Hopefully this is the appropriate place to ask this. I just bought a new '04 Ram 1500 Hemi Quad cab today. I haven't actually stopped grinning yet, but I had a couple questions that I hoped you guys might help me out with.

1) The Maximum Care extended warranty is $1650 and extends the bumper to bumper from 3/36K to 7/70K. I have always heard that the extended warranties are the biggest money makers for electronics and were generally considered a suckers bet. I have 5 days to decide whether I want it.

2) The Scheduled Maintenance Plus plan is $1860. It pays for all scheduled maintenance, including oil changes, for 7/70K. The finance guy showed me a sheet that laid out the total cost of all scheduled maintenance over 7 years, it came to more than $3800. So it would potentially save me almost $2000 over the life of the truck. Same as the max care, I've got 5 days to decide if I want it.

So are these good deals or sucker's bets? One potential downside I see is if I don't keep the truck for the full 7 years, the extra money is basically out the window. With both though, I wouldn't have to worry about the truck for as long as I owned it. Anyone purchased these and been happy or not? Anyone wish they had? Any suggestions or experience would be a great help.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

 

Do you have the cash on hand?

If you do, you would probably be better off investing it. If you need it for repairs, then use it.

Why, because that's what the warranty company does!

I think it is a 50/50 bet, how lucky are you?

Essentially the warranty give you 4 years/48k miles more over the standard warranty. $1650 sound expensive to me, but I am cheap!

Are you planning on adding any mods to your truck? They *may* void the warranty.

How many miles to you drive per year?

I had the same questions and I decided to gamble.

 

I got the Scheduled Maintenance Plus plan on my SRT-4 since it will be driven "hard" from time to time and turbo's are not famous for being trouble free. Since I plan to keep the car several years, at least I won't have to worry about "repairs"...[&:]

 

I work for dodge as a technician so I see these warenties all the time...The max care is good and covers all your maintinace...but if you miss a scheduled maintainace it causes all kinds of warrenty problems...just think about that before you buy

 

For reference I average about 15K miles a year. So the standard bumper to bumper would run out in about 2 years. I don't plan on adding any serious mods: nerf bars, flowmaster, a K&N. That's about it. I will be trailering a boat quite a bit in the summer.

Slaywick: From the way you worded your response it sounds like you advise against the extended warranty. But you recommended the maintenance plan? That means I would get all my maintenance paid for up front and would have no reason to miss one. So I guess I'm not sure which way you are suggesting. Perhaps I'm just misinterpreting your post?

My apologies for beating what I'm sure is a pedantic topic to death. This is my first "brand new" vehicle and I just want to do things right, you know?

I think I've decided to get the maintanence plan. The apparent price break seems like a good deal and I figure it'll be good motivation to get the required service done. The extended warranty I haven't decided on yet. The "important things" are covered under the 7/70K powertrain warranty: engine, tranny, drive train, right? Those would be the ones I would worry about having major repair costs for. The stuff covered by the bumper to bumper seems like it would potentially be less expensive to fix if it did go bad. Maybe I'm off here though.

Thanks again for your info and patience.

 

your right they arn't known for being trouble free, good thing you don't have a real turbo car.

 

That SRT-4 is as real turbo as it gets. That car will smoke just about any production 4 cyl. car out of the showroom