What is a warranty worth?

[dragoneggs]

Yup!
I agree!
Extended warranties are a seller extra profit gimmick.

I've said this many times, I believe strongly the money you save on not buying extended warranties on all of the products you purchase will allow you to replace or repair the ones that fail.

The only extended warranty that I can think of that I appreciate but don't directly pay for... are the CPO (Certified Pre Owned) vehicle extended warranties that roughly double the standard warranty (i.e. BMW). I can buy a car from a dealer coming off of a 3yr lease w/low miles and basically have the same length warranty as if it was new.

 

[Gary Fowler]

The only extended warranties I buy are for the more expensive tools from Harbor Freight. The cost is reasonable and the hassle free returns are great.

 

[crazyal]

I find Amazon reviews almost worthless. When I was looking to buy a cold cut saw half of the ones I read about the Revolution were for their 7 1/4" hand held saw but were under the 15" chop saw. So unless I can verify that they are actually reviewing the specific product I skip them. Then you get people complaining about stupid things. Between the number of people who give 1 star because FedEx felt it was a football and needed to spike it and others who feel the price is too expensive it makes finding real useful reviews very hard. The 4 and 5 star reviews are almost as bad. How can you review something that you've actually had in your possession for less than a week?

 

[Diggin It]

Extended warranties are a seller extra profit gimmick.

I've said this many times, I believe strongly the money you save on not buying extended warranties on all of the products you purchase will allow you to replace or repair the ones that fail.

The only extended warranty that I can think of that I appreciate but don't directly pay for...

The only extended warranties I buy are for the more expensive tools from Harbor Freight. The cost is reasonable and the hassle free returns are great.

I may have related this story here before.

Bought a Whirlpool 21CuFt Refrig/Freezer. Second one in four years since the first one died. Decided to try the Extended Warranty. Three years in, it had been serviced three times and the repair shop wrote a letter to the Warranty company saying it would be too expensive to repair again, but the tech agreed to top off the low coolant charge before he left. A month later I got a check in the mail for more than I paid for the appliance, based on a percentage of a comparable replacement. I was out only a portion of the total cost of purchase plus the extended warranty and they left it up to me to buy a new unit and dispose of the old. I had also received a rebate from my electric utility for buying it to begin with, so I really wasn't out much at all.

Kicker is that after the coolant charge, it has kept working and I'm still using it several years later. Eventually it will give out again and I'll replace it since I've already been paid off by the warranty company.

.

 

[PILOON]

When I shopped for a laptop the sales person spent more time hyping the warranty than the laptop.
It is my take that he gets bonus for warranty sales while straight salary for sales.
That outlet also charged to load the operating system.

So I purchased from Cosco on line sales with no add ons and delivered 2 days later. A side bonus was extra warranty of some sort for using their CC.
That was some 4-5 yrs back and I'm still using it typing this message.
Price at the time was also quite favorable. Additionally it came with English as it was shipped from' out of province'.
Here in Quebec consumer laws forced forced French on U like it or not.

 

[Frankenkubota]

Rigid Tools. I don稚 even look at anything but rigid because of the warranty and the way they treat their customers.

I've been talking up rigid tools warranty and customer service and, imho, it's the best. I was angry and a bit depressed yesterday when my new, top of the line rigid miter saw was delivered.

For no good reason, I thought rigid was made in usa. Nope!

If something is made in usa, they print that, on all sides, with large letters, you can read it from 20 ft. I started looking for the made in usa printing and immediately knew, if you gotta look, it's made in China and they are embarrassed. Sure enough, hidden way down in the corner of the box, made in China.

Shame on me for not doing the homework.

I absolutely would not have bought it had I known. The closest HD is 1 hour 1 way and the return shipping is such a PITA i decided to keep it.

As much as I love their tools, I'm done with rigid.

Reminds me of the 70s when there was a movement to stop people from buying huge gas guzzling SUVs. The logic was, we are funding terrorist organizations. That was a fact, had zero effect.

Now we're all buying stuff from a country that has publicly announced they want to basically kick our a**!

And no, I do not think my boycotting China will do any good, like jousting with windmills.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Back to the original purpose of this thread, I got a call from the repair tech saying that nothing was wrong and it worked perfectly. After a bit of back and forth with nothing he said making sense about low voltage etc at my circuit which works fine with my other two 220v machines. I suggested that he crank up the amps and try it because it certainly would not work for me. He called back a few minutes later and said he found the problem. An arc on the main circuit board than only shorted under high load which is why they didnt find it the first time or the second time. Just welding one rod at low amps wouldnt short it which is why it worked with the plasma and TIG at 125 amps but wouldnt stick rod after doing the Plasma and TIG for me.. I had already heated it up with the other processes.

Hopefully it is working when I get it back. All the shipping back and forth has broken a leg on the front cover which he gladly offered to fix for another $50 fee to which I declined. I will epoxy the broken piece back on when I get it back + any other broken pieces that come off. I am not going to put any more money into this thing> IF it breaks again, it is going in the trash. I will keep the accessories that came with it and try to make them work on some of my other machines. Maybe someone makes an adapter kit for the cables.

 

[Ford850]

It sounds like UPS (or whichever shipper was used) was the only winner in this ordeal. I'm hoping it will work long enough to get some good use out of it, and help you decide what you're replacement will be someday.

 

[crazyal]

Hopefully they learned how to troubleshoot. Not sure what the point of testing by not putting it under load. I could understand if it was a car and the owner said it vibrates at 100mph. Somethings can't be tested. But plugging a welder into an outlet and burning some wire/ rod at it's highest setting to check the duty cycle should be kind of standard before returning it as good to go.

 

[yomax4]

Back to the original purpose of this thread, I got a call from the repair tech saying that nothing was wrong and it worked perfectly. After a bit of back and forth with nothing he said making sense about low voltage etc at my circuit which works fine with my other two 220v machines. I suggested that he crank up the amps and try it because it certainly would not work for me. He called back a few minutes later and said he found the problem. An arc on the main circuit board than only shorted under high load which is why they didnt find it the first time or the second time. Just welding one rod at low amps wouldnt short it which is why it worked with the plasma and TIG at 125 amps but wouldnt stick rod after doing the Plasma and TIG for me.. I had already heated it up with the other processes.

Hopefully it is working when I get it back. All the shipping back and forth has broken a leg on the front cover which he gladly offered to fix for another $50 fee to which I declined. I will epoxy the broken piece back on when I get it back + any other broken pieces that come off. I am not going to put any more money into this thing> IF it breaks again, it is going in the trash. I will keep the accessories that came with it and try to make them work on some of my other machines. Maybe someone makes an adapter kit for the cables.

Nice repair facility when YOU have to tell them how to test THEIR welders. lol.. Had you not told them, You would have gotten the **** thing back again.