I Drive a D/P Coach so warranty wise my needs can get complicated quick, but to the "do it yourself Type" it probably doesnt seem cost effective.

When you do your own repairs , most do not keep track of time spent doing it.......nor do they take into account sitting on the side of the road with a broken spring or axle..............most campgrounds and RV parks frown on you doing major repairs........if you are fulltiming and end up in in a bad position it will cost big bucks if no coverage is available..


insurance is one of those things that you have to have but most of the time never get to use!

As your unit gets older its going to need more and more work......as you get older you are going to try to do less and less!!!

Another DP owner, I can tell you that our extended warranty was well worth the price. The biggest and most expensive repair was replacing our Norcold 1210LRIM refrigerator. Total cost was well north of $5k. Another big ticket item was replacing the slide seal on our super slide that cost just under $3k. Plus many smaller fixes like new thermostats on the hot water heater, new control board for the rear furnace, new hydraulic reservoir and pump for the leveling system. Things do break and will need fixing. Some problems you can fix yourself if your handy, but most items for RV's are expensive to purchase even if you do the labor. I paid $50 for each fix I mentioned. I bet the thermostats for the HWH would cost more than $50 to buy.

I purchased the 7 year ext warranty just before the Monaco 1 year warranty expired and paid a little over $3k. It is also transferable if we sell the coach. As you can see it was a very good decision for us. Some people say to take the money you would spend on the warranty and put it in the bank and use it to fix things that break. That's fine if you have the knowledge of how all systems work on your rig and the tools to do the job and enjoy that kind of thing. I prefer to let the experts fix the expensive things on the coach.

getting it now is cheaper......your original warranty will carry it full term and your extended picks up where that one ends..........but check other options besides the dealer , sometimes a little shopping gets better coverage and lower prices.

my suggestion would be to PM Howard and see what that warranty has to offer, at least it will give you something to compare it to!!

Racerguy gives good advice.

We have had extended warranties in the past on both vehicles and RV's.  Like Racerguy, the one on the vehicle wasn't worth much.  However, we found that the one on the RV was good for us.  It was on a 26-foot fifth wheel and the television went out.  The warranty covered it and when we got the repair receipt with the zero balance, it also showed that the television was very expensive (as many parts on RV's are) and we benefitted a lot.  In addition, when we traded the 26-footer for our current 38-footer, we were refunded the prorated balance of the warranty.

Our current RV has a warranty and when we had problems with our RV refrigerator, we checked into the warranty and it would cover either repair or replacement of the refrigerator.  As Norcal Dan mentioned, that would have been a lot.  However, since we didn't want to have to deal with problems again with an RV refrigerator in the "not-too-distant" future, we opted to replace it with a residential refrigerator.  Even though the residential refrigerators cost a lot less than the RV units, the warranty would not have covered replacement with a residential.

Considering the number of "systems" and appliances on an RV that would be expensive to replace, the warranty makes sense to us.

Terry

Mark, whatever you do, don't forget to mention "RV-Dreams"!  Howard would very much appreciate that.

Correction:  Oops!  I see you are in Florida.  Was just trying to help Howard get the credit.

Good luck!

-- Edited by Mary Sunshine on Thursday 22nd of November 2012 06:52:56 PM

Check out our webpage on RV Extended Warranties.  I'm not a fan of extended warranties in general; however, they can make a lot of sense on RVs as repairs can be quite pricey and it's difficult for folks to set aside that kind of money in savings.

I developed the page above to help provide information on extended service contracts, the pros, the cons, how they work, what expectations one should have, and how to get the most out of them.  There certainly are profits built into the ones sold by dealers, but that's why we represent Wholesale Warranties as they eliminate a lot of the fluff profit and they have a back office to assist with warranty disputes.

So, an RV extended warranty can be great for peace of mind IF you get good value and you understand how they work and what they are supposed to cover.