My husband drives an Audi, which we almost always use when we both go out or travel. I drive a 2006 Honda Odyssey with about 95.000 miles.
Most of the Odyssey miles were from it early years. I just checked - we are due for the “annual” oil change, which we sometimes stretch a little longer. It’s had 2500 miles in past year, mostly around town.
Wouldn’t a two year old car be under the manufacturer’s warranty (especially for powertrain, which is often longer than the bumper-to-bumper warranty)?
We buy Honda and Subaru. Never take them back to dealership other than for warranty or recalls (and other than airbag recalls, both have been rare). Regular oil changes and tires and brake pads every 3 years or so. All at a local tire shop. Don’t have a repair shop I use because we haven’t really needed one.
Haven’t purchased an extended warranty. No need for one. Always laugh when dealers try to sell me one. What are you telling me about the reliability of the cars you are selling if you tell me I need an extended warranty? Even if I have a major repair in one of the current fleet (Honda with 110k miles/7 years, Subaru with 100k miles/7 years, Honda with 50k miles/7 years (gave to my son so no longer my responsibility) and subaru with 25k miles/2 years so still under manufacturer’s warranty), still ahead in terms of what we would have paid for extended warranties on each vehicle.
From posts in this thread and the other thread on this subject, sounds like some people are prepaying for service at the dealership and getting a discount. With dealership profit margins on parts and service, its still overpriced. But if you always go to dealership for service and keep the car for a long time, it probably makes sense.
Latch on Subaru sunglasses holder broke. Just taped it closed to keep it out of the way. When I had an airbag recall, asked the dealer to fix the sunglasses holder. Estimate was $250. Said they had to replace entire center roof console which included the holder. Checked online and OEM replacement part for console was $70. Even better, latch itself could be replaced. Got a pair of them shipped to me for $7. Watched a youtube video on the replacement and in less than 15 minutes, latch was replaced (and handy I am not). Can’t do many of the repairs cars would need but its an idea of the margins they are working with. I trust dealer service departments as far as I can throw the building.
@ucbalumnus this was a Civic from 1979. Warranties were a LOT different back then. Thus the extended warranty purchase.
I had Rusty Jones too…anyone else remember that?
I’d drive a Honda (our first 2 cars in married life were Hondas) or a Toyota (we also own a Lexus with over 260K on it and still doing well - probably just jinxed that by typing this 
). But the reality is I can afford to spend more and I do. I get what I like but my husband takes good care of them and we drive them forever. If our circumstances were different, I’d drive a less expensive model no problem. I don’t define myself by what I drive or worry about status. Comfort and handling (especially in northern New England winters) are my top priorities.
My Toyota Extended warranty was offered at the Dealership and they will pay 100% for s as by covered repair, as Long as we show we have been having the regular recommended maintenance from an authorized mechanic. The 1st 2 years of service is at no charge under the new car purchase.
It’s really for peace of mind that we bought the extended warranty. The $2000 price for a year, 100k warranty seemed reasonable enough.
Seems like with Toyotas, generally among the most reliable cars, you would probably go several hundred thousand miles before accumulating $2,000 of unscheduled repairs. It is not like you bought a Jaguar or Land Rover.
We had extended warranties on two different Honda Odysseys. Both paid for themselves, And we never had a major repair, just little stuff, but everything is expensive on those. We did negotiate the prices of the warranties as well, and actually purchased them separately and from different dealerships than the cars they covered. One of those cars was totaled before the warranty expired. Honda prorated is the remaining cost of the warranty even though it had already paid for itself in repairs. That was a nice surprise. The other one we sold and transferred the remaining warranty to the new owners who were glad for the peace of mind and a car that had always had everything kept repaired.
We also had a tire manufacturers warranty pay out most of the cost of a new set of tires when a set of Michelins wore out prematurely. We were glad we had saved records of all those tire rotations and alignments. Saved us over $500.
We haven’t had extended warranties on any other cars but Subaru extended the power train warranty on our Forester so it’s covered a while longer. The other current car is 12 years old and 60k miles. It’s needed one non-maintenance repair for under $300 in all that time, but the faded paint looks terrible.
@ucbalumnus I’ve owned a BMW and a Mercedes but we have also owned and still own a Toyota. We have also owned GMC, Ford, Hyundai and a Mazda. Kids drive Subaru, Toyota, old Volvo and Honda.
We never had an extended warranty on any car, but have always taken care to follow the manufacturer’s suggested maintenance. H almost always takes our car to an independent repair place (rarely did he go to a dealership). We have gone to the same shop for 30 years. We’ve owned (in 40 years of marriage) a Honda, Chrysler, Acura, Jeep, Toyota, BMW, and Mercedes. All of them have gone for 150,00-220,00 miles. The only exception was the BMW (an X5) which was clearly a lemon. The outside driver’s side handle fell off twice.
We recently bought two used Highlanders through Car Maxx (in 2019 purchased a 2016, and in 2020 purchased a 2018) and bought the extended warranty with them. It is peace of mind for something major going out over the warranty period.
Friend’s Suburu Forester transmission went out at 41,000 miles; she ended up purchasing a new vehicle due to the work not being covered under her warranty…it would have been $5K so she went with the purchase of a smaller new Suburu. It was on a trip to home town state; the dealer was really surprised about this transmission failure.