Aftermarket warranty - your experiences?

[muttley71]

Hi all,

As I prepare myself to get hold of my rather nice motor, I am considering the merits of buying a warranty for it.

I have spoken to Warranty Direct who are prepared to cover just about everything including the air suspension, airbags, and other stuff I wouldn't normally expect all in for 575 for 13 months of cover. This was the second call, the first resulting in a quote for 640.

Has as anyone used them, if you have were you satisfied with the service?

On the basis that this is a complicated machine and even though I can sort most things myself I do have to work as well and I am weighing up the likely cost benefit to me of being able to get anything that fails that isn't a service part replaced for a nominal excess. The policy will cover costs up to the value of the car according to Parker's every year. It includes all diagnostic costs, all labour well in excess of my trusted local Indie's rate where all my cars are mot'd and 50% of the cost of parts due to the cars age and mileage.

On the basis that even though it's in great condition the car is 10 years old there is bound to be something in the first year that I may end up sorting myself but that I'd get my money back on with a warranty.

Has anyone got any experience of the company. The last time I used them was for a car I bought in 1992 when to be honest the service wasn't too good. They seem to be the market leaders these days so it can't be all bad. I did try a search on warranties before posting this and couldn't find anything relevant newer than 2009 so if I have missed an obvious thread I'm sorry.

Cheers folks,


Andy

[M1tchy]

If that's the discount after your second call, try a third? For a 10 year old motor I'd say that was a reasonable price for a 13 month policy. I'd certainly take it.


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[Guest 2]

Aftermarket = no
Audi warranty = yes if they cover your car.

Search for warrantywise on here and you'll see why I say no.


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[dizzyfrank]

Just cancelled my renewal with WD. Set policy up within a month of buying the A8 in Dec 2012. Spent 2/3 days in discussion with one of their "sales execs" agreeing the correct level of care to cover all the possibilites that may arise with such a complex vehicle. Policy was "Performance and Prestige ExtraCare Upgrade" with "Emissions and Airbag and "In Car Entertainment" cover added as extras. Felt that the "sales exec" understood questions asked regarding known issues and we discussed a couple of scenarios to which I felt I was given honest answers with regards the fact that they would be covered. Price started @ £750 and ended @ £650.

Dec 2013 and my MMI screen starts to jump and chirp and will not open and close fully. Local trusted independant is aware of this issue (as am I) and recommends new cage rather than mucking around with cog sets available from trusty auction site. So I trigger a claim on my warranty and garage phones them to discuss issue. Point blank "NO" response from WD. So I phone them to ask why and they tell me that "CD mechanisms are not covered under policy". I politely ask them if they know what the MMI is on an A8 and what other functions it has access to, for example, suspension settings. Response "It doesn't matter as we do not cover CD mechanisms." So new £805 policy cancelled (that's a large increase on the £650 I paid a year ago!) and the money is now going directly towards paying for issues rather than praying that any issues are not in the "Not covered" part of the small print!

First and last experience of aftermarket warranty for me.

P.S. I am in Northampton too.

[muttley71]

Thanks guys,


That's really useful info, I was worried that despite all the supportive sales patter that it might be like that.


I think as a 2004 car it is well past getting Audi to cover it and even if they did it would be a big cost. Plus it's not a dealer network supplied car. I may just tuck £600 away as a contingency then.

dizzyfrank I can't PM because I haven't posted enough but I am just off the Welford Road out towards the Windhover.


Andy

[snapdragon]

Just buy Apple shares or something.
My A8 has cost me and the previous owner ~£700-1200 per year of non-routine service work - you are almost certainly going to want ~£1000 of work doing if someone else is paying and they know that so would be stupid to offer comprehensive cover on a 10 year old car without a long list of exclusions of anything likely to go wrong.

[man le-mans]

Warranty direct = NO THEY ARE CRAP AND WONT PAY OUT
warranty wise. = NO THEY ARE CRAP AND WONT PAY OUT
End off

[Lyons]

My local Audi dealer offers warranties through Auto Protect. I took one out a couple of years ago on my TT Roadster and it has been fantastic. It covered £4k of work needed for the roof, and a window regulator too.
It didn’t cover a Bose amp recently, but that’s because it failed due to water ingress.
It cost £375 per year and all the work is done at Audi. I priced one for a 3.0TDi A8 recently too ahead of purchasing the car, and it was only £450. Complete no brainer for me.
The car needs to be a maximum of 7 years old and have less than 100k miles.

[a8starr]

All these aftermarket warranty companies will look for every possible way to escape from paying. With Warranty direct, if the part is not named in the policy pdf, it's not covered. Have a read through here Extended Warranty Specialists - Warranty Direct Ltd - Policywording (http://www.warrantydirect.co.uk/policywording.html) (Scroll down to the Prestige an luxury section) to view the PDF's.

[slabber]

I bought my A8 from a Jaguar main dealer and they offered me a Jaguar Approved warranty administered by Car Care Plan Ltd. It's been superb so far - I've had four problems resolved to date (totalling about £1,500) and no quibble whatsoever.

[Lyons]

What problems did you encounter?

[slabber]

What problems did you encounter?

Boot motor (failed), brittle headlight washer pipes (causing leak), headlight switch (faulty LED) and MMI (click of death).

[oldgrowler]

I took out a 2 year policy with warranty direct and I have to say that I would use them again when it runs out because they have been very good in my opinion after my 3.0tdi developed a smoke fault I had the car diagnosed at my local Audi dealer ( yes I paid extra for WD policy to have dealer repairs) and they came back with a couple of faulty injectors, after dealer went back to WD and recommended all 6 injectors should be changed due to tolerance set by Audi had them all close to faulty and WD authorised the work which I had to pay for first then send in my claim form which was paid with no problems. The bill was over £3000 and this was all done before my final payment for warranty had even been paid, the only issue I had with WD was one of their advisors told me it was fine to send in the copy of relevant documents for claim via email after taking photographs but this was false and delayed my payment as he should have said documents need to be scanned if sent via email. Luckily for me I still have a year left on policy.


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[Doctle Odd]

Try the Zollaf method. Imagine you've taken out an aftermarket warranty and instead of paying the monthly premiums save the money. Maintain and service the car regularly if it breaks down you have the money to fix it, if not you have a nice little pot of brass to treat yourself, or just to keep!

[muttley71]

Hi all

In the end I bought a car where the mileage was well above the acceptable range for any warranty company so it rather took the decision out of my hands. However I paid a fair bit less than I expected so I have done exactly as recommended and tucked that cash away to self insure. The trade off is that, unless it's a major component failure, I can sort most things myself. So for now I'm wafting around in incredible luxury in an A8. What a lovely feeling!!!

Andy


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[Lyons]

Any photos?

[muttley71]

Sorry for the delay folks, here are a few photos......

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f180/spits1100/2014-01/36D4F1E2-E269-41AC-ADD3-99835E9F4993.jpg (http://s47.photobucket.com/user/spits1100/media/2014-01/36D4F1E2-E269-41AC-ADD3-99835E9F4993.jpg.html)

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f180/spits1100/2014-01/1C809A47-5592-4D35-B750-16BB59A70401.jpg (http://s47.photobucket.com/user/spits1100/media/2014-01/1C809A47-5592-4D35-B750-16BB59A70401.jpg.html)

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f180/spits1100/2014-01/64D72890-556E-4EB7-98D5-F6DB90C153FE.jpg (http://s47.photobucket.com/user/spits1100/media/2014-01/64D72890-556E-4EB7-98D5-F6DB90C153FE.jpg.html)



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[Lyons]

Absolutely fantastic. Pleased with it so far?

I cant wait to get one, just trying to be patient for the right spec to come along.

[muttley71]

Frankly I'm lost for words to explain how incredible the car is. I have never been in a car with more comfortable seats and that includes several big Volvos that are the accepted industry standard for brilliant seats, the ride on the air suspension floats over road imperfections locally that have bothered everything else I've ever owned and the interior is a stunning example of how good German build quality can be. Several cars ago I sold a 2000 A6 Quattro Sport Avant 180 but bought an e61 530d because the newer A6 interiors seemed just a bit less luxurious than my old car. Well this is what I was after all along. It's got 160,000 miles and is still fresh. I'm 2 weeks in and absolutely loving it. Hold out for the spec you want, otherwise you'll regret it.

Andy


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