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Those Car Warranties HOW WHY WHEN Update Aug 8 2026
'Breakdown?
Wonder if my car warranty will cover this!
Buying an automobile is one of the largest investments a person can make outside of buying a home. I have written many articles on how to buy both a new and used car, but today’s musing will delve into how to deal with car warranties, and which ones are worth considering.
Years back, when I was a kid, just about anyone could work on a car and be somewhat successful at it with a little bit of research and practice. Warranties were basically protecting a buyer against major failures and the little nitpicky malfunctions in the first 12 months of purchase. There were few if any opportunities back then to buy an extended warranty. This, along with the simple sticker price, made buying a car an easy, semi-affordable and understandable task.
Not so nowadays.
The sticker price has been replaced by the “payment”, car warranties run the gamut from free to many expensive options and there are now extended terms that may cover the car for many years. The cars also have gotten much more complicated, with multiple onboard computers and black boxes that make servicing a car much more difficult for the average garage’ tinkerer.
Replacement parts seem to have skyrocketed in price and if a car is newer, aftermarket parts may or may not be available for many years or if at all. I won’t go into all the gory details about why that is. Just know not all parts for all cars can be bought on the cheap at your local auto parts store.
In addition, many auto repair shops must specialize in only certain manufacturers in order to avoid learning about the workings of many different cars. Different cars can require different skill sets, tools and/or diagnostic equipment, further limiting our choices as consumers and therefore driving up costs in the process.
I have thought, more than a few times, that repairing a car that is out of warranty has become too expensive to not consider wrapping each and every car I now buy into some sort of warranty. But not just any warranty, mind you.
I flatly refuse to buy an after-market or extended warranty that is not from the original manufacturer of the automobile.
I have heard too many tales of woe from people who have purchased those private aftermarket warranties. Their slick ads lead consumers into paying a ton of money for a generic warranty only to find out there are many exceptions, caveats and conditions to these products which basically work in favor of the warranty company and not you.
When buying a new car, you obviously get a warranty but the option to extend it might be considered at time of purchase. No doubt, they are expensive. But those extended warranties are cheaper at the time you buy the car. Waiting can only drive up the cost of extended warranties due to inflation and locking in the manufacturer at time of purchase might be worth considering. You might also be able to wrap the warranty into the payment making it that less painful.
If buying used, again, I would stay away from any warranty product not offered by the original manufacturer of the car. I would also recommend you consider paying a little more for a “Certified” used car from a manufacture’s dealer and not from some random “car lot” somewhere.
I know a certified car from a manufacturer’s dealer may run you a few dollars more. Maybe even a few thousand more. But one random repair can still run into the thousands. I remember some years ago my Toyota Sienna van had the electric side door motor go out. That tiny motor was like four thousand dollars if memory serves me right.
Yikes. Lucky, I had purchased an extended warranty.
In conclusion, we may be at the point where the car manufacturers have us in a big “gotcha” moment where repairing a car is so expensive, the cars just become big throwaways that end up on one in one of those random used car lots somewhere. Then some unfortunate buyer will probably get stuck with a humongous repair bill that you avoided by dumping the car on the cheap.
It starts to make little sense buying a newer car without a warranty. If something major goes wrong, or maybe even something minor, the cost of repairing it could more than offset the cost of buying an older car without a warranty to save some money.
If you are buying a substantially older car with fewer bells and whistles that your local repair shop perhaps can work on, so be it. But if you are looking at something more recent, it might be wiser to get a car protected by the original manufacture, no matter how that is accomplished.
The car companies have gotten smart. They have made repairing a used car so expensive, you have to buy a new one.
And isn’t that just grand.
For them.
This article expresses the opinion of Marc Cuniberti and is not meant as investment advice, or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities, nor represents the opinion of any bank, investment firm or RIA, nor this media outlet, its staff, members or underwriters. Mr. Cuniberti holds a B.A. in Economics with honors, 1979, and California Insurance License #0L34249 His insurance agency is BAP INC. insurance services. Email: news@moneymanagementradio.com.
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