Buying extended warranty at End of Lease

My Nissan Leaf is at the End of Lease in a few months. I was planning on ditching it for something fun, but Nissan is offering some ridiculous incentives to buy it out - enough that it's almost too cheap NOT to buy.

BUT

I've had some expensive problems under warranty with the car - the heater module went out - twice - and the front suspension has been problematic. Struts I can deal with, but a possible $3000 heater module looming over my head is a deal-breaker.

Can you buy an extended warranty through the manufacturer at lease end? I haven't found any info online about it.

Call the dealer and ask.

If the warranty is cheap, buy the car. If its expensive, don't. Actuarial tables and all that, you know.

Most aftermarket warranty contracts are worth just slightly less than the paper they are written on. "What's that? The timing chain in your Ford 5.4 is noisy? Sorry, that's not part of the reciprocating assembly, and if you read your contract, you will see we have excluded everything that is likely to ever fail in your vehicle."

In reply to Streetwiseguy:

Very good point, I'll figure the price into my cost. Have a call into the dealer, we'll see what comes back.

Factory warranty should continue

Just in case anyone is interested in the future - you can indeed buy an extended warranty on a leased car that you purchase from Nissan.

Not sure yet whether that's the direction I'll go, but it seems like a pretty good deal.

I'm not an expert on these things -- other than having dealt with family members that bought these and found that they didn't actually cover anything -- nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I did just listen to a Lehto's Law podcast about these! The 3rd party ones that I've seen manage to get out of covering pretty much anything and are more "insurance" than "warranty". Nissan USA has one though with three different levels of coverage. No idea what the price points are, but if you're going to spend money on one, it'd probably be best to make sure you're getting Nissan's and not some insurance outfit that your dealer is reselling.

bastomatic wrote: Just in case anyone is interested in the future - you can indeed buy an extended warranty on a leased car that you purchase from Nissan. Not sure yet whether that's the direction I'll go, but it seems like a pretty good deal.

You should tell them to include the warranty with the purchase of a car at the price they quoted you.

wae wrote: The 3rd party ones that I've seen manage to get out of covering pretty much anything and are more "insurance" than "warranty". Nissan USA has one though with three different levels of coverage. No idea what the price points are, but if you're going to spend money on one, it'd probably be best to make sure you're getting Nissan's and not some insurance outfit that your dealer is reselling.

This varies somewhat from state to state. About 15 years ago in California they passed a major law regulating aftermarket warranties and really cleaned things up.

Look for one that's branded with the OEM name. I say "branded" because usually even a "Nissan" extended warranty is actually run by an aftermarket warranty company, just with a "Nissan" brand on it. Still, the brand means that Nissan cares about your opinion of it, and will sometimes go to bat for you on it.

Also never buy a warranty that lists the things that are covered -- buy one that lists the things that are NOT covered. Be aware that even the best extended warranty is going to make repairs take longer (because the warranty company will want to send an adjustor to look at it) and if there's something on the "not covered" list that's required to fix something that is covered, they will make you pay for the "not covered" bit. For example, alignments usually aren't covered, so even if they're covering a steering rack replacement you'll pay for the alignment.

As for the Leaf, the market resale values on those cars are really really low, so do some research on that before you buy it. Even if they're offering you a huge chunk of the listed residual on the contract, it may still not be as cheap as you could get one used.

Oh, the other thing about warranties is that they're sold by the dealer with a lot of markup on them, and you generally don't have to buy it from the same dealer that you buy the car from, so shop around.

Thanks for the input guys. They're offering me $7500 off the residual of the lease, which takes it well under the average wholesale auction price of a '13 Leaf. Heck, even with the added warranty it doesn't come very close.

I've found what codrus said above to be true - any Nissan dealer will sell you the warranty, at very different prices. I'll be price shopping the warranty to see what the range is, but I'm guessing it will be between $600 and $1000 for an extra 4 years on the warranty.

I wonder if the book value of the car matters at all when a major repair hits under warranty, or don't they care?

Take the money you would spend each month and put it in the bank, separate account.

Chances are you will come out ahead.

Most warranty problems occur early in the vehicles life.

I get that, but the unique nature of the car and the fact that the same expensive part has failed twice now under warranty is the only thing that makes me consider extending it.

If it costs less than $1000 to extend it four years, vs the chance of replacing the heater again at $3000+ a pop, those are odds I'll take.

It does look like total covered repairs can't exceed book value of the car, which makes sense but is a downer. The non covered parts seems to be mostly wear items.

iceracer wrote: Chances are you will come out ahead.

That's true of any form of insurance. Insurance is not about spending less money -- it is about reducing risk.