My extended warranty search

[tb's e90]

This is great information!

I just got a quote from Josh - he has been good to deal with. Unfortunately the quote for 5yr/60k miles coverage on a 2011 with 50k miles was $7,200. he said the extra 15k makes a big difference..i'm guessing your rate was also a lot less since you were still under manufacturer warranty and the max term was 5 years, instead of 6. I am trying to find out if throttle body actuators and DCT will be fully covered under the gold package for 5yr/60k miles..i can get that for roughly 3,900. any thoughts on each fidelity coverage option?

[Candide13]

Originally Posted by tb's e90

This is great information!

I just got a quote from Josh - he has been good to deal with. Unfortunately the quote for 5yr/60k miles coverage on a 2011 with 50k miles was $7,200. he said the extra 15k makes a big difference..i'm guessing your rate was also a lot less since you were still under manufacturer warranty and the max term was 5 years, instead of 6. I am trying to find out if throttle body actuators and DCT will be fully covered under the gold package for 5yr/60k miles..i can get that for roughly 3,900. any thoughts on each fidelity coverage option?

Those are tougher numbers, I agree. The difficulty with Gold coverage is that only Platinum is "exclusionary". For the other levels the covered parts list is open to interpretation and it will be hard to get ironclad information before an actual claim occurs. Good luck!

[jwaggen]

2012 M3 with 23k miles here.

I just bought a ' Premium Protection ' plan from Assurant with 3 years / 60k miles. $100 deductible. Cost was $2k. Warranty is exclusionary.

Did I get ripped off? Sounds like not really based on OP... but after 60k miles any subsequent warranty will be very expensive, right?

[Colo M3]

Originally Posted by jwaggen

2012 M3 with 23k miles here.

I just bought a ' Premium Protection ' plan from Assurant with 3 years / 60k miles. $100 deductible. Cost was $2k. Warranty is exclusionary.

Did I get ripped off? Sounds like not really based on OP... but after 60k miles any subsequent warranty will be very expensive, right?

Is it 3 yrs/60k after your factory warranty expires or does it run concurrent? If it's on top, then yes it's a good deal but if it's not, then it's okay. Like most M3s time will come before mileage.

[tb's e90]

Originally Posted by Candide13

Those are tougher numbers, I agree. The difficulty with Gold coverage is that only Platinum is "exclusionary". For the other levels the covered parts list is open to interpretation and it will be hard to get ironclad information before an actual claim occurs. Good luck!

good information - thanks for sending. I've requested the contract and will review. thanks!

[Zulu Saffa]

Is it safe to assume that if you purchase a BMW warranty that you can take your car to any BMW dealership?

[vincE92M3]

Originally Posted by Zulu Saffa

Is it safe to assume that if you purchase a BMW warranty that you can take your car to any BMW dealership?

Yes.

Same with many 3rd party warranties as well.

I have an EasyCare warranty and I always have warranty work done at the BMW dealer.

[uisim]

I'm debating on this. I have 55k on my m3 now but kinda skeptical. I feel like I'd have to battle them if something went wrong even if the car is stock . I have a intake, exhaust and about to get a tune. These would be easy to bring back to stock should something serious happen but does anyone know if payments are an option or would I have to pay up front. Or is it like insurance where you can do 2 payments in one year. I'm assuming it's 2 payments at best or all at once.

[tb's e90]

Originally Posted by uisim

I'm debating on this. I have 55k on my m3 now but kinda skeptical. I feel like I'd have to battle them if something went wrong even if the car is stock . I have a intake, exhaust and about to get a tune. These would be easy to bring back to stock should something serious happen but does anyone know if payments are an option or would I have to pay up front. Or is it like insurance where you can do 2 payments in one year. I'm assuming it's 2 payments at best or all at once.

I recieved a quote from fidelity and I'm pretty sure it listed an option to pay off over 12 months in exchange for a $200 increase in purchase price. I'll confirm and revise the post if i'm wrong.

[Todd0131]

I went with Mercury. It was right at 5100 for 7 yr 100k miles with the highest level they offer. I am a bit over 49k miles. So for me s worth it if something goes wrong. It's my daily for a while so def worth it. They wanted 10% down and then pay over 2 years or pay up front. Pretty easy to deal with.

[tb's e90]

Originally Posted by Todd0131

I went with Mercury. It was right at 5100 for 7 yr 100k miles with the highest level they offer. I am a bit over 49k miles. So for me s worth it if something goes wrong. It's my daily for a while so def worth it. They wanted 10% down and then pay over 2 years or pay up front. Pretty easy to deal with.

Interesting, I'll have to look into mercury..is there any deductible? are you still under warranty now? what year is your car? could you please share who you spoke to?

thanks!

[Todd0131]

Mines a 2011 with no factory warranty remaining. I will have to look it up, just dialed the 800 number. I went with the platinum package with zero deductible

[tb's e90]

Originally Posted by Todd0131

Mines a 2011 with no factory warranty remaining. I will have to look it up, just dialed the 800 number. I went with the platinum package with zero deductible

great, thanks for the info! did they provide pricing for any options that had deductibles? seems like there could be a 3k option with a deductible.

[Todd0131]

Yeah to go with a 200 deductible or so,etching it was only 150-200 cheaper. I just didn't want to mess with it

[ericxog]

This thread was extremely helpful, and I'm going to be phoning all of these options for a quote. OP, thanks for forwarding that information of the gentleman that helped you out. This maybe a noob question, but judging from this thread, I'm assuming you can purchase one of these warranties with a car that does in fact have no existing warranty, or one that is about to run out correct?

I purchased my M3 here in SoCal from Long Beach BMW about one month, I would definitely look to purchase a warranty for it.

[ynottony]

So I just got off the phone with a dick of a rep from Assurant, who said he will not give me a quote because the car I'm going to purchase has aftermarket wheels. So I told him, I will put the OEM wheels back on, and he still refused to give me a quote.

[cclinard1]

I got mine through Warranty Solutions and so far they've been great. I just posted a few days ago in the general forum with details about my first major claim. They are worth a look IMO.

[IIAp3x]

Originally Posted by Candide13

My car is coming up to the end of its factory warranty so I began shopping for an extended warranty. This was an unexpectedly difficult shopping experience, a real blast from the past, like buying a used car 30 years ago must have been, with no internet, no price transparency, and dealers who make it look like they are doing you a personal favor by quoting a price etc...

In the end I am happy with what I got, thanks in no small part to help from a couple of forum members here, so I thought I write this up so maybe some folks have it easier next time!

Do I need an extended warranty?

Often discussed, it's a personal decision. Warranties are priced to be more expensive than the expected repair costs, hence anyone buying them should expect to make a loss in that regard. What you are really buying is relative peace of mind, because someone else is assuming the risk. In my case I thought I might treat the car differently once it is off factory warranty, which is a bad idea, because once you start pussy-footing your M3 it makes not much sense as a car anymore. Also, selling a car with a warranty to a private party is a big plus, or you can get a pro-rated refund if you trade it in. So I knew I wanted a warranty.

Should I get the BMW warranty?

The most expensive option and probably the only one that reliably covers repairs at an actual BMW dealer. Did I mention it is expensive? The Gold level covers most of the relevant stuff (just not Navigation), but the dealer price for an extra 3 years (their maximum term) plus 70K miles in total (including your current mileage) is $5450; if you want 100k miles in total it is $6600. (This warranty is the only one I found that is marketed with total miles, all the other are additional miles). The deductible is low, just $50.

One advantage of this plan is that the prices are easily available from any dealer. A forum sponsor from Steve Thomas BMW advertises that they give a discount and I found that to be true, after getting through to their finance manager they offered 10% for forum members.

For me the price was too high, I was looking for something like $1K per year. I also did not like the restriction to a 3 year maximum. So I passed on this one.

OK, you are going 3rd party, which one is best?

If you look down at your feet and see combat boots then the answer is pretty clear: get an USAA warranty. For those like me who have no contact to the military you need keep on looking. My impression was that Fidelity and Easycare
have the best reputation. Whatever you get, try to buy `exclusionary' policies, which cover everything that they don't explicitly exclude. Fidelity platinum and Easycare totalcare do that. An indy shop in the neighborhood also recommended
Fidelity platinum, so I thought I would get quotes for both and buy the better option, piece of cake right?

Well, I phoned up easy care and online they don't cover the M3, bummer. However, the voice on the phone said I could still get Easycare coverage for my M3 at a dealer (she offered to find a non-BMW dealer in my area who could do this); this did not make sense to me, but I left it at that.

Fidelity has no online presence at all, just a simple web page with the helpful suggestion to phone them up to find a participating dealer. I did and they could not find anyone in New York City. Really?

In fact she asked me for the nearest larger city and I could not really think of an answer. She could not search by zip code vicinity or any other of that 21st century stuff.

At this point I looked at other options, and the only true online company I found was Assurant. They had a straightforward web page and competitive quotes for policies up to 3 years (something like $3500 all in for 3 years), but very steep price increases for 4 years or more. So no good.

Now I reached out to a few forum members who posted that they bought fidelity or easy care and contacted their vendors. Some had stopped selling Fidelity, so this was hit and miss. I finally managed to get a quote from an Audi dealer (!), where the Fidelity product is used for underwriting their Audi Pure Protection plan.

This is where I learnt two important lessons: the deductible plays a huge role in your price, and the mileage of your car matters as well. For example, my car had less than 35 K miles and for that a 6 year plan with 60K additional miles and $100 deductible was quoted at $4973 and with a $250 deductible it was $3809 (plus tax)! That's a huge difference and you have to have something like 7 repairs to recoup it, so I decided the higher deductible is worth it.

Also, prices apparently jump at round mileage numbers such as 35K, 40K etc. so if you are getting close to that you might want to buy now, even if your factory plan lasts a bit longer (mine runs out at the end of next month).

You got a quote for a decent plan, now you negotiate like Batman, right?

Well, yes and no. The total lack of transparency makes bargaining very hard, because you have no idea what the MSRP is. When I asked for 10% discount as a bargaining start the dealer did not budge and claimed that his quote was already $2500 less than the MSRP retail price; that is of course bogus but there you are.

Another dealer quoted more than $6K for the same plan, it's completely insane.

At this time I got one more lead to a finance manager at a BMW dealership in Virginia (it matters little, apparently, in which state you buy the plan). He gave me a whole list of very good prices for all the plans he was selling and simply said he would add $100 as profit to any plan I pick. I can't know how much profit is already built in, but I knew enough at this stage to recognize good prices. So I bought a 6 year 60K additional miles, 250 deductible Fidelity platinum policy from him with a total price (incl tax) of just under $3900. The whole transaction was by email and eventually a quick phone call plus fedex-ing the documents back and forth. All done in 24 h, but it took me several weeks to get to that point. Very happy with the outcome.

So, if you are interested to buy a Fidelity plan here is a definite suggestion for you: contact Joshua Alford at BMW Richmond, VA. I asked him whether I could post his details and he was fine with that, so go for it. JAlford@crownauto.com

Happy motoring until 2021 and stay safe!

Mine costed me $2700 through Premier Dealer Services for 5 years of warranty, and they replaced my engine when I spun a rod bearing with a new factory engine through my local BMW dealership...

[gfisher99]

Just bought a 2011 e92 M3 with 25,900K miles. Picked up a 5 year/60K mile exclusionary warranty from my credit union (RBFCU) for $3206. The 5 years and 60K miles started the day I bought it, so runs thru 2021 or 85,900 miles.

The warranty is via National Auto Care and is their Platinum plan. $50 deductible.

[Jmack5577]

Thanks for sharing.

[panda_fuu]

Hi - I'm a long time lurker and first time poster on this forum.

Thank you so much for this information!

I just managed to pick up a 2013 e92 m3 with 18k miles and factory warranty ending in january 2017, but for a piece of mind I'm already thinking about looking for extended warranty services in case they stop 'offering it' when my warranty ends next year.

I've emailed Joshua to ask him about pricing and options but he doesn't seem to have replied. Has anyone else tried him and gotten any luck?

Edit:
Josh replied with some quotes and numbers and has been extremely helpful!
Will be pulling the trigger soon... Thanks again for this post OP and everyone in this thread!

[Grayblack]

I called Assurant this morning to get a quote for my 13' E92 M3 with 20,500 miles. They forwarded me to their "California" office, which is actually run by The Warranty Group. The rep said Assurant doesn't issue policies in CA but they partner with The Warranty Group.

They quoted me their Platinum warranty, which has a $250 deductible and covers 4 years/60,000 miles. The price was $2,642.

Anyone in CA have experience with The Warranty Group?