Hey Everyone!

I'm hopefully taking delivery of my Defender XS '22 sometime in late June / early July. We plan to own it for 7-10yrs and one of the things I'm trying to figure out is if I should do the extended warranty. Anyone have experience with LR extended warranties? Is the coverage good? Any thoughts on how much I should pay for the additional years on a Defender? (I read w/ negotiation it ranges from $3-7k on other forums). Anything else I should know about it?

Thanks!

-Alex

 

In the same boat & planning on getting the 7 year, 100k mile extended warranty to offset any LR reliability issues that may occur in the next few years. My dealer said it was a few thousand but didn't give an exact number.

 

This is a tough one for me.

As a policy I don't buy extended warranties and I've not in a couple of decades, but I did one or twice in my youth.

My overall attitude is that generally speaking dealers/OEMs wouldn't offer them if they don't, on a whole, make a profit by far outweighing their benefit to most people.

The problem is, that like insurance, some people do indeed benefit from time to time.

When I was younger and the fear of a costly repair was greater than my ability to deal with it me fear led me to buy a few (that AFAIR I never used).

Later in life after I made it a point to never buy one again (on any car, truck, motorcycle, even electronics) and I once added up the theoretical money I'd saved. It would have paid for our Defender.

So I generally feel good with my self-insured repair attitude. But I realize the day will come when I'll lose the bet (though still by a huge margin favoring myself).

That said I have paused to at least consider it in this case because the vehicle is expensive and repairs are likely to be quite costly.

I should probably just follow my own advice and put the equivalent payment that would be made on an extended warranty (what maybe $100/month over the life of the vehicle) aside in my savings account.

Then if something breaks I'll have the cash to cover it.

And if something doesn't, I'll simply have saved the cash I would have otherwise wasted on the warranty.

 

If you are buying the extended warranty through Land Rover, I'm pretty sure you have until 4 years or 50,000 miles (whichever comes first) to buy it. Ask that question.
If so, just wait until then to buy it. This way if something happens to your Defender between now and then (stolen, accident, flood, hurricane, etc.) you won't be out that money.

 

Yes. Get the warranty. 7-10 years it will more than pay for itself.

 

A good question. I guess I ought to start thinking about this too. I have never bought warranty on anything in the past except things like accidental damage coverage for my son and daughter's college laptops. Given their propensity to drop or spill beer on them it paid off many times over. My RRS had one front air sus strut replaced under extended warranty period and that was it.

I believe PaulLR is correct in that you can make the decision anytime during the factory warranty period. It is also transferable, which should help with resale of course. You may not get your money back, but you may get a better price than without it. Trying to find good information on LR website is next to impossible.

 

When my '03 Discovery factory warranty was about to expire, the LR tech told me "You're really going to want to buy the extended warranty." I thought, "ahh of course that's what the dealer would say", and declined. 6 months later, the tiny drips of oil I found in my garage ended up being $2,000 for head gaskets and a few other things. Then, a year later my transfer case died -- I forget how much that was, but it wasn't cheap. I got pretty good and handling the small jobs -- replaced the headliner, did several window motor repairs (see my "how-to" on this site!), and a number of other things I can no longer remember.

Long story short - I should've bought that dang extended warranty! So... I'll probably be buying one for my Defender, but if the rumors here about being able to buy the extended warranty anytime during the first 3 years are correct, I'll probably wait a few years to make sure the Defender's as much fun as that Discovery was.

RedAustinIX

 

If you're wealthy I don't think you need it. If you're like me, backed up to the wall and stretching your budget to the limits to even get into one of these things then to me it makes sense to get it. I went for it because my expenses need to be as controlled as possible. I also went for the first 4 years of prepaid scheduled maintenance for similar reasons, controlled expenses. I do agree though if you have plenty of money sitting around just in case then you will likely save some money by doing without. Clearly they make money on it overall or they wouldn't offer it. The trouble is every one gets bit eventually. It's gambling is all it is. Some people don't need to hedge.

 

Check the coverage, the hoses on my wife's XF weren't covered, supercharger needs to come off to replace them. Not covered! Normal wear items usually aren't covered either.

 

12-13 years ago we purchased an LG washer/dryer combo, where one box does both, like the ones you see all over Europe. For a number of reasons I did purchase an extended warranty (it came with a 2-year one).

A week after the 'given' warranty ran out the machine died. (Coincidence?) The extended warranty was honored, a repair-person came to our home and replaced the manifold...saving us a bunch of money...more than the cost of the extended warranty, which we used once more.

Given the price of the Defender, it's a no-brainer for me. But do think I'll wait til the manufacturers is closer to expiration.

There are many Web sites where you can find info about the 'best extended warranties'...and there are a lot available. The bottom line is to read carefully what is and isn't covered. It could be that a JLR extended warranty may not be the best for your needs. Hopefully as the trucks are delivered (still waiting, waiting) we will be able to see if there are specific issues and if we should extend coverage that includes them.

WMN