Do not buy after-market warranty! (not a hidden IMS thread!)

When I bought my car, I decided to get the aftermarket warranty. ( "Helpfull" advice from the dealer saying: "...get the warranty, we'll change the RMS and IMS together and you won't pay a dime for labor!) Eeeeeggghhhh!!!!! I ended up replacing the clutch, IMS, RMS, and you know how much the warranty covered? ZIP! Zero (0)! Now every-time I take the car in I ask if anything could be done under warranty and the response is..."we'll see" meaning they are not going to waste their nerves arguing with the warranty guy. No way! So the moral of the story is, that aftermarket warranty is not worth the paper it's written on even though mine is supposedly the best covering soup to nuts. I only keep thinking that I could have done so much work for what I paid for a 'piece of mind' . If you get a warranty, you better put a lawyer on retainer as well. DO NOT FEED THESE BASTARDS .....!!!!

If the dealer misrepresented the warranty, take him to court. You don't get to tell a customer, "sure, buy this and it'll cover X and Y" and then shine him on when customer comes to collect on that promise. It also sounds like you just rolled over. If you have any lawyer buddies, a letter to the dealer on legal firm stationery can sometimes help. Finally, a lot of those aftermarket warranties are required to be prorated - if you for example have 24 months of a 36-month warranty left, you may be entitled to 2/3 of the premium you paid. Read the paperwork - maybe at least you'll be able to recover some of the premium to cover the costs of the repairs.

Why would a warranty cover preventative maintenance replacement of an RMS or IMS? That's not what warranties generally do. They aren't all you can eat modification buffet tickets. Dealer sounds like a scumbag though.

I didn't see in OP's post whether this was PM or not. I have never seen a warranty cover PM - that's not what they do...so yeah, if DTMiller read this better than I did, you're definitely screwed. Warranties generally also do not cover brake pads, clutch linings, wiper blades, or any other wear items... Warranty coverage aside - if the dealer said that buying the warranty entitled you to something that ultimately turned out to be untrue, that's fraud and should be pursued with the intent of recovering your warranty investment. In my experience, dealers are usually much more slick about getting into what the warranty does or doesn't cover for precisely this reason...

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Schnell, this is good advice! I'll look into it. Thank you. I got it for 24 months but I've had the car for like 6 months.

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DTMiller, I understand completely. By no means do I think that brake pads or tires are warranty items. But honestly, I don't know about RMS? Is that a PM? What about oil pressure sensor? AOS? And then I keep thinking that why would a warranty company play hard ball with things like water pump when if it goes bad they are potentially looking at engine replacement?

BTW, DTMiller, I love this: "Randomly spraying WD-40 on things"

If you replaced it preemptively - i.e. it was working fine, but you chose to replace it as preventive maintenance - it's almost definitely not a warranty repair. Maintenance contracts exist for stuff like this. Since auto manufacturers claim you can go 96 years or 4 million miles between oil changes, lots of dealerships now provide "free maintenance" via maintenance contracts as a perk, since the actual cost is minimal and you become accustomed to bringing the car to the dealer for all service. If the dealership replaced parts to prevent future damage from occurring, that doesn't sound at all like warranty work. However, it should have been clear from the get-go who was going to be responsible for paying. At issue (in my opinion) is whether the dealership deliberately misrepresented the warranty to you. The warranty company isn't required to pay out because the dealership misrepresented their product to you, so charging that windmill is very unlikely to help you. If the dealership really did mislead you, they can (and perhaps ought) to be held accountable for it. Rubik, I understand your line of reasoning ("I replaced the bearing so it doesn't potentially cause collateral damage, and the water pump so I don't wind up with busted impeller blades in my block causing localized overheating, which is way cheaper than a crate engine, so it ought to be covered."). However, that's just not how a warranty works. Since 100% of cars can benefit from preventive maintenance, whereas only a much smaller percentage of cars will actually fail if those items aren't done, which is cheaper for the insurer to do? Fix what breaks, of course, and do nothing otherwise. Just like life insurance and health insurance, warranty companies make their money because, like a casino, the odds are always in their favor. Sometimes they have to pay out, and rarely, they have to pay out a LOT, but there are always customers who get no payout, and their premiums pay for people who do need repairs (and provide profits for the warranty company). No matter how this shakes out - I'm sorry that you wound up on the hook for repairs you didn't think you would have to pay for. That sucks, no matter how you slice it. Being lied to also sucks.

Yeah. What 5chn3ll said. Once upon a time we had a clogged storm drain at our DC row house and we called the insurance company before the tropical storm hit town to ask for help to prevent the finished basement from flooding. Nothing. They wrote a big check after it flooded though. Maybe spray some WD-40 on the warranty?

Sorry to hear about your grief. As 5CHN3LL above already pointed out, PM is normally not covered I bought an a/m warranty only once (for an 01 BMW 740iL) and made sure the "known" issues were covered (EX: valley pan gasket leak, bushings/joints, window regulators, etc.). I got confirmation of specific item coverage from the warranty company directly. When the known issues did come up, claims was a breeze. BEFORE you bought the warranty, did you THOROUGHLY READ exactly what is covered or not (down to the fineprint)? And after doing so, did you ask any and all questions you had and got answers from the warranty company directly? .

If its a reputable warranty then I would say you still do have peace of mind. Drive it and have fun.

Warranty companies are no different that any insurance company. You make a claim and they do what ever they can to deny the repair. My Indy was awesome at dealing with Protective-the warranty company for my 996. I purchased the warranty for $3K and it was good for 36 months or 36K miles. I got over $5K in repairs done under that warranty. But...I did have to fight with them over a few things. A cracked serpentine belt that wasn't yet "broken". Cracked coils that weren't "broken". A leaking AOS that they had never heard of. When they turned down my Indy to cover the costs when they called it in, I followed up with a call of my own. If you have the time you can wear them down eventually. I agree with the others that PM is never covered (even on most factory warranties). However, your Dealer needs to step up. I hate Dealers.

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No, I didn't. This is my first experience with a/m warranty. Next time...if there will ever be a next time for a/m warranty.

Fwiw- my warranty covered the expansion tank and coil packs. It was thru AAA but I have not found another with comparable coverage. 2000 C2 now w/55 k mi.orig. IMS,RMS, clutch.