I just purchased a 2017 CX5 to replace our 2014 and the finance manager offered this "great" extended warranty for 7 years or 100,000 miles for the "incredibly reasonable price" of $2,800.00..........anyone experience the same recently?

 

Here's my take, extended warranties are a scam at pretty much any price.

My advice would be to take that $2,800 and put it in a nice safe separate account; then draw from it if/when you need it for a unscheduled repair not covered by the factory warranty; odds are very-VERY good you'll have a fair amount of cash left over after the 7-year/100,000 miles has expired.

FWIW, I got suckered into buying an extended warranty back in 1988; said warranty didn't even come close to paying for itself. After that car my wife and I have taken the cost of our new car extended warranties and put them into an account, then used the account to cover repairs. That same account has over $17,000 in it now. Better still, I used it once to cover the cost of a new transmission on one of the vehicles; the thing about that vehicle was the warranty would have only covered up to 100,000 miles, however, the transmission waited until 109,000 before it failed.

 

I have only bought one once and it was not for any Mazda that I have owned. I bought a lifetime service contract for my Jeep Grand Cherokee because of all the technology that is on it. Any repair of the electronics on that or the air suspension system will exceed the cost of the contract without difficulty. I already have saved more than I spent. But, for most cars, no, the advice given above is generally far superior.

 

If it's the Mazda warranty then dealer cost is about $1,300. Lots of negotiating room. You DON'T have to pay what they want.

 

Happen to know dealer cost for a 2018 mazda3 9yr/100k?

 

I avoid extended warranties for everything (except microwaves - for some reason they last about a year for me). I would not buy any vehicle that I thought was so unreliable that I would expect to need an extended warranty. Mazdas are reliable vehicles, I would bet that you will not need anything beyond the basic maintenance stuff for the first 150,000 miles or so.

I might consider a warranty for a new untested technology in the first year like the new Skyactiv X, however, a better bet would be to hold off and buy it the second or third year it is out.

 

Agreed. An extended warranty may well pay off on any one car, but across a series of cars, or better still, for lifetime of vehicle ownership, extended warranties are an absolute scam.

True story, I bought my first (and only) extended warranty back in 1988; it didn't pay for itself. Since then my wife and I have purchased 14 cars and have tracked both the money *not* spent on extended warranties as well as what would have been covered unscheduled maintenance events (less deductibles), and only one car of the 14 would have had the warranty pay for itself (by about $300); the flip side of course is the nearly $20,000 we didn't spend on the warranties.

 

Certainly don't buy it (or finance it) until the manufacturer warrantee is up. Why would you pay interest on, basically, a future purchase 3 years out?