Subaru Repair Seattle; Should I buy that Extended Warranty for my Subaru?  

So you have made the decision to purchase a new Subaru, you did all of your research, and found the best price on the model Subaru you wanted.  Now comes the dreaded march into the finance office at the Subaru dealer, and this is where an entirely new sales pitch starts as the Subaru dealer and the finance company makes their money in add on sales, and nothing is more lucrative than selling an extended warranty and gap insurance.

But do you really need an extended warranty, and should you be buying a Subaru extended warranty or consider a third party option?

What Exactly is an extended warranty?  It’s a bet, a large expensive bet between you and the seller or provider of the warranty it’s very similar to buying an insurance policy. Your betting the Subaru you just bought is going to need a lot of repair work outside of the standard warranty and the seller of the warranty policy is betting you won’t or in some cases at least not covered items due to carefully worded language in the policy.

The first thing to consider is just how much is the warranty going to cost, and don’t forget to add in finance charges if you financed the warranty policy. Next did you buy a model that’s known for problems? Or longer term issues that won’t show up the first 3 years for most items or the first 5 years for power-train components such as an engine or transmission related failure.  Will Subaru do anything for you without the warranty if something happens a little outside of the warranty they provided with the car? Where do you want to take your Subaru for service? If you buy a Subaru branded warranty your only choice will be the dealer and unless you want to constantly make several trips for service (one to a good independent for service and another to the dealer for warranty repairs) you will almost always pay more. If you don’t take your late model and still under warranty Subaru to an Independent how will you really know if you have a potential warrant-able item? If you only go to the Dealer unless it states on the Work order”customer states”  It won’t get looked at, so how would you know you had a minor oil leak unless you got under your Subaru removed the splash pan and looked under it with a flashlight and doesn’t that defeat the purpose of paying someone to service you Subaru?

Recently Subaru has had some issues with oil consumption issues with some 2011-2014 FB engines, and some stalling due to the torque convertor in early model CVT equipped vehicles. In both of those cases the warranty period was extended without you purchasing anything else.  If you bought an extended warranty let’s say for the power-train but then Subaru extended the warranty to 100k for customer satisfaction coupled with pressure form NHTSA what did you buy?

It’s generally going to be our advice to not buy an extended warranty if you are buying a new Subaru.  

If you are buying a used Subaru without a lot of service history you may want to consider it, but buying an extended warranty doesn’t mean it makes the purchase wiser and may only make it a more expensive one. Where I reside there are so many choices and if a customer does a pre purchase inspection, I generally still think they don’t need to spend the extra money on an extended warranty. However if they decide to do so I would never suggest buying the Subaru branded warranty on a used Subaru and shop for one yourself, making sure you spend the time to read about what’s covered to make sure you obtain value out of it.   

Thanks for Reading

-Justin Stobb

All Wheel Drive Auto

“Helping you with your Subaru”