Should I Purchase Extended Warranty

I have a 2012 Leaf I purchased 12-13-11 so the warranty expires in 4 days. I want to know whether it would be appropriate to purchase an extended warranty. I can get 84 months/70,000 miles for just under $1,700 that is transferable upon sale. I expect to keep the car another 18 months or so. The car only has 11,000 miles and has been problem free with the exception of the 12 volt battery needing replacement two times for unknown reason.

I'm hoping some of the older leaf owners out there can share some insights on any major issues out of warranty.

Thanks,

I am a new owner, but one thing I have noticed is that the problems with the Leaf seem to follow the "gadget" pattern more closely than the "car" pattern. That is to say, problems tend to be within the first year, or not at all, which is typical of stuff like televisions and laptops. The lone exception appears to be battery degradation.

mthebaut said:

I have a 2012 Leaf I purchased 12-13-11 so the warranty expires in 4 days. I want to know whether it would be appropriate to purchase an extended warranty. I can get 84 months/70,000 miles for just under $1,700 that is transferable upon sale. I expect to keep the car another 18 months or so. The car only has 11,000 miles and has been problem free with the exception of the 12 volt battery needing replacement two times for unknown reason.

I'm hoping some of the older leaf owners out there can share some insights on any major issues out of warranty.

Thanks,

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Do not purchase an extended warranty. It's like throwing money away. I believe an overwhelming majority of 2011-2012 owners will agree with me.

Try one of the lengthy threads on this topic already hashed out.

Short answer: spend $30 on a battery maintainer and hardwire it to the car. That will save you $1670.

2011 Leaf with 37,071 miles, rock solid and with no issues yet. I spoke with a Nissan rep yesterday and their warrenty plan was written for an ICE car, engine & tranny was the bulk of it and their highest plan cover the radio. What a joke. Save your money.

I'd stay away from an extended warranty. When I got my Leaf the sales rep tried to tell me how the car would need so much work, especially with the brakes, and that I'd be spending more in repairs than an ICE car because the technology was so new. It's all BS. Simple physics - you can't break a moving part that you don't have.

I personally like having the extended warranty. Even though the car has proved itself a lot over the last 4 years, there are still a lot of very expensive components on it, and any one could be an oddball failure. Or not.

That said, you could definitely score a much better deal on the warranty by shopping online. I bought 6 years / 75,000 mile Security+Plus Gold Preferred through Vaden Nissan out of Georgia for $740. I could have also gone with 5 years / 75,000 miles for $620, or 5 years / 60,000 miles for $600. But note that these were the prices from around 15 months ago so you shouldn't expect them to be exactly the same.

BTW, you do know the drive-train warranty is 5 years / 60,000 miles already, right? I keep having to remind myself of that. And the battery capacity warranty is 5 years / 60,000 miles too. And the battery workmanship and materials warranty is 8 years / 100,000 miles. So all you'll be getting from your extended warranty is the bumper-to-bumper coverage otherwise.

Great information! Thank you!

IF anyone goes for extended warranties, don't take the title of the warranty as meaning much (i.e. bumper to bumper etc). READ THE SMALL PRINT. Seriously - most of these warranties have explicit "we will cover these items" lists in the fine print, anything not listed isn't covered. Thus unless it was written for the Leaf it likely will cover all sorts of things you don't have and not list the things we do - i.e. written for ICE it won't cover anything to do with the electric drive system. Even ICE buyers need to read close, but I'm guessing there aren't many EV specific extended warranties out there.

Slow1 said:

IF anyone goes for extended warranties, don't take the title of the warranty as meaning much (i.e. bumper to bumper etc). READ THE SMALL PRINT. Seriously - most of these warranties have explicit "we will cover these items" lists in the fine print, anything not listed isn't covered. Thus unless it was written for the Leaf it likely will cover all sorts of things you don't have and not list the things we do - i.e. written for ICE it won't cover anything to do with the electric drive system. Even ICE buyers need to read close, but I'm guessing there aren't many EV specific extended warranties out there.

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There is a LEAF-centric version of the warranty. I posted the scanned warranty booklet somewhere on here, but I don't have time to search for it right now.

mwalsh said:

Slow1 said:

IF anyone goes for extended warranties, don't take the title of the warranty as meaning much (i.e. bumper to bumper etc). READ THE SMALL PRINT. Seriously - most of these warranties have explicit "we will cover these items" lists in the fine print, anything not listed isn't covered. Thus unless it was written for the Leaf it likely will cover all sorts of things you don't have and not list the things we do - i.e. written for ICE it won't cover anything to do with the electric drive system. Even ICE buyers need to read close, but I'm guessing there aren't many EV specific extended warranties out there.

Click to expand...

There is a LEAF-centric version of the warranty. I posted the scanned warranty booklet somewhere on here, but I don't have time to search for it right now.

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Good to know. Is there just one (from Nissan I presume) or have any of the independent companies started offering them?

Here is that LEAF service plan brochure. Note that this dates back to when I first got my car, so it may or may not be the most current version:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3xg69xslsqzxswm/Nissan_LEAF_Service_Plans.pdf?dl=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I bought a Gold plan and even though I have not used it yet I am glad I have it since I am past the original 3 year warranty.
A single failure could make it a good thing to have.
But do shop around.
I bought from dealer that delivered the car to me.
Could have saved several hundred dollars.
You can buy it from any Nissan dealer.
One in CA was half of some other dealers.
Lots of threads on it.
Some on west coast were less than half.

mwalsh said:

Here is that LEAF service plan brochure.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3xg69xslsqzxswm/Nissan_LEAF_Service_Plans.pdf?dl=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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This warrantee was designed by Nissan specifically for the Leaf, yet it includes flat tire changing with your good spare, and trip interruption coverage when you break down more than 100 miles from home.

garymelora said:

...
This warrantee was designed by Nissan specifically for the Leaf, yet it includes flat tire changing with your good spare, and trip interruption coverage when you break down more than 100 miles from home.

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:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Have to admit I had not read it very carefully before and nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I read use of your good spare.
Only Australia gets that.
Can only get the mounting bracket from Australian dealer.
Of course Nissan is charging the Australians a ridiculously high price for the vehicle.

In general it is best to insure against large losses that would be difficult to afford. If my house burns down I'm definitely going to need help from insurance to rebuild it. If I have a huge medical bill from some serious health issue I will need help from my (high deductible) health insurance. If I total my LEAF, replacing it would be a lot easier with my car insurance (but I don't bother with collision/comprehensive on my '96 Jeep Cherokee because it is only worth a few thousand dollars). And I always select the highest deductible available and "self-insure" for the deductible amount.

In short, insurance — which is what an extended warranty is — is for the big stuff, the things that would be hard to pay for without insurance, not for the little things like car repairs. When you buy those extended warranties you "lose" the amount you pay up front, regardless of whether or not you use it. They wouldn't sell those extended warranties if they weren't (very) profitable.

If my LEAF charger fails, can I afford to pay several thousand dollars to replace it? Yes. I hope that I don't have to, but I could pay that bill without difficulty.

Unless you knew that there was a high probability of expensive repairs during the extended warranty term — which is not the case for the LEAF, so far as I know — it isn't a good buy. Better to save the money and keep it in a "car maintenance" savings account of some sort.

My 36 month warranty expires on Monday and I haven't purchased an extended warranty; I will self-insure for LEAF repairs.

My 2¢. Do what you will.

You can buy an extended warrantee for almost anything now a days and as mentioned before you don't have to go through Nissan, you can buy them on line, you can shop around people will undercut others. Why? Because there is so much frackin money to be made doing it. They don't make money by paying out to people with expensive repairs easily.

Over your life how many auto repair bills have you had? I mean repairs not wear items, not brakes, ball joints shocks etc... How many cars have you had? Add up all the past repairs, multiply the number of cars you've had by $1700.

I've had a lot of cars, but I also do a lot of driving.
Brand new
mini 60,000km
kia 26,000km
prius 33,000km (still have it)
leaf 16,000km (still have it)
Civic 80,000km

Used
Prius drove 100k to 140,000km (mother in laws now, not counting her km but still no repairs)
Saab drove 180k to 220,000km
Miata drove 100k to 145,000km
GTR drove 85k to 100,000km
TDI drove 120k to 220,000km
Insight 283K to 307,000km
MDX 103K to 110,000km


So since 2004 my wife and I (her since 2009) have driven 491,000km or 307,000miles. Out of pocket non wear item repairs were a ignition coil pack for the saab $200 (kinda a wear part though), Coil pack on the GTR $800, re built the GTR MAF, high engine temps cause the factory solder to melt and short (free for me but new ones would have been $600ish), MAF sensor on the TDI $600, vacuum booster on TDI (can't remember the bill, lets say $500), MDX rear heater resistor $200.

Total $2900

Total warrantee parts
Civic, new plug and battery, cold start issue, within the first year.
Mini, upper shock mounts, but I tracked that car.

The only car that may have benefitted from an extended warrantee was the VW TDI, but just barely. And even if the warrantee had been $1000 if they had a small deductible, or a required service done to keep it up it might not have broken even.

The TDI demonstrates again why warantee's aren't always good. The MAF in that car was $600, the gas car was $150. The dealer told us the TDI MAFs don't go, it's odd that we were in there with that problem, they hardly sell anything. The gas car MAFs were more a few years back but they had issues and started selling a lot, as the demand went up (so aftermarket got in on it) the price of the VW part went down. The TDI MAF had to be bought from VW. If you are worried about an expensive part in your car failing it's price is sometimes in direct relationship to how often it is likely to fail.

The Acura MDX was a 2001, first year and illustrates another reason why paying for an extended warrantee is bad. It had a problem with the transmission, many failures. But Acura stepped up and extended the warrantee (10 years 100k miles I think). They even offered goodwill prices to customers out of warrantee. My car had the original transmission with no repairs. The previous 1 owner always did dealer service and did whatever the service advisor said it needed.

Think Nissan now has a capacity warrantee which I understand they didn't in 2012, how would you feel if you paid $1700 for that back then and then Nissan went and retroactively gave it to everyone (well almost everyone)?

Someone mentioned the charger failing, but if your car is out of warrantee who says you have to put a Nissan charger back in it? If others have added a second charger to the 3.3kWh charger cars would it not be possible to only use an aftermarket charger? If the warrantee forces you to use the original part but will only cover 50% of it and the OEM part is double you're not saving anything.

I see you have a MINI, minispeed. I thought you might.

We have one too (actually we have 3, 2 of them classics). Our MINI is a 2004 Cooper with 67,000 miles on it. You know, the first gen with the Midland gearbox. We've had zero trouble with ours (yet, touch wood), but I'll bet there are a lot of owners who wished they'd had an extended warranty to cover that gearbox!

In fact, transmission troubles have plagued almost every car we've owned for the last 15 years (admittedly all Fords except the MINI), and those are very expensive repairs out of warranty, even at an independent shop.

Now, OK, so the LEAF doesn't have a transmission per-se, but I still think the peace of mind an extended warranty provides is worth the money. YMMV.

I bought the warranty on mine, but I ground them hard on the price. Paid $1200 for the 100K warranty. My thinking was that unlike ICE cars, there is likely no 3rd party mechanic I can take the car to when outside of warranty. Knowing from past experience, a car dealership will work you over on any out of warranty repair, so I was just scared of that prospect. The more I think about it though, it may have been an incorrect approach because I will likely turn the car in or sell it at around 45K miles, so in that case I'll only be out of the bumper to bumper warranty by 9K miles and still be inside of the powertrain warranty. On the slim chance that a replacement battery is $3K or less in a few years and keeping the leaf becomes a considerable option, maybe it would be worth it.