Greetings; I am a new BMW CCA member (as of Oct. 6), and first time BMW owner at age 67. I reside in the greater Milwaukee area and purchased a non-CPO 2011 750Li a week ago from a Chicago dealership. The car had 36,900 actual miles on it at the time of purchase. The dealer's option for an extended warranty, which also would include tires/wheels was over $7,000. I declined to purchase that, figuring that is a huge money maker for sellers, and could have been based on Chicago rates ? What I am wondering from those of you out there in BMW-land is whether I'd be eligible for a BMW extended warranty of some kind or if there are any legitimate/reliable third-party vendors. I have seen a few ads from vendors out there, like Carchex, Auto Protection, and the like. Would it be better for me to see one of the 2 local BMW dealers to ask what extended warranty protection their service departments will take ? Or, is my best option just bankrolling this and avoiding an extended warranty altogether ? Thanks for any info you all might have. - Stu T. - Delafield, Wisc.
I'm a fairly new BMW owner (2015 328) but I previously purchased an extended warranty for my new 2000 MB C230k and it was money thrown away. I would rather take my chances but to each their own of course...
Thanks for the reply. Hoping others will join in on this thread. For most of my life, I've been vehemently opposed to extended warranties, as that is like rewarding a company for making me a shoddy product. If the BMW car is made well enough, there should be no need for an extended warranty. Yet, there is almost nothing on this car that doesn't cost a fortune to fix. I've read that oil changes can run $120-150 and that is 5 times what I used to pay for one in a Honda Odyssey during my family's "van days". But, back in the early 1970's, I had a Mercedes 240 in which a piston clip was misinstalled by the factory and it grooved out the cylinder wall. Mercedes sent an agent from New Jersey to see the car in pieces at a Milwaukee dealership and found the problem. Mercedes wanted to give me a new engine block, but I'd have to pay the labor to have the rest of the engine parts reassembled and put back into the car. I told them to shove it and the dealer put the car back together and I sold it. German luxury cars and I went through an ugly divorce back then, and an extended warranty might have helped me.
The only extended warranty I can say is really good is BMW's CPO program. It covers over 10,000 non maintenance items on the vehicle. You only pay 50 for the repair and visit for a covered item. There is also a maintenance program upgrade as well to cover brakes and oil changes type of stuff, but doesn't cover tires. The cost for the program differs for each vehicle and BMW doesn't allow markup by the dealers. When a dealer sell a third party warranty the plan costs them x amount and they can sell it for what ever they want I seen it as high as 5,000 over the cost of the plan and the plans don't always cover a lot (example one didn't cover oil leaks!).
Extended warranties are always a gamble. I had an extended warranty on our 2003 Mini Cooper S. Only thing that went wrong was a fuel pump. To me that was a $3000 fuel pump. I once read a recommendation to find an extended warranty and instead of paying for it, set the premium aside. When you need something that would be covered, draw from that money.
