more reliable that most cars were 20 or 30 years ago. The stores/dealerships wouldn’t sell the warranties if they were loosing money on them, so generally speaking, the odds are in the stores favor.

To each there own – I do know lots of people who have benefitted from warranties, but then again I’ve seen millions of dollars spent on warranties, the vast majority never paying out. Caveat emptor.

My Prius broke down within a year and has not run now in two years. It is a very expensive storage unit sitting in our driveway until it gets paid off.

The warranty covered nothing significant.

Do they occasionally pay off? Sure. But the vast majority of the time you’re just wasting your money.