To Warranty or Not?

[gdbarratt]

Struggling to decide whether to continue my Warranty Direct warranty or not.
A3 2.0 TFSi Sport 5dr DSG 66.6k March 2005.
I bought the car 16 months ago and got 3m warranty with the car and a Warranty Direct ExtraCare warranty on a buy 12m get 13m cover.
The renewals now due and they have offered me 13m renewal for £315 or 2 years for £590.
The warranty is their top level but has a £50 excess but warranty claims are limited only to value of car (not the normal £1k), labour rate upto £60 per hour.

The problem is they want me to pay 30% of the parts for the next 12m and then it will be 40% the following year.

I took out the warranty initialy as I did not know what to expect regarding reliability on an older higher mileage car, but, the car has been excellent. It got no advisories on its MOT and is still on its original exhaust and battery from new. It has a full service history from Audi and I have carried this on via an Audi service contract.

I supose my query is how reliable are these cars as they age, I believe the DSG gearbox is strong but problems are very expensive also concerned about the turbo as failure would also be very expensive.

I am leaning to running without a warranty but just wondered if anyone had any thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

 

[mjr901]

Id read the small print VERY carefully.

They tend to riggle out of anything they can.

Probably with stupid statements like 'we will ony replace items at fault if they aren't due with age/mileage.

If they want you to pay towards parts aswell then that's a bit cheeky to be honest.

Personally I'd buy a mechanic 30 cups of tea and save yourself £300 odd quid.

But I've always been a 'chance' man. just my thoughts.

 

[Cossie_boy]

Its all about the small print on those, when I was a car salemans our warranties were actually very good, price, parts and labour and most things covered, I did read some really crap ones though which customers bought in and showed me

 

[gdbarratt]

Small print good, warranty direct one of the better warranties out their just not sure the car will suffer failures to the tune of the premium, also, the warranty fits new OEM parts when I would source at this age from a brokers/refurbished.
Its one of those, if you take it out nothing will go wrong but if you don't ££££!

 

[MrLapou]

My car came with 3mth Platinum Warranty Wise policy. Had to claim for a faulty headlight aim sensor. The whole process was seamless and the repairing garage took care of being paid.

Have a look at their warranties, as I'm told/recommended by other traders to go with them.. the competition is rubbish.

 

[gdbarratt]

My car came with 3mth Platinum Warranty Wise policy. Had to claim for a faulty headlight aim sensor. The whole process was seamless and the repairing garage took care of being paid.

Have a look at their warranties, as I'm told/recommended by other traders to go with them.. the competition is rubbish.

Should be good as they want £916.63 for 2 years cover with a £50 excess.
Just spoken to Warranty Direct and got them to drop the parts contribution (but still £50 excess), so 100% parts and labour up to £60 Inc-VAT per hour labour for £600 for 2 years, single claim limit of £5k.

The warranty looking tempting but £600 is a lot of repairs in 2 years so may still risk it.

 

[AwesomeMike]

Honestly if it was me... I wouldn't we see it all the time where something that should be covered under warranty by various warranty companies turn out that they don't for XYZ reason. But that is just my 2p's!

Mike

 

[gdbarratt]

Any thoughts on reliability, are DSG boxes long lasting? Hows the Turbo on the 2.0 TFSi?
The car is going to go over 70k soon and will have its 8th birthday in March so is it heading into a failure window which makes the warranty worthwhile?

 

[The Governor]

No chance of a genuine Audi warranty?

 

[murran]

id keep it going. if it were a manual id say dont bother, but the dsg box is going to wrong at some point.

 

[Boon]

Bought one when I got my A3, from the AA, two months later and 5th gear was noisy, they nor the garage I bought it from would honour the warranty.. £1100 for a recon box, fitted... Then came the engine mounts (yep all 3), clutch & flywheel, starter motor, rear wheel bearing/ ABS sensor, battery, engine temp sensor, both outer cv boots...

Just those magic words, General wear & tear, we won't be accepting the repairs

So I sacked them off and got the remainder of the cover refunded

The garage was a waste of ground it was built on too, said it had been serviced by them, so it'll be them that put nearly 1ltr too much oil in the sump that was never new & also must have cleaned out the oil filter with tar

Lesson learnt? Yep. Took a chance but at least I know that it'll soon be a new (parts) car!

And won't buy another **** rolled in glitter with 3 million multi point check by some spanner that struggles to hold one (Perrys btw!)

p
Nor another 3rd party warranty!

 

[gdbarratt]

id keep it going. if it were a manual id say dont bother, but the dsg box is going to wrong at some point.

Yes a secondhand box is £800/£900 and labour on top, would actually get a brand new box with the warranty.
My main concerns are DSG + Turbo as both very expensive to fix.
I just know if I buy it I will have no issues but if I do it will bite me on the ........

I know a lot of people have had bad issue with warranty companies but generaly Warranty Direct has a good rep and they cover wear and tear items.

Think I'm going for it, they will even spread interest free over 4 quarterly payments, I will see if I can get them to zero the excess...maybe pushing it considering I got the parts contribution removed you never know.

Thanks for all the responses.

 

[Dandle]

I'd be very careful with aftermarket warranties. I took out a Warranty Direct policy to cover my BMW when the new warranty ran out. The second year of having the policy (Luxury car extra) I had a seal on the intake manifold leak at 44k miles. They declined the claim and each time I came back with a counter to why they declined it they, they just moved to another exclusion (such as and leak, build up, carbon deposit etc etc). In the end after arguing for two weeks with them while the main dealer had my car in bits, BMW gave me good will on the parts and I paid the labour. I would have been better off saving the money in the bank and putting it towards the cost of any repair. I was lucky enough that I could manage without the car while i tried arguing. They have a list of exceptions to where they wont pay out and those can be twisted to exempt many things you wouldn't believe.

 

[gdbarratt]

Thanks for that, certainly given me something to think about. Honest John, What Car and several other places recommend them but you never know what payments they are receiving for the referral.....