Ford Extended Warranty Question - Not paddling

My 2018 F150 is sitting just under 59,000 miles.  Most of these miles were put on Pre-covid & Pre-work from home (looks permanent)

1,000 more to go until the warranty expires.

So, I reached out to the dealership I bought it from asking about extending the powertrain.   

they suggested extending the powertrain for another 75,000miles/5years for around $2400.   

Would the hive go for this or just pay for repairs out of pocket?  documents say it covers the turbos (something I've heard might develop issues when north of 100,000)?   The

Extended warranties are not warranties in any sense of reality.  They are insurance policies, and as such, the company will do absolutely everything in its power to not pay a claim.  If there is any vaguely legal way they can get out of it, they will.  They also know they have you over a barrel.  What are you going to do?  Hire a lawyer while your car sits in a shop for a year? 

That insurance is also not offered by Ford.  Ford contracts with an independent underwriter (or several).  Furthermore, you see those plaques and awards on the wall of your Ford Service department?  They are not awarded because they are a great shop, those are recognitions from Ford that go to service departments with the highest number of conversions.  That is to say, they go to the service departments that were the most successful in convincing customers that a genuine warranty repair is not under warranty and convert the repair to customer-pay.

I worked in sales and service for Ford, GM, Volvo, and Honda.  All of them are the same.  Warranty conversions to customer-pay is an actual metric we discussed in every weekly sales meeting.

I look at those "warranties" and I think.... the $2400 buy-in could buy me three engines or three transmissions with low miles that I can swap in.

Just read the fine print with a crystal clear mind before you dive in.  Aftermarket insurance companies that cover auto repairs are (for the most part) egregiously awful, very shrewd, and complete ripoffs.  Working in repair I wish I had a nickel for every customer who came in and proudly handed me their "extended warranty" with a smile.  Then they find out that their $3200 transmission rebuild would only cost them $2700 they would lose their E36 M3.  They didn't  read the fine print to see that the package they chose had fine print that says transmissions are covered*  *up to $1000 with a $500 deductible.  These companies would talk to me (the service writer) and ask me to go over the car with a fine-toothed comb to look for absolutely anything that could be considered neglect so they could deny the claim.  A weeping gasket, coolant that was neglected as if that could cause a broken sprag or a failed solenoid.  I even had one ask me if the car had "uneven tire wear" which would indicate "forceful driving."

Some people get them and love them, but they are insurance, not a warranty, and the entire purpose of selling you a policy is to make money.  On the average, they're collecting more money than they give out in claims, so that alone is a losing proposition.  Many people say "yes, but I have the money now and I might not when I need a major repair."  That might hold water if you were certain that they would pay out and actually save you money.

Those are also repair numbers based on the Ford dealership doing the work, which is the absolute most expensive place to have the work done.  You can have an independent shop completely rebuild a transmission with R&R labor for $2500.  You can buy a good, running junkyard engine for $600 and have a shop drop it in for $750.  I could probably do an engine swap on a Ferrari for less than $6000.

I say hard no, complete ignore, don't do it.  I wouldn't even do it if someone else paid for it just on principle.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

So, your answer is... Maybe?  

I agree with your words!

In reply to John Welsh :

Haaa.  My answer is heck to the no.  I don't judge if others see value in it, and they're not all as bad as I portray, but the bottom line is that they're in the business of making money, so the chances of you benefiting financially from the venture is next to zero.

They show you a pricetag of $2400, then show you inflated costs for repairs and play on your fears that your investment is going to explode in the next 50k miles and hope you don't read the fine print about the conditions that must be met in order for repairs to be covered.

I had a 62 Cadillac with 590k on the original everything.  I have a 275k 67 LeMans that still runs on a refreshed engine.  My buddy is currently driving a 99 F150 with 380k.  Things last longer than you think, and if you actually research what you can have those repairs done for in the real world, you'll see that $2400 is a violation of your wallet.  I have a 94 Branger that has been an absolute money pit, and in 4 years I don't think I've spent $2400 in clutch, upper engine repair, and A/C work... most of which was just farmed out to a local shop.

Let me put it this way.... in my decade-ish running auto repair shops, I have probably dealt with multiple thousands of repairs through these companies.  Never once, not a single time EVER has a customer been grateful to the company for how they covered their repairs.  At best, the customer would take ownership of the fact that they screwed up by buying the policy and not blame me, but usually it was MY fault because I was the face they saw. In fact, a ridiculously large proportion of my repair liens came from disputes over these companies.  Customers get into a battle with the warranty company, the car sits, I don't hear anything for 9 months, customers think I'm somehow involved in the scam, lawsuits are threatened, I'm not a storage facility, sorry - not sorry, thanks for the worthless Chrysler that I have to suck up the $2000 cost of repairs so I can sell it for $2500.

Our shop truck was a really nice Ford Ranger that the warranty company refused to cover the timing chain guides because they sent a rep down from Dallas and noticed a rear main seal leak (which was actually a valve cover leak).  Our courtesy car for a while was a really sweet Cherry Pearl 95 Caddy DeVille that the block cracked near the pan rail causing an oil milkshake and the warranty company refused the claim because the customer couldn't provide proof that the oil and coolant were changed on regular intervals.  I had to buy an $800 Northstar that burned a little oil and pay a tech something like 14 book hours to swap it out.

Sorry, not sorry.  We were a straight up legit business.  We didn't make our profits by fabricating problems, we made our profits by generating trust and doing honest repairs for a decent (but premium) price.  So when a "warranty" company screws me out of money, turns a customer against me, and generates a 6 month headache on a profitable repair that I could otherwise bust out in a couple days, I get a little hot under the collar.

Coming from a 3 generation auto repair background....Everything Curtis said here is 100% accurate. Do not buy the "warrantee"

Also, I have the same truck sitting at 139,000 miles and it's still been bulletproof. Trans shifts weird sometimes and the 5.0 is "noisy" but no issues.

The one and only time I ever bought that warranty was for my wife's 2005 New Beetle convertible. I hated that car with a passion, but she wanted one dearly. At the 60k mark all hell broke loose and I made the warranty company eat every damn bit of it. I had read absolutely every line of their contract. All four power window motors, stereo went nuts, power top mechanism imploded. I paid $2k for the warranty and got nearly $4k worth of repairs out of it. Not quite a Doug Demuro CARMAX situation, but it worked. The sole reason I pried open my wallet was I already driving a '96 Passat VR6 and I knew dark clouds were on the horizon for the little Beetle.

But for OPs truck, I'd pass on the extended warranty.

Former Ford dealer tech speaking: A true Ford ESP (extended service plan) is good value IF you need it. I changed a lot of timing chains on early 3.5L Ecoboost engines that were well out of base warranty, but were covered by ESP. 

Because it is administered by Ford, the chance of something being denied is much lower than with a 3rd party warranty. In my time at the dealer, we only declined coverage if the cause of the failure was a non-warrantable part, or obvious signs of abuse. Ford has an online tool for the techs to submit the part number of the causal part, and it tells us if it's covered or not. It is NOT discretionary, and Ford will only send an inspector in very unusual cases.

Curtis covered my thoughts on the warranty. 

If you have $2400 burning a hole in your wallet, I'd drop the $2400 into a high yield savings account or something similar and take it out when you need to do repairs.

$2400 is quite a lot for a glorified insurance policy that doesn't even work half the time. 

In reply to BMWGeoff :

It may have been administered by Ford when you were a tech, but it is no longer.  It is administered by American Road Services Company LLC and underwritten by Nationwide

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

Well E36 M3, nevermind then.

If you need an extended warranty, then the product is crap. If you buy something and it colossally breaks before it's  time, never buy that product again. 
 

In reply to rustybugkiller :

Exactly.  Any car company who tells you to buy their cars because they are the best and then tells you that you need insurance because it's going to explode and cost you tens of thousands of dollars to fix is lying on one or the other.

Buy our reliable truck, but buy the waranteee because it's gonna die in the most egregiously expensive way.

thanks Curtis,

the small print will get you everytime !

I'd rather buy $2400 in scratch-off lottery tickets.  You have a higher chance of breaking even.

Point taken.    I'll leave it alone.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to BMWGeoff :

It may have been administered by Ford when you were a tech, but it is no longer.  It is administered by American Road Services Company LLC and underwritten by Nationwide

When Ford ran the program it was a loss leader.  With American Road Services paying Ford for access, there is no downside for Ford so it's pure profit.

I have bought two of them, one from Dodge, one from Ford. Both were purchased on used vehicles. Both of them more than paid for themselves in covered repairs. 

The Dodge version replaced head gaskets on a minivan, the Ford version replaced all of the steering linkage and gear on the front of an E150. There was no fighting or even a question about it being covered. I dropped them off, they fixed it. Money out of my pocket was $0.00. I was happy. 

This was 20+ years ago so YMMV.

I bought one on my first new car (a Saturn), and it definitely didn't pay for itself.  My wife bought one for her GTI, and oh boy has it paid for itself.