Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Buy The Extended Warranty

About 7 years ago, my sons begged long and hard enough that their father bought us a small lawn tractor with a 42" deck; he reasoned that we could pay the boys something for mowing this huge lawn of ours, albeit less than we paid the lawn service, and they would learn to budget their time to earn ample money on a fixed price job. Well, we nursed that tractor through 4-1/2 seasons of mowing, and, believe me, we'd have been better off buying a new tractor that last season. So, just over 2 years ago, I bought a new lawn tractor with the 52" deck. Since they offered, I bought the extra year's warranty with the tractor. The only thing they did for that warranty was to replace a belt last year, and we only had them do that because the local store didn't have that belt. So, in early May, they called and offered my husband a 2 year extension of our warranty, which would expire on the 15th. He said, in essence, for under $400, why not? (I'd have been more enthusiastic, myself.)

So, last week, 10 days after the start of the new warranty, the front corner of the deck dropped; the weld holding it to its bracket let go. This is what my tractor looks like now:
The new deck should be here Friday. The first visit by the technician would have cost $182, lord knows what the second would have cost, and the replacement deck is nearly $800.

Learn from M&M: Buy the extended warranty!

4 comments:

Paula said...

Oh my gosh! My vision of this breaking apart was rather cartoonish ... the top part of the mechanical beast zooming off along with your son while the bottom part stood still. (Shouldn't that be the other way around? Just shows how my mind works!) I hope no one got hurt when this fell apart. Is 4.5 years the average life of those things? Yikes! Glad you got the extended warranty; I tend to not purchase those. Will be considering them in the future, though. By the way, love the M&M reference!

KG Finfrock said...

Good call on getting the warranty. I, too, am not one to buy them. Most of the time they are a waste of money. However, I saw how complicated those mowers really are when I visited my brother in Georgia. That belt is something else. Yowza

Marjie said...

Yes, Paula, it does sound dramatic. Rather, it was the corner digging into the lawn and the stupid thing stopping until Jeff tied it up and drove it to its parking place. I never buy warranties except on things with numerous moving parts which cost over $500. KMart offering me a $5 warranty on a $15 coffee pot? Get Real!

Johan Michal said...

Extended warranty has so many benefits it saves your repair and maintenance cost which may occur in the future and the best time to purchase extended warranty is when your company warranty is going to expire.

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