$300 for a 4 year warranty at circuit city - good idea or not ?

For a $899 HP at circuit city you pay
$300 for a 4 year warranty, is that a good idea ?

I recently passed on the warranty for a $1249 Toshiba. I couldn't bring
myself to prepay $300 for a repair that will likely never be needed. This
isn't like insurance, where you're leveraging a relatively small amount to
cover yourself for claims that you can't possibly meet from your own assets.
Service plans and consumer warranties are a cash cow for retailers, since
people rarely use them. Sales people at places like Best Buy are under
enormous pressure to sell service plans, and their potential for advancement
and raises is based largely on how well they sell extras like service plans
and software. But I didn't wish ill on the sales guy. I know he's in a fix
and has bills to pay. So I also bought some software, and that seemed to
make him happy.
--
Curtis Croulet
Temecula, California
33°27'59"N, 117°05'53"W

See my previous post. The problem is that if you crack the screen
(likely if you ever drop the laptop), you will be looking at an $800
repair. If the motherboard fails out of warranty, you will also
probably be looking at an $800 repair.

Curtis Croulet wrote:

> I recently passed on the warranty for a $1249 Toshiba. I couldn't bring
> myself to prepay $300 for a repair that will likely never be needed. This
> isn't like insurance, where you're leveraging a relatively small amount to
> cover yourself for claims that you can't possibly meet from your own assets.
> Service plans and consumer warranties are a cash cow for retailers, since
> people rarely use them. Sales people at places like Best Buy are under
> enormous pressure to sell service plans, and their potential for advancement
> and raises is based largely on how well they sell extras like service plans
> and software. But I didn't wish ill on the sales guy. I know he's in a fix
> and has bills to pay. So I also bought some software, and that seemed to
> make him happy.

"surf" <> wrote in message
news: ps.com...
>
> For a $899 HP at circuit city you pay
> $300 for a 4 year warranty, is that a good idea ?

No. Frankly, extended warranties are a rip off.



*** Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com ***

"surf" <> wrote:
> For a $899 HP at circuit city you pay
>$300 for a 4 year warranty, is that a good idea ?

I don't like extended warranties from anyone but the manufacturer.
Read the fine print, many of them are exhausted after a single repair.

I do like laptop warranties for as long as you are planning on owning
the machine, though. As Barry said, one LCD or motherboard repair and
you've spent well over half the cost of a new machine, and some of the
low-end machines come with 90-day warranties...

"Barry Watzman" <> wrote in message
news:...
> See my previous post. The problem is that if you crack the screen (likely
> if you ever drop the laptop), you will be looking at an $800 repair. If
> the motherboard fails out of warranty, you will also probably be looking
> at an $800 repair.
>

Just to illustrate how bad value service plans are: instead of paying for
them, put the money into a savings account instead. Do this for everything
you buy, for which a service plan is offered. Everytime something goes
wrong, pay for the repair out of the savings account. After some years, the
huge surplus of cash in the savings account should answer any doubts that
you had about service plans. Note: that your savings account has probably
paid for repairs that would be refused by the service plan, because the plan
has expired or the failure falls under one of the many exclusion clauses.


> Curtis Croulet wrote:
>
>> I recently passed on the warranty for a $1249 Toshiba. I couldn't bring
>> myself to prepay $300 for a repair that will likely never be needed.
>> This
>> isn't like insurance, where you're leveraging a relatively small amount
>> to
>> cover yourself for claims that you can't possibly meet from your own
>> assets.
>> Service plans and consumer warranties are a cash cow for retailers, since
>> people rarely use them. Sales people at places like Best Buy are under
>> enormous pressure to sell service plans, and their potential for
>> advancement
>> and raises is based largely on how well they sell extras like service
>> plans
>> and software. But I didn't wish ill on the sales guy. I know he's in a
>> fix
>> and has bills to pay. So I also bought some software, and that seemed to
>> make him happy.

On 25 May 2006 15:30:14 -0700, "surf" <> wrote:

>
> For a $899 HP at circuit city you pay
>$300 for a 4 year warranty, is that a good idea ?

no
Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/
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http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?ht...ames.hoffpauir
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M.I.5¾ wrote:
> "Barry Watzman" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>
>>See my previous post. The problem is that if you crack the screen (likely
>>if you ever drop the laptop), you will be looking at an $800 repair. If
>>the motherboard fails out of warranty, you will also probably be looking
>>at an $800 repair.
>>
>
>
> Just to illustrate how bad value service plans are: instead of paying for
> them, put the money into a savings account instead. Do this for everything
> you buy, for which a service plan is offered. Everytime something goes
> wrong, pay for the repair out of the savings account. After some years, the
> huge surplus of cash in the savings account should answer any doubts that
> you had about service plans.

The only thing is, extended warranties are moneymakers partly because
even people who *should* collect on them often do not. I don't normally
buy them, but I can see where they *might* pay off if you're the type of
person who can keep track of receipts for years, etc.

> "timeOday" wrote:
> The only thing is, extended warranties are moneymakers partly because even
> people who *should* collect on them often do not. I don't normally buy
> them, but I can see where they *might* pay off if you're the type of
> person who can keep track of receipts for years, etc.

I'm guilty of that. My laptop's battery crapped in one year so I went and
paid $150 for a new one. It was covered in the contract that I learned
later when it was too late. It then crapped out the modem which was out of
warranty by then.

The new HP I opted out of the service plan. Exactly 13 months, the screen
went dead ($450). Got that fixed and then two months later the CD-DVD
burner crapped. They wanted over $550 for that which I said no to and went
and bought an external DVD burner for the USB 2 port which works far better
and faster than the built-in ever did.

B~

surf wrote:

>
> For a $899 HP at circuit city you pay
> $300 for a 4 year warranty, is that a good idea ?

Read all the fine print and think about how you're going to use the machine.
If it covers breakage and you're going to be carrying the machine around
instead of sitting it on a desktop and leaving it there, it's
worthwhile--machines that get carried around _do_ get dropped and the like.

While generally I don't recommend extended warranties, laptops are an
exception.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)