My Fabia is coming up to 3 years old with a ridiculously low mileage (8k). I bought it secondhand about 6 months ago and I intend keeping it for the foreseeable future.

I'm vaguely thinking of taking out an extended warranty and would be especially grateful for comments from anyone who has had experience of these warranties. They seem very expensive with lots of restrictions. My inclination is to make sure the car is regularly serviced and checked and to keep my fingers crossed!

Thanks in advance. 

How long do you intend to keep the Fabia for. The extended warranty will be for a fixed period, no doubt renewable, but as the car ages the cost of the warranty will cost more each year. 35 years ago  I had extended warranties on my 2nd hand cars traveling 30k miles per year, never needed to claim on them, since 1996 I've not bothered and have covered 152,000 (Mitsubishi) , 162,000 (Mazda)  and 80,000 (VW) in the last 3 cars. I may have been lucky but I've not had any major component fail, just regular service items. The 7spd dry  DSG box is generally reliable and robust but if it goes wrong is expensive to repair,  The warranty costs over 5 years that would cover DSG repairs, may well turn out to be nearly as much or more!  We have a very similar car to yourself, 2015 Fabia Mk3 1.2 TSI SE with DSG box,  this has covered 6k miles, this we intend to keep for at least another 10 years. I've not bought an extended warranty, preferring instead to put aside each year what the warranty premium would be. If at some point there is an expensive repair then I will have the money to pay for the repair, and if nothing goes wrong then I will have a nice little bonus. Also this way there are no awkward restrictions. 

 

In my experience the key to having a reliable car and trouble-free ownership is finding a good garage, one that doesn't do the bare minimum, that tells you that this or that should be attended to to avoid future cost or failure. For example I had a Cavalier that required new front discs after 30k miles because the callipers had seized, lubricating the calliper slides was an optional item on the annual service so was only done at customer request. I subsequently requested calliper slide lubrication at every service and over the next 110k miles never needed the front discs replacing again.

Warranties are an Insurance Policy, you decide.  

With a DQ200 DSG i would want an extended warranty, but then you need to look at the Max Claim,. Payout, and Exclusions etc.

& how Warranty Claims have been getting knocked back, cars with FMDSH's as well.  On TSI 1.2 & 1.4 TSI in Euro 5 emission cars and with DQ200 DSG's.

Underwriter saying known issue, and who knew, it was VW who actually own the Warranty Company.  Not on paper though.

 

http://insurewithskoda.co.uk/extended-warranty

 

Edited 16 February, 20197 yr by Skoffski

17 hours ago, thamestrader said:

How long do you intend to keep the Fabia for. The extended warranty will be for a fixed period, no doubt renewable, but as the car ages the cost of the warranty will cost more each year. 35 years ago  I had extended warranties on my 2nd hand cars traveling 30k miles per year, never needed to claim on them, since 1996 I've not bothered and have covered 152,000 (Mitsubishi) , 162,000 (Mazda)  and 80,000 (VW) in the last 3 cars. I may have been lucky but I've not had any major component fail, just regular service items. The 7spd dry  DSG box is generally reliable and robust but if it goes wrong is expensive to repair,  The warranty costs over 5 years that would cover DSG repairs, may well turn out to be nearly as much or more!  We have a very similar car to yourself, 2015 Fabia Mk3 1.2 TSI SE with DSG box,  this has covered 6k miles, this we intend to keep for at least another 10 years. I've not bought an extended warranty, preferring instead to put aside each year what the warranty premium would be. If at some point there is an expensive repair then I will have the money to pay for the repair, and if nothing goes wrong then I will have a nice little bonus. Also this way there are no awkward restrictions. 

 

In my experience the key to having a reliable car and trouble-free ownership is finding a good garage, one that doesn't do the bare minimum, that tells you that this or that should be attended to to avoid future cost or failure. For example I had a Cavalier that required new front discs after 30k miles because the callipers had seized, lubricating the calliper slides was an optional item on the annual service so was only done at customer request. I subsequently requested calliper slide lubrication at every service and over the next 110k miles never needed the front discs replacing again.

Thanks very much for your excellent advice. That's a very good idea for saving money towards repairs and I'll certainly find an independent garage for regular servicing etc. Unfortunately I can no longer carry out routine servicing myself (oil changes etc.) because of advancing years and declining health. Hopefully I'll keep the Fabia until it's worthless!

Like all warranties, the commercial basis is that premiums collected exceed payouts to allow running costs, processing claims, and some profit.

 

If you put same amount aside, as would have paid in premiums, then on average will never draw all the money, because you never have the need to cover your admin cost and make a profit.    (There is a caveat, the warranty provider may be able to negotiate cheaper repairs)

 

Of course there is low possibility of a major expensive failure, could be unlucky, but on other hand could drive for 100 years and never have a big failure.  

 

Always remember that as car gets older, a point will be reached where a big repair would exceed the value, so would you go ahead and fix, or just decide a replacement has been forced.