Truck warranty

johnf

Seasoned Expediter
OK guys need your advice again i'm finely going to pull the trigger and buy a S/T and try to get somebody to run my van HOPEFULLY.My question is should i get a extended warranty on the truck?The truck is used 2007 freightliner and the warranty costs $2800 for 2 years 200000 miles.What do you guys think?
 

davekc

Senior Moderator
Staff member
Fleet Owner
Depends on who is providing the actual coverage and what exactly are the limitations. Is this a bumper to bumper or just parts of the drive train?
 

chefdennis

Veteran Expediter
WHO is going to actually pay for the repairs under the warranty is very important...if it is just an insurance policy backed by a 3rd party,,be very careful...

And how are repairs paid for/ Do you pay and then get re-imbursed!?!?

Be VERY CAREFUL....
 

LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Extended warranties are 200-300% profit centers. If they are asking $2800 for it and if you feel it is worthwhile then you tell them you will buy the truck if and only if the extended warranty is included for $1495 not $2800.
 

johnf

Seasoned Expediter
When you guys bought your trucks did you get an extended warranty? what did it cover and prices? And also can i buy a warranty on my own and shop around?

Thanks Guys!!!!!
 

chefdennis

Veteran Expediter
Nope and when I sold trucks i told customers that the only extended warranty to buy was one that came from the ORIGINAL MANUFACTURER.... anything else is just an insurance policy that is paid and controlled by a 3rd party....
 

rfields200

Seasoned Expediter
a lot depends on the truck you are buying. how many miles. was it maintained well. usually the bigger repairs don't come until after about 500,000 miles.
 

LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Whatever you do DO NOT believe anything Caterpillar tells you regarding extended warranties. Caterpillar corporate is a bunch of crooks who will deny legitimate claims. Stay as far away from a Cat engined vehicle as you can.
 

RETIDEPXE

Veteran Expediter
I like my Cat C9, runs strong and pulls the hills nicely. Learned to do most minor adjustments and repairs myself and have had no issues with Cat's ESC warranty coverage on repairs, granted I have not needed anything major work as long as you don't consider a turbo, injector pump and one injector major. Cat paid for everything including reimbursing $397 tow bill. Any time I brought it in with a problem (and as many know I only do this as a last resort) I tell the service writer to call me first thing if anything they find is NOT covered under my Cat warranty as I have a LIMITED budget. They never have called, always warrantied all.
I do agree to only buy the coverage offered by the manufacturer, all others aren't worth the paper they are written on. When I was in the car biz, it was estimated 1 in 4 who purchased a warranty got their money back out of it. Not sure about the big rigs.
Best of luck in your purchase, do your do diligence, have them give you the ecm history, and repairs done.

Retidepxe
 

ATeam

Senior Member
Retired Expediter
Whatever you do DO NOT believe anything Caterpillar tells you regarding extended warranties. Caterpillar corporate is a bunch of crooks who will deny legitimate claims. Stay as far away from a Cat engined vehicle as you can.

Leo, I thought of you when I read news about class action law suits that have been filed against CAT. You are aware of them?
 

ATeam

Senior Member
Retired Expediter
When you guys bought your trucks did you get an extended warranty? what did it cover and prices? And also can i buy a warranty on my own and shop around?

I know little about buying an extended warranty on a used truck but can tell you what Diane and I did when we bought our new truck.

We took delivery of this truck in 2006 and extended the warranty coverage out to five years/500,000 miles, less engine where we went the standard factory warranty. If we had it to over again, we would buy ten years of extended warranty coverage including engine. (We plan to drive the truck ten years or more)

One of the main reasons we put a Volvo engine in a Volvo truck was to avoid any customer service ping pong a different engine manufacture might get into if there was a serious issue. We did not want Cummins saying it was Volvo's fault and vice versa.

Volvo's warranty service has been fantastic. With 500,000 miles now on the truck the coverage is gone and we are sad to see it go. When repairs were needed under warranty no Volvo dealership quibbled about it. It was handled quickly and at no charge to us.

Note that we held up our end with a solid preventative maintenance program and good driver behavior.

I'm sure there are a lot of scams out there but Volvo is not among them. With the millions and millions of miles of truck and truck repair experience they have, they know how to price the product. We figure we paid for warranty about what we would have paid for repairs had there been no warranty coverage.

The difference and the value is the peace of mind the coverage gives. It was a great feeling to drive down the road knowing that if the engine blew or transmission took a dump, it would not be a major financial event for us beyond the down time.

Finally, while conventional wisdom holds that major problems do not develop until later in the truck's life, modern-day emissions engineering and add-ons make that no longer true. New crap is causing new and expensive problems in new truck engines like never before. This stuff has not been on the road long enough for the lifetime story to be known. The early chapters are less than encouraging.

Before buying into the notion that big problems come with old engines, think hard about how much has changed since that conventional wisdom took root generations ago.
 
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LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
No, I'm not aware of class action suits against Cat but considering what they produce it doesn't surprise me.
 

Dakota

Veteran Expediter
Extended warranties are 200-300% profit centers. If they are asking $2800 for it and if you feel it is worthwhile then you tell them you will buy the truck if and only if the extended warranty is included for $1495 not $2800.

Nope and when I sold trucks i told customers that the only extended warranty to buy was one that came from the ORIGINAL MANUFACTURER.... anything else is just an insurance policy that is paid and controlled by a 3rd party....

I agree, when I sold cars the extended warranties etc.(anything sold by the Finance and Insurance/F.I. guy) was the main profit center for the dealership. Either get them to lower the cost of it like LDB said or get one on your own. Either way make sure of what it covers, where you can take the truck to get it fixed etc. Check to see if it has exclusion that would not cover you because of the type of work you are using it for.
I personally think extended warranties of any kind are a waste of money, but if you can get them to cut the price in half and it covers bumper to bumper than it probably wouldn't be a bad thing.
 
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