I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but with in the third year of ownership - and the final year of the extended warranty - our claims have exceeded the buy-in cost. No wonder they haven't offered to extend!

A few months back, I noticed the familiar "whirring" sound coming from the front passenger side of the truck, but having already replaced the front wheel bearings two years ago, I wasn't expecting to have them fail already. Turns out, it was the bearings in the front differential and in MB's infinite wisdom, you can't just replace the bearings - the whole thing needs to go. Insurance company provided a front differential and paid labor, which I'm estimating was probably around $2000 or so.

I wasn't wrong about the wheel bearings, just the location. The rear wheel bearings also needed to be replaced (just one, I think) for $500. My mechanic also let me know that the caliber of the emergency brake also needs to be replaced at $270, but I deferred that for now.

I sat down with my invoices over the past three years, and it totals $9,800 in repairs - $5,700 covered by my Extended Warranty and the rest coming from my pocket (these are mostly wear and tear items but are certainly more than just regular oil and filters). Since I paid $5,303 for my extended warranty, we have now exceeded our buy-in cost. Woot?

Over the past three years, we have put around 11K miles on the truck, putting our repair costs at just about $1/mile. Ugh. Compare this to our Audi - which has only gotten regular maintenance with no mechanical failures - and its hard to keep the truck much longer. Dealerships are eager to take it in trade, so we may be getting out of this failed experiment sooner than later. I love the truck, but the repair costs are too unpredictable to be financially sound.

Driving home from the repair shop, I really did enjoy having the truck back. But I also know the next thing that breaks will send me right back to hating myself for keeping it any longer.