Is warranty worth it for 2020 Sierra?

aseibel · December 31, 2019

They wouldn't push so hard to sell it if they didn't make money off the sale. It is just like insurance, but unlike insurance, it is not required for anyone to purchase. The dealers probably sell $10,000 worth of extended warranties for every $1,000 they actually pay in repairs.

If a $2000 repair bill would be catastrophic for your finances, it could possibly be useful some day. But if that was the case you shouldn't be buying a brand new truck that costs $40K, $50k....

I bought one, and fully regret the purchase. My wife talked me into it only because I plan to keep the truck for at least 10 years. So far it hasn't been used once. I'd rather have my money back.

Still, there is a possible scenario where it could be nice to have. If you feel like you really want/need to have it, you should definitely pretend you aren't interested at first, and don't take their first or second offer.

truck_newbie · December 31, 2019

14 hours ago, Jao said:

I will be picking up my Sierra premium tomorrow and anticipate them trying to sell me on a warranty. My questions are is the warranty worth it and what prices have y’all paid for the warranty?

GM themselves now offer extended bumper-to-bumper warranty. It extends the 3yr/36k bumper-to-bumper to 5yr/60k bumper-to-bumper. This one is not a service contract. I'm surprised most people don't seem to know about this. The extended warranties provided by 3rd parties are not warranties, they are service contracts as pointed out by others.

The extended bumper-to-bumper cost $1k and can only be added at the time of purchase of the truck because it's tied to the VIN and they have to check that option when the vehicle is marked as sold in the GM database. I got this when i purchased my truck. Some might disagree but it was a no brainier for me.The links below explain it, you can check for yourself.

https://www.gmc.com/protection/extended-limited-warranty

https://www.chevrolet.com/protection/extended-limited-warranty

BlaineBug · December 31, 2019

I'm not so sure. I'm a real estate broker and selling home warranties is big business. Personally I'm not too interested in trying to sell them. I only ever sold one home warranty and that wasn't my original goal, but we had extra seller contributed funds left over so my buyer client wanted to make use of them somehow. So, buying a home warranty was one way to make sure they didn't lose out on some of those "free" dollars!

I used to pay for a warranty on my furnace and water heated through the local gas and electric utility company. I paid probably over $1,000 throughout the years, as the cost $20.48 per month, about $10.24 each for water heater and furnace. Our old furnace and water heater never failed throughout that time period, but we decided to upgrade our central natural gas furnace and A/C this past summer. I cancelled the warranty through the local utility. I wish I would have saved that $1,000 as it would have went towards the replacement. Oh well, it was a small lesson I suppose. I also learned that the warranty would only pay out a maximum of $2,000 or something like that if your furnace was determined to be un-fixable. And you know a brand new replacement is many more times that amount! Home size and equipment dependent, you're looking at around $9,000-$10,000 minimum on a full replacement of your furnace and A/C. And then it goes up from there if you get fancier equipment, dual stage cooling, etc. We opted for a 95% dual stage furnace with variable speed blower and just a standard 13 seer single stage A/C, so our cost was roughly $9,400 with a new humidifier and 5" whole home air filter box added.

I just bought a used 2019 GMC Yukon from Carmax with approximately 34,000 miles. So, at this point in time it has only about 1,400 miles left on the factory bumper-to-bumper 3 year, 36,000 mile warranty. I did NOT buy an extended warranty from Carmax or General Motors. Am I taking a risk. Maybe. I certainly hope not but we will see how it plays out. With that being said, General Motors has a 5 year, 60,000 mile powertrain warranty, and then a rust and corrosion warranty above that up to something like 100,000 miles I believe. So, at least my engine, transmission, transfer case, and differentials are covered until at least the fall of 2023.

My Father bought extended warranties on his Honda and Fords and never used any of them throughout the past 17 years. Plus, don't forget, you always have a deductible too. But they will cover you in the event of a major catastrophic failure, say a motor or transmission, which would be very costly to replace or rebuild.

If you don't mind spending a couple extra thousand dollars on an extended warranty package, go for it, as it will at the very least give you some additional peace of mind regarding your costly depreciating investment!

Edited December 31, 2019 by BlaineBug

diyer2 · December 31, 2019

Carmax.

Never.

BlaineBug · December 31, 2019

11 minutes ago, truck_newbie said:

GM themselves now offer extended bumper-to-bumper warranty. It extends the 3yr/36k bumper-to-bumper to 5yr/60k bumper-to-bumper. This one is not a service contract. I'm surprised most people don't seem to know about this. The extended warranties provided by 3rd parties are not warranties, they are service contracts as pointed out by others.

The extended bumper-to-bumper cost $1k and can only be added at the time of purchase of the truck because it's tied to the VIN and they have to check that option when the vehicle is marked as sold in the GM database. I got this when i purchased my truck. Some might disagree but it was a no brainier for me.The links below explain it, you can check for yourself.

https://www.gmc.com/protection/extended-limited-warranty

https://www.chevrolet.com/protection/extended-limited-warranty

That is actually a very reasonable deal for an additional two years and 24,000 miles!

BlaineBug · December 31, 2019

4 minutes ago, diyer2 said:

Carmax.

Never.

We have had quite a few Carmax cars. Including a Nissan Sentra, Nissan Altima, and a relative also had a 2014 Chevrolet Silverado V6 that he bought just to get accustomed to it. He kept it for a few years and then traded it in for a new 2018 Silverado with the 5.3 V8. All of them were in really good shape and solid! We can't complain about Carmax to be honest due to our positive first-hand experiences.

PS - the list of Carmax vehicles with positive experiences goes up beyond that for all of our relatives and friends. I haven't heard much negative about Carmax from anyone close to us. Your mileage may vary.

Edited December 31, 2019 by BlaineBug

aseibel · December 31, 2019

35 minutes ago, truck_newbie said:

GM themselves now offer extended bumper-to-bumper warranty. It extends the 3yr/36k bumper-to-bumper to 5yr/60k bumper-to-bumper. This one is not a service contract. I'm surprised most people don't seem to know about this.

I would have happily bought that. But I never heard of this before right now. Did this exist in 2015, or it is brand new?

mookdoc6 · December 31, 2019

48 minutes ago, truck_newbie said:

GM themselves now offer extended bumper-to-bumper warranty. It extends the 3yr/36k bumper-to-bumper to 5yr/60k bumper-to-bumper. This one is not a service contract. I'm surprised most people don't seem to know about this. The extended warranties provided by 3rd parties are not warranties, they are service contracts as pointed out by others.

The extended bumper-to-bumper cost $1k and can only be added at the time of purchase of the truck because it's tied to the VIN and they have to check that option when the vehicle is marked as sold in the GM database. I got this when i purchased my truck. Some might disagree but it was a no brainier for me.The links below explain it, you can check for yourself.

https://www.gmc.com/protection/extended-limited-warranty

https://www.chevrolet.com/protection/extended-limited-warranty

Honestly...that is the only one that makes any sense?

Edited December 31, 2019 by mookdoc6

truck_newbie · December 31, 2019

27 minutes ago, aseibel said:

I would have happily bought that. But I never heard of this before right now. Did this exist in 2015, or it is brand new?

I believe it's newish. I think it was available for the 2018 models forward. This is the press release that was sent out.

https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2018/oct/1015-cca.html

Bob2C · December 31, 2019

The “extended limited warranty” is fairly new and came out around October 18. Can only be purchased at time of vehicle sale. Price range 1k -2k. So it may be an option for some. The way I see it with all these extended warranty/service contracts is just a money maker. I read somewhere that the payout on average is roughly 10cents for every dollar collected. HUGE margins. Like cell phone insurance. Never bought it in 25 years. Had one iPhone die outside warranty. Cost me approx 400 bucks. I’m still way ahead of the curve. The house always wins.

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2016 Sierra Owner · December 31, 2019

Another thing to consider is look at the cut off date to purchase an extended warranty. Reason being is if you get a 5 year plan on a new truck. It starts when you buy it. Well GM gives you 3 years in the purchase price. So they run together and you pay for 5 years but only get 2 because the GM warranty runs out. So look at when you can get one. Say 2 years from now. Buy a 5 year plan and the truck will be covered for 7 years from the time you got it.

Dunn · December 31, 2019

1 hour ago, truck_newbie said:

GM themselves now offer extended bumper-to-bumper warranty. It extends the 3yr/36k bumper-to-bumper to 5yr/60k bumper-to-bumper. This one is not a service contract. I'm surprised most people don't seem to know about this. The extended warranties provided by 3rd parties are not warranties, they are service contracts as pointed out by others.

The extended bumper-to-bumper cost $1k and can only be added at the time of purchase of the truck because it's tied to the VIN and they have to check that option when the vehicle is marked as sold in the GM database. I got this when i purchased my truck. Some might disagree but it was a no brainier for me.The links below explain it, you can check for yourself.

https://www.gmc.com/protection/extended-limited-warranty

https://www.chevrolet.com/protection/extended-limited-warranty

not available for California, and other states

warranties are great, just paying an insane amount isn't....and there are tons of places so, could be even better ones idk

and yes like guy above I would be looking into one when my warranty nears end of its life....and agree for most part theyre huge money makers....

Edited December 31, 2019 by Dunn

Texas Daddy · December 31, 2019

Keep telling them no until they drop the $100 deductible, extend the milage to 100k, and do it all for under $2k...

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Bigguy214 · January 1, 2020

Just be careful to read the fine print.I bought a used Chrysler and purchased the Chrysler warranty and after a couple of years the speedometer stopped working to it to a chrysler dealer and the speedo cable broke.Dealer called and said it was not covered.I said I have my paperwork and it says that speedometer either mechanical or electronic is covered he said bring the paperwork here and he will call Chrysler.Took it down to dealer and service guy agreed and called Chrysler and they said that it was covered originally but they changed my warranty and had the right to do so anytime. It was actually in the fine print.Also they told the dealer I had to have it fixed or don’t give me my car back because the miles would not add up with the speedo broke.So I don’t buy any warranties anymore.

BlaineBug · January 1, 2020

3 hours ago, Bigguy214 said:

Just be careful to read the fine print.I bought a used Chrysler and purchased the Chrysler warranty and after a couple of years the speedometer stopped working to it to a chrysler dealer and the speedo cable broke.Dealer called and said it was not covered.I said I have my paperwork and it says that speedometer either mechanical or electronic is covered he said bring the paperwork here and he will call Chrysler.Took it down to dealer and service guy agreed and called Chrysler and they said that it was covered originally but they changed my warranty and had the right to do so anytime. It was actually in the fine print.Also they told the dealer I had to have it fixed or don’t give me my car back because the miles would not add up with the speedo broke.So I don’t buy any warranties anymore.

That's nice, the fine print allows them to change what you paid for at any time. And they wouldn't let you leave? How can that be? That doesn't seem legal. You have the right to fix it yourself (or not.) An odometer disclosure allows one to sell a vehicle with inoperable speedometer so obviously it is not a crime to not have it fixed, ever!