AyJay4

All,

Will a reliable warranty company offer a package to 'cover' a S55 AMG once it goes over 50K in mileage? I have my eye on a couple of cars in the 50-60K mile range, but I wanted to provide myself with a peace of mind from a 3 year, 100K packge from an A-rated company.

I welcome your thoughts and feedback!

Thanks

AJ in Jersey

manni786

Do a search on 'autowarrantybrokers.com' they seem to be pretty good.

brianw430

I am currently in the midst of dealing with autowarrantybroker, Mercury Select, on the first repair bill submitted on my aftermarket warranty. Evidently they do not use the same labor book as my indy mechanic nor the MB dealer across the street from my office. They use a "Mitchell", I believe, and everyone locally uses Nichols-Chilton that I have contacted, which is about five shops. I have a dispute with them regarding the permitted time required for service repairs. The book indicates 2.3 hours per side, they allow 1.1. This is not something anyone could possibly know prior to purchasing a policy. How many different repairs exists that could potentially create this disparity in labor hours? My policy is also supposed to cover sales tax, which they did not. They do not have a labor cap, which is nice and no deductible on my policy. I have received several emails from them today, so we'll see how it comes out. Their customer service after my complaint has been very good.

I'll keep you posted.

brianw430

Still no word from autowarrantybroker, Mercury Select, since Tuesday, January 15th. Evidently my correspondance has been passed on to the appropriate parties. Time will tell.

manni786

Keep us posted please. I would like to see how it goes.
-Sal

zoomie

Good customer service, but you haven't had any service from them, right?

brianw430

Zoomie,

They did pay $671 on the $788 dollar portion the warranty should have covered, they paid that with a credit card after the work was completed. The service I have yet to receive is an answer on the difference in repair time and the fact they did not cover the sales tax and my policy says it does.

I hope that answers your question. I am still waiting any sort of reply from email correspondance on 1/15/2008.

usctrojans1

Thanks for the update.

AyJay4

OP here,

Thanks very much for taking the time for the regular updates. Your feedback is quite enlightening! Please do continue to let us know how things play out.

Best

brianw430

Absolutely, it is no problem. I owe so much to this board and the good people here. This board has saved me countless amounts of money and hassle, by people simply sharing their purchasing/owning experiences. It is a wealth of information and if I can give back, even a little, it is all for the good of this board and the people that make it so great.

That being said, I received many good comments on autowarrantybroker from members here when I was searching for an aftermarket warranty, and sadly, they seem to be the most legit of the after market warranties that I am aware of. They did pay, but it gets my ire to witness, what appears to be, them trying to get out of what they are contracted to pay. I think it is along the lines of most insurers, deny, deny, deny, knowing a certain percentage will say nothing. Another percentage will fight initially, then back off. And yet another percentage, myself included in this group, will hold them accountable for the terms of my policy. Time will tell and my time is not worth fighting them. I owe it to my business clients to give them my full energy, and not some aftermarket warranty company trying to nickel and dime me out of coverage.

As someone so eloquently stated on this board...they are not in the business of providing coverage, they are in the business of not providing coverage.

I sent another email to all parties today, politely asking for correspondance from them. I will keep posting on this matter.

Take care and I wish I had something more concrete to offer.

Improviz

I contacted autowarrantybroker.com by phone in late December about an extended warranty for my car and got a quote. I asked the girl if the 3y/36K mi warranty was effective upon date of purchase or when my current extended warranty expires (this September); when she replied that it was effective immediately, I told her that I would wait and get back to them in Sept. She said that this was probably to my advantage, and gave me her extension and name.

A few weeks later, after the first of the year, it dawned on me that my current warranty is refundable on a pro-rated basis, and so I figured that I'd look into purchasing the AWB warranty and getting a refund on the current one.

I called her back, and when she checked, she found that they would no longer write my car as of January 1st. When I pointed out to her that I had discussed waiting with her until Sept, she replied that she'd told all of her customers that things change on January 1st. I replied that she certainly hadn't told me that, or I'd have bought it. Despite my pressing her that she should keep her word, she would not honor it.

I wrote Peter Leddington, who as I found out later owns the company, and complained. He said that he would look into getting an exception for me, and asked for a good time to call me. I replied w/info, and never heard a peep from him.

So I wrote him back. Twice. No response.

I then contacted customer service, and the girl there told me he was the head of company. Amazing....she also contacted him on my behalf, multiple times, but again: Mr. Leddington never responded. (But if you do get a quote online, you will hear from them, in the form of multiple spam emails (which is how I came to write him and complain in the first place)). This is unbelieveably rude, not to mentin unprofessional.

Your experience gels with mine: they seem to have a rather curious concept of what constitutes good customer service.

My current warranty, which I purchased through my dealership, has been fabulous. No hassles, and prompt payout to dealer--I haven't had to lift a finger to get the vehicle repaired. I doubt that this would be the case with Mr. Leddington's company.

I will be avoiding AWB like the plague after my experience and after reading about yours.

brianw430

Hey Improviz,

Yes your story is eerily similar to what I am now experiencing. They start out with excellent communication, but when pressed on an issue, they conveniently disappear. I have sent them very polite emails asking for some/any correspondance from them on my issues, and still have not had been extended the courtesy of a reply. I am still hanging in there for hope, and they did pay 85% of what they are contracted to pay, not counting taxes, but my fear lies what may be ahead in terms of repairs. Aftermarket warranty from a dealer may be the best solution.

Thank you for sharing your story Improviz!

zoomie

I wish I heard all of this earlier. I just purchased AWB (Mercury Insurance) just yesterday! I also found after reading the contract in detail (I should have done that earlier) that you have to have records of all "required" services. This means that we can't do Service A and Service B ourselves and must pay $200 and $400 respectively for the MB service right? How lenient are they on this? Did you guys have to show all receipts for service before collecting the money from AWB?

I feel the extra money I would spend on maintenance through MB (rather than doing it myself) could be saved for paying off for problems in the future if they arise.

Any comments?

brianw430

I have only used the warranty once, so this is limited information at best. I have not been asked to produce any receipts and was not asked about them at any point. I have all service receipts and I have mine serviced at an independent service facility, non-dealer. I do not follow the guidelines for service to the letter, as I usually perform my service at my own intervals which exceeds MB guidelines. Not sure if this will create problems in the future, but I would think not as it is serviced more frequently than suggested by MB. Of course, it may be one more reason for them to deny, who knows. In my policy, it does state that if you perform the service yourself, you may be required to produce the receipts. Again, I would think that should not be a problem as long as you have those receipts.

zoomie

I've heard that showing receipts for items purchased (oil) does not verify that it has indeed been put into the car properly or at all. But it's interesting to hear that AWB paid off w/o seeing receipts. Hmmm.

1. And how long have you had your current coverage?

I'm comparing to Chrysler Service Contracts and their prices seem to be lower with more coverage. Did you ever consider them? Their eligability information seems conflicting. parts of their website say that contacts have to be purchased within 3 months or 3,000 miles after purchase and the front page says you can purchase up to 125,000 miles for cars from 1995. Hmm.

2. While we're on the subject, can you tell us what happened to your car where the bill came up to over $700?

3. Which plan did you buy? Silver plan? Powertrain?

UPDATE:
I just got a phone call from AWB answering my email question concerning oil changes. Pretty good service! They can be done at any independent shop by a certified tech but oil changes have to be done every 4000 miles give or take 1500 miles. Note this is more often than MB spec of every 10,000 miles.

Receipts will only be checked for proper service in the case that the whole engine needs to be replaced. For less major components, no receipt is fine. But then again, the whole purpose of the coverage is to protect against big things. So i guess it's up to us to take the risk.

brianw430

I have had my warranty for just over 1 year. Never had any reason to be asked for receipts thusfar.

Yes, I have the silver, the only plan for which the car qualified.

My repair was with control arms. I had other things done at the same time, coolant flush and some other minor things not covered, just normal maintenance. I am working from memory, but that was the big one. Don't remember if it was upper or lower control arms or thrust arms or something. Made a wonderful difference in the handling as well. Car has 83,000+ wonderfully driven, trouble free miles.

Yes, unfortunately we are covering ourselves for the catostrophic event.

zoomie

thnx for your quick reply. Do you mind if i ask how much you paid for the coverage?

brianw430

I believe I paid $2,700 for 7 years/100,000 mile coverage with $0 deductible. It may have been a little more than $2,700, but right around that number.

zoomie

how many miles did your car have when you purchased it?
I got these figures when I talked to them about my 69,300 mile car:

SILVER PLAN: (highest available for my car)
2yrs/24,000 miles - $2,081 ($100 deductable)
3yrs/36,000 miles - $2,461 ($100 deductable)

POWERTRAIN:
5yrs/100,000 miles - $749 ($0 deductable)

brianw430

I believe it had 64,000 at that time. Please understand, I am only working from memory here as I don't have the documents in front of me. But pretty close to 64,000 by the time I purchased this warranty.

And if memory serves me correctly, they actually sent me a "spam" email about their warranty being "on sale" or something similar. So, I may have purchased mine while it was "on sale" so to speak.

zoomie

Wow, you got a really good deal. I would have considered a higher plan than Powertrain if i could've gotten more than 3 yrs. 7 yrs sounds great. Even 5 yrs would be good.

Improviz

You bet!

Yeah, those guys are very strange. I wrote their owner up telling him that I was going to post about what happened, that I felt he had acted very unprofessinally, and that I felt they had lousy customer service...his response was basically a continuation: he made up some BS story about "travelling" on the day he wrote me, offered to call me back, and then blew me off when I responded to him within one hour of receiving his email...then, he basically accused me of lying, saying that his reps "always" told their customers of these changes.

I told him that she hadn't told me any such thing, and that frankly, after experiencing his "customer service" philosophy in action (or rather, inaction), I'm not very glad that she hadn't. I wouldn't buy a warranty for a tricycle from those guys after this nutty behavior...I can imagine how crappy they must be *after* the sale's been made if they're this lousy beforehand!

zoomie

Have your purchased from another company since?

Improviz

Nope. Still got extended warranty through September of this year, so no rush....dealer's got one I can get if I want, will do so if I still want to keep it at that time.

zoomie

So you had two warrantees at one time?