Cal Taff

My 2011 S5 cab is now approaching the end of its 3 year lease and I plan to purchase it. It has 23k miles and is in perfect condition.
The salesperson tells me I can buy an extended warranty of an additional 2 years/50,000 miles for $2000.

Now given the car came with a standard 4 year/50,000 mile warranty I assumed it would therefore end up as a 6 years/100,000 total. Oh no, you get two more years after the end of the 3 year lease and a total of 60k miles. When asked to explain this I got an explanation of overlapping warranties, need for certification etc which made not much sense.

So let me ask when people have bought at the end of the lease does the original warranty continue (4 years/50k miles)? Also does the additional warranty make sense, I am being offered a net warranty of 5 years ad 60,000 miles for an extra $2000. However, if the original warranty 4 years/50k would continue I am effectively paying $2000 for one more year (since my mileage is low).

Any experience/thoughts on this?

Cheers

Cal Taff

nghiaho58

In my opinion, with the mileage you put on the car in the past 3 years it is not worth to spend $2000 per additional year after the year number 4. It is likely you going to hit 4 year mark before you hit 50K miles.
Put that $2000 in a saving for any repair on the car when it gets old (100,000+). I believe many major brand cars should last to 100K miles without any problem if its owner takes good care of it.

2 cents.

Nghia

manny99

I agree, I don't think it's worth picking up the extended warranty especially if you don't drive the car that much. I bought a 2008 S5 when it was 3 years old and had 27K miles on it, and decided to save the $1,800 on the extended warranty since I still had 1 year left of the factory warranty to get Audi to fix any issues I noticed when I got the car. During the last 2 years when I didn't have any warranty, I had a few issues but since I go to the dealer annual as part of Audi Care and have built a good relationship with them, they helped me out. For example, one of my DRL went out and they gave me a brand new headlight housing and bulb for free (would have cost $900) and only charged me 1.5 hours worth of labor instead. Also, my intake valves had to be cleaned because of carbon build-up for $800 worth of labor. When I complained to Audi of USA, they contacted the dealer and they both agreed to pick-up the tab with no cost to me. So in the end I'm glad I saved the $1,800 and only spent $160 in non-maintenance repairs over the course of the last 2 years, now that the car is 6 years old with 52K miles on it.