For me it was when I last bought a new car like 12 years ago when Chrysler was still doing lifetime extended warranties. It was like an extra 4k and a couple people said I was foolish for it, “just learn to fix it yourself blah blah blah”.
In the 12 years since, I’ve had an estimated $15k worth of work on it, to include a full transmission rebuild at a whopping out of pocket cost of just a couple hundred bucks (it’s like a $50 deductible each time or something).
I’ve gotten my money’s worth many times over IMO, and it even saved my ass during a long road trip once.
Ofc it was actually good, so Chrysler stopped doing new ones lmao
Not me, but my mom bought a Sentra SER lightly used, and got the $1500 dealer special warranty. The warranty had all kinds of stipulations like she had to have the maintenance done at that dealer, with nissan parts, etc, all ways to weasel out of it. Also had to have the service records in full.
Year 1: manual transmission stopped going into reverse, replaced
Year 2: engine failure, replaced
Year 3: manual transmission started popping out of all gears, replaced.
Year 4: bought a Mazda
Each time they tried to deliver the bad news that she’d have to pay $4500 or whatever, but she kept meticulous records, serviced it exactly on time at the original dealer, and insisted on nissan parts so there was nothing they could say. They even tried to say maybe she didn’t know how to drive manual, but she’d been driving exclusively manuals for decades, and you guessed it, she had all the documentation to prove it.
That $1500 warranty probably cost the dealer at least $10k