Extended warranty on a non-certified civic: worth it?

[buriedbeds]

I bought a 2002 2-door civic coupe with 37k miles on it. I'm quite happy with it.

Here's the questions: It's not certified, but there's an extended Honda bumper-to-bumper warranty available on the thing. For 4 years/48k miles, it's around $1400 after tax. Considering my loan rate and length, this will add about $25/month to my payments (currently around $205/month). It includes roadside assistance, so I could drop AAA, which would save me ~$90/year. I would probably run through those miles in 3 years, possibly 3 1/3 years. On thursday I need to tell them whether or not I want it.

Any opinions on whether or not it's worth it? It seems kind of like a coinflip, from what I've heard about the relatively low costs for fixing civics and their reputed reliability. This leads me to believe that I might be better off taking that $25/month, throwing it into a savings account and saving it as a car-fixing fund, should the need arise.

FWIW, I'm currently relatively cash-poor, but I can save some in the coming months. Also, I might go back to school next year, and if I did that, clearly I'd be REALLY cash-poor.

Thanks for any advice-

-bb.

[coolhandluke]

these are almost always horrid deals. Let's think about it, the only reason they want to sell you this is because they make money on it, which means you lose money. adding 10% to your payment for a car that most likely won't need it is nuts. The warranty will run out at 85k, which, for a civic, is not that much at all.

[Lester B]

[ QUOTE ]
these are almost always horrid deals. Let's think about it, the only reason they want to sell you this is because they make money on it, which means you lose money. adding 10% to your payment for a car that most likely won't need it is nuts. The warranty will run out at 85k, which, for a civic, is not that much at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is all completely accurate. Well put.

The other reason you don't want the EW is the fact that a lot of times they have hidden 'outs' that allow them not to cover things they should have. Not all are like this, but often you don't find out these things until you have a breakdown and need to use it.

Take the following example:

I was working in an aftermarket shop and a customer came in with an overheating problem. The cust. had an aftermarket warranty on her car.

The diagnosis revealed the cylinder head was warped (and later found to be cracked as well) and caused a coolant leak internally. I think the estimate was like $1600 or so to replace it.

As the service manager, I called the warranty company for approval. Since the repair estimate exceeded $500, they had to send an adjuster to the shop. This took three days.

After the adjuster examines the car, he shows me the literature explaining the exact details of the coverage and says that damage due to overheating voids the warranty on cylinder head coverage!!!

I went off on the adjuster, even though I probably shouldn't have... he didn't write the policy. But I asked him what the [censored] could cause cylinder head damage BESIDES OVERHEATING!! Obviously, there is no answer to that.

I ended up talking to several managers at this warranty company (all by phone, and every time the one I had spoken to prior was 'unavailable') and every time I was given the run-around on what they were going to do about it.

To make a long story short, the customer ended up authorizing the repairs and paying cash and they took up the fight with the warranty company themselves. They were without their car for two weeks as a result on a job that should have taken two or three days to complete.

Not all warranty companies are bad. I have seen a couple that are decent to deal with. But for the most part, they're not worth the paper they're printed on.

Later

[buriedbeds]

Thanks for the advice...pretty much what I was thinking. I think I'll be passing on the warranty, then...

Thanks again-

-bb.