A Good Major Appliance Warranty?

April 12, 2013 3:51 PM

Has anyone used a warranty like SquareTrade for a major appliance (e.g., gas range) repair? I'm thinking of buying an extended warranty because my new appliances seem to be prone to breaking down, and I would guess a third-party warranty might be better than an extended manufacturer warranty.
posted by PJSibling to Home & Garden (2 answers total)

If you bought an extended warranty on every appliance and gadget for which it is offered, you'd go broke. Third-party or not, somebody is making money by selling you that warranty, therefore, you're losing money. It might pay off in one particular case, but on the average, you lose. So you are always better off self-insuring rather than buying EWs.
posted by beagle at 6:26 AM on April 13, 2013

Oh, my Lord, Squaretrade squaretrade squaretrade. I have no idea how they make any money, but the best thing we ever did was buy a ST warranty on our (not inexpensive) dishwasher. It covers absolutely everything, it's low hassle, and stupidly inexpensive.

We had the dish racks in our DW start rusting away. I contacted ST, they arranged to order the parts through our local repair place, but when the cost of the racks got too high, they just paid out our original purchase price, plus a 5% bonus for taking the payout as an Amazon gift card. Seriously, best deal ever.

We have also had amazing experiences with refurb'd Roomba warranties throught ST, as well -- battery, brushes, they cover it all. For the amount you spend on major appliances, and the quality that you seem to get these days, I can't recommend it more. I'm not really an EW kinda guy, but when the warranty on large, expensive items is so cheap, and parts and labour are so expensive, you really can't go wrong, IMHO.
posted by liquado at 2:19 PM on April 13, 2013 [1 favorite]