Extended warranty again LOL... need help

So i'm in my 60's and plan to keep my leaf for quite some time. Being around awhile I know all about the extended warranty scam.

My concern is and I'm not being pushed by the dealer is . Considering all the electronics in my new 2015 leaf is it still not wise to get a extended warranty. I'm not worried about the battery or drive train its all those computer chips and electronics in the car.

take my stove one part of the electronics broke and the whole stove broke down. $400.00 later with me doing the labour ..

The leaf is not an oven and should hold up. Another thing I'm concerned about is the fact I'm sure after market parts will not be available and all work will have to be done at a Nissan dealer. Double the cost.

I can get a bumper to bumper extended warranty for 4 extra years for $1500.00 So what say you experienced Leaf owners if it was a regular car I would say no. Its the electronics that scare me that's all.. Peter Thanks in advance

Nav console, electronics in the door handle, power windows, heated mirrors, heated seats front and rear, heated steering wheel, onboard charger, telematics, GPS. So much stuff that can go wrong. I bought the extended warranty for 10yr/100kmi for $1400 and figure I'm ahead if I use it once.

I would say no. If something expensive breaks post warranty, find the part you need at the junk yard.

The part that would worry me the most is the battery. You're going to need a new one eventually (if you plan on owning the car for a long time), they are very expensive, and there's no extended warranty that covers degradation.

Ok two different comments much appreciated. Staque has my concerns exactly. Kubel you could be right but how many 2015 leafs am I going to find in a junk yard not many I'm guessing. Plus I live in a small center in BC and I bet I couldn't even find one.

My advantage is I live in a climate which is perfect for running a leaf very mild in winters and not to hot in the summer. I think my battery isn't going to be a concern Plus in 8 years they will be way cheaper then they are today..

Any more thoughts my friends..

I will chime in, but I won't break the tie. I am normally a "just say no to extended warranties" kind of guy and I declined to purchase one for the 2011 even though I intended to keep it for a long time and it was the first model year. Unfortunately, I was forced to replace it prematurely and several things came together to convince me to purchase an extended warranty on the 2015:
1. Reports of A/C and heater issues on 2013 and later models.
2. I have a better understanding of how expensive some of the parts for the LEAF are.
3. Nissan offered 72-month, 0% interest financing so I am not paying interest on the price of the warranty.
4. I wanted Gap insurance that would extend beyond the 3-year new car replacement rider on my car insurance (found out how expensive collisions are even when the other driver is at fault and depreciation is more than average).
5. I kept saying no to all the extras, but mentioned I might be interested in gap insurance if the price was right. The finance manager offered significant discounts if I purchased the extended warranty and gap insurance together. I said no to his early offers, but kept negotiating until he came down further on the package price and finally accepted.

Purchasing the gap insurance and extended warranty was a gamble and I won't know if I made the right choice for several years.

Gerry

I bought an extended warranty on my 2007 Camry Hybrid and did not get the value I expected. Thinking like you that with the newer technology it would save money, I paid $1559 for 8 years or 120K miles. I researched a few companies and selected a well known third party warranty company. I only had one claim in that time of which they paid $306 of a $750 bill. Their reason given for the reduced amount was that the Toyota dealers' cost for parts and labor were much too high. I do not know if the dealers warranty would have been better, but it was much more expensive to buy. I will not buy another extended warranty based on my limited experience.

I bought a 7 year 70,000 mile Nissan Gold preferred warranty from the dealer when I bought my 2011 LEAF 4 1/2 years ago.
Nothing has went wrong to use it yet.
But AC quit the other day, but so far appears to have only been a really dirty cabin air filter.

But some people have had failures where it would have paid to have it.
Such as charger diode failure or the motor replacement TickTock had done.
But they have been pretty limited on 2011.

If you buy one shop around.
Early on I learned the Santa Rosa Nissan was selling them a lot cheaper than what I paid.
I think it was Jim Bone Nissan.
See http://nissansrextendedservicecontracts.com/leaf-coverage/.

If you buy one I would stay with Nissan rather than aftermarket.
Can buy from any Nissan dealer.

kubel said:

I would say no. If something expensive breaks post warranty, find the part you need at the junk yard.

Click to expand...

This is definitely not good advice for the average owner; I am an engineer and still would not be able to "go to the junk yard and fix my car". I'm not a fan of extended warranties, but I bought one (7 yrs/70k miles/$800) for my Leaf for 2 reasons:
1) Lots of sole-sourced/limited parts availability items
2) Limited repair expertise (pretty much only Nissan dealers).

I too am not an extended warranty person.
Normally, you can find a part like a MAS air flow sensor that the dealer would want $450 for, plus $290 for labor or something, and you can do it yourself for under $100.

However, and I'm speaking as someone who has torn this whole car into parts and modded a bunch, this car does not work this way I'm afraid.

Sure, you can find a headlight or a tail light from a junker, but what do you do when the big red ! shows up, and it's the $3500 electric brake solenoid actuator, which seems to be a corrosion related problem which would also be common in most of the cars you might find in a junk yard, and this part might get scarce because of demand.

If we find that a certain part seems to have a high failure rate, then used ones will be scarce.

I purchased an extended warranty through USAA, who have never done me wrong. I have not had anything major fail in this car in almost 4 years (except both front struts leaked, and were repaired at 2.5 years under warranty.)

But If some little gizzy in the inverter assembly fails, and I can figure out exactly what has failed, and I can buy a used inverter assembly on e-bay for $450+ shipping and replace the whole deal, and hopefully it doesn't need the dealer to index it with the consult tool, etc......

You get my concern.

Plus, Nissan seems to be a D#&K about selling "component" parts for this car.
They don't even list part numbers for most of the individual circuit boards, because their dealers are not trained, prepared, or willing to do "inside the black box" repairs.
Nissan repairs by changing assemblies.
New Charger, New inverter, New BCM, New battery assembly, etc.

For around $800 I got a 4year bumper to bumper extended warranty, and now I can stop worrying about it.

Just my 2cents.....

my contribution; I am driving the first version (2nd iteration) of brand new technology. Just as I did not hang onto my $350 "upscan" DVD player, I will not hang onto LEAF version 1. I now use a $70 DVD player that works MUCH better than the old one and has a ton of extra features on it. This car is in the same place on the technology curve.

IOW, I won't have it long enough for anything to break...

We usually skip extended warranties. But we did get it from the dealer for our 2015. After tax it was $2,200 added to the 0% for 72 months financing. So comes out to be $30 month, $1 a day. We kinda figured the cost is offset with the savings in gas expenses. And gives us some comfort with getting a Leaf.

Stanton said:

This is definitely not good advice for the average owner; I am an engineer and still would not be able to "go to the junk yard and fix my car". I'm not a fan of extended warranties, but I bought one (7 yrs/70k miles/$800) for my Leaf for 2 reasons:
1) Lots of sole-sourced/limited parts availability items
2) Limited repair expertise (pretty much only Nissan dealers).

Click to expand...

I guess my idea of "quite a while" is different than yours. 7 years, 70,000 miles is still a new car for me, and I really doubt anything major is going to break within that time. You'll probably replace sway bar links if you live in a cold winter region, and that's it.

I'm thinking "quite a while" equals 12+ years and 180,000 miles. If you pay for an extended warranty for 9 years, you're going to be spending a lot of money on a mostly psychological service. My advice is save up $5,000 for an inevitable battery and when things start breaking, the car will probably be so used that you won't mind putting wrecked LEAF parts on it, especially if the dealer wants to charge you $1100 for a part that you can get from the junk yard for $100.

For the last fifteen years, I've opted for extended warrantees on all of my vehicle purchases. To me, it's just another form of insurance and is no different than health insurance, life insurance or homeowner's insurance, to name a few. I always get it through the dealer to try and minimize issues when it's needed for a repair. There was a time when I did all of my vehicle repairs and maintenance myself. Now, cars are just too complicated for me and require too much specialized equipment. The fact that I've gotten lazy may have a bearing on it, though!!

I normally do my own repairs after the warranty expires, but Nissan limits DIY on the LEAF by making it necessary to have Consult 3+ to mate replacement modules to the car. Since I don't have Consult 3+ at home, I purchased an extended warranty when I bought the 2015.

I go by a simple rule. Only insure things you can't afford to lose. For me that means no extended warranties on anything. I may end up losing here and there but over the course of time I think I'm way, WAY ahead. You can drive yourself to distraction trying to figure the actuarial data and permutations. Rest assured, the warranty folks have done this with more knowledge and in more detail AND they have figured in a fat juicy profit.

When I have bought extended warranties and tried to used them, they have (not Nissan) used every excuse in the book to not pay out on it. Now on smaller items like tools from Harbor Freight I have bought them, and ha ha ha, used them because some of those things are just junk.

I said NO to all things in the paper office at the dealership. Most of the cars I've have are Japanese and have not cost me in repairs and replacements until over 100k. Maybe having the Nissan Leaf assembled in the US is still not enough to cause them to fail earlier? I have a 2012 and 2015.

The first Gen II Prius (2007) I bought certified used I went ahead and purchased an extended warranty through the dealer. It wasn't the Toyota warranty but the dealer's own. Forgot what I paid for it, it was rolled into the deal. About a 1000 miles before the warranty expired (7 years?) the steering assembly went out and was replaced. Would have been about $1500-$2000! On my 2009 bought new, I didn't get the warranty in time. The MFD went out and the cost was somewhere's around $2000, parts and labor from the Toyota dealer. So I got one out off of Ebay and repalced it for $700.
I know now that there are some things on the Prius I could fix and there are some things I couldn't. I KNOW there is precious little on the 2012 LEAF I just bought off lease return with 32k that I can fix. I opted to purchase the 72mos/100k pre-owned Nissan gold policy from the Santa Rosa dealer for just under $1500. The 72 months began yesterday and the mileage started at the same time. So, if I understood it correctly, I've got coverage out to December of 2021 and up to 132K.
I'm planning on keeping this LEAF for a long time so I consider it a worthwhile investment.

Now, I'll just wait and watch to see how long it takes to drop from 10 bars to 9.

Ed in Albuquerque - Newbie