agedrunner

Normally I don't buy warranties except camera bodies and laptop computers. I have had to send in one camera body to replace the view finder and 2 laptop computers and one printer. In every case they were fully repaired or I was given the full price in store credit.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

I had the exact opposite experience with Subaru. I bought the extended warranty. It didn't have any minor problems. It was a stick shift model, and the clutch failed after about 30,000 miles. I've never had a clutch fail at less than 100,000 miles. It was clearly a manufacturing defect from all of the evidence, but they would not cover it. I had to pay over $2,000 for the repair and wasted the money on the extended warranty. Other than that, it is a good vehicle.

Extended warranties are definitely a mixed bag. I'm generally of the mind that self insurance - pay for the repair if needed - is generally the better way to go.

BudsOwl Loc: Upstate NY and New England

Only once, in a moment of weakness I purchased an extended warranty. Never again. I might buy insurance to cover accidents and theft for my cameras but that is a different issue. Don't waste your money on extended warranties.
Bud

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

The seller of an extended warranty is betting you that the product won't break. As the buyer of the warranty, you're betting that it will. The seller has the benefit of a lot of data which is sort of like life insurance mortality tables. They know they'll make a lot of money over-all, and only have to pay off a few folks. If you can afford to self-insure, you'd be better off to do so - if it breaks after warranty, pay to get it fixed or replaced.

dcampbell52 Loc: Clearwater Fl

Again, the major value of Square Deal is that it covers accidents like drops, spills and things that are NOT covered in the manufacturers warranty. If you (your wife, children or grandchildren) drop the camera, spill something on it, run over it with the mower or anything else (accidental) the warranty covers it. Self insurance means that you cover the issue yourself even if it means you have to purchase a new camera or covered device. Square Trade will do it for a price considerably less than you would pay to buy a replacement. In my case, the cost of the Square Trade Warranty was LESS than what I would have paid a local store for sales tax. I was in Pennsylvania at the time and purchased from B&H in NYC and the items purchased were a Canon $400 point and shoot and then later a Nikon D7100. Now I live in Florida and purchased the Square Trade Warranty on a Nikon D610 again it was less than I would have paid for sales tax on the same camera locally. Yes I could have taken a chance and done without, but then we could ride the motorcycle without a helmet, long pants and shoes or boots, or we could drive the car without insurance or any repairs. People do it all the time and we look at them like they've lost their minds.

Bugfan Loc: Toronto, Canada

About thirty years ago when I bought my first digital camera to start replacing my film gear I got conned into buying an extended warranty. Apparently it wasn't just to have it fixed if it failed, I'd even get it fixed or replaced if it ended up under a truck or got stolen etc. That sounded appealing.

Well the camera survived and the insurance company made a nice profit. Since then I learned that these warranties are incredible profit centres for retailers and manufacturers. First of all devices these days rarely ever fail and the odd time one does, often the consumer won't make a claim anyway since by then the documentation had been lost that would have enabled the claim. Add to that most people, particularly in cameras, would have preferred a new camera model instead of keeping their old one working.

You start to look into these situations and quickly you discover that they do not make economic sense. And when something doesn't make economic sense, I won't buy it. That had been my attitude ever since. Keep in mind when it comes to theft or desctruction, your house insurance generally covers those issues, at least mine does. My ex-wife ended up in a lake with three lenses and my professional camera body. My home insurance paid to replace the camera and the lenses. Similarly if a camera is stolen I can get the insurance to replace it too. Yes cameras often come with only a one year warranty, but then if it survives a year it likely will survive a lot longer too. The problems usually happen very early. If you notice the insurance you can buy is not for ten years, they would not make any money that way. The term is usually just two or three years and over that period there likely won't be any problems.

And then a few years back I had a surprise. A colleague had an extended warranty on an Apple latptop. After about three years, while still being under the extended warranty, the computer started acting up. Two trips to the repair shop didn't resolve the issue either. So the expectation had been of course that the computer would be replaced under the warranty. Well think again. What the insurance company did instead was to refund the premiun and then cancel the policy. That was cheaper for them than trying to fix or replace the machine. And the consumer? Well that was too bad, the consumer was not part of the equation.

If you sleep better when you have insurance or extended warranties, what you can do is to bank maybe ten or twenty perent of the retail cost of your gadgets. That way if one of them fails later you have the cash to either have it fixed or replaced. And in the process of doing this you get the profit that would have gone to the insurance company had you contracted with them for a warranty.

Preachdude Loc: Geneva, OH

I agree, extended warranties are a mixed bag. Evidently you did not notice that I said I got my extended warranty from a third party vendor -- in that case it was Universal Underwriters -- not Subaru. During those nearly five years and 100K miles, they honored any and all repairs except for normal maintenance. In the case of cameras, I don't bother with extended warranties because failures after a first year of no problems a extremely rare.

aellman Loc: Boston MA

I have had several Squaretrade warranties. Excellent company with millions of customers.
If your camera needs repair, the turnaround is 5 days. >>>Alan

Jacqui Burke Loc: Perkiomenville, PA

The extended warranties are good for things that break easily. I have used them twice for printers and once for a point and shoot purchased at Walmart (I like to always have a small camera I can use on horseback). In each case there was no problem having the warranty authorized.