Do you buy an extended warranty when you buy a new laptop? I think there might be good reasons for buying - and with Dell, at least, there might be a warranty scam.

Outside of computers, electrical stores push extended warranties quite hard (at least they do in the UK, I can't say I've bought a Hi-Fi, etc in the US). Clearly they do this because they make money from it and this means that for most people, the extended warranty will be a loosing proposition.

However I strongly suspect that laptops are different - I always buy extended warranties on laptops and I've never lost out so far; the extended warranty has always cost me less than repair costs.

I accept that I'm not statistically significant, so I'd be interested in your comments. I'm also aware that manufacturers must do the sums, and on the face of it you'd expect that they wouldn't be giving handouts. But hang on...

If extended warranties were a win for the laptop retailers, you'd expect then to push them harder, but in my experience they don't, and this really tells when your warranty runs out. My experience of both Dell and others of Apple is that neither of them remind you when your warranty has run out. You have to remember yourself. It's almost as if they don't want you to take them up on the offer.

Maybe laptop manufacturers have to offer extended warranties or their goods look shoddy. And they charge the most they can, but if they charge too much, their goods look like they are expected to break.

So for many manufacturers the extended warranty is a loss leader. They charge what they can, but they are never going to cover their costs.

To some extent Apple looks bad compared to Dell - it costs around 50% to insure a MacBookPro than it does for an Inspiron. Are Inspirons really that much more reliable? Maybe Dell want you to think so. Maybe Apple feel they can charge more for offering you a Genius in a black t-shirt. Either way, you should probably always buy extended warranties.

But there's more. I think there's a scam with Dell warranties.

My Inspiron recently refused to boot. Again. (To date, I've had the screen and motherboard replaced - maybe I'm up for another motherboard)

I checked the extended warranty site to discover that my warranty had run out without warning. However, I was allowed to buy another one! So it appears that you can wait until your laptop breaks and then purchase an extended warranty. If your laptop doesn't break then you win. If it does break then you get the fix for the cost of the extended warranty.

Apple seems to be wise to this - they don't allow you to buy an extended warranty once the original has timed out. Is this a scam against Dell?

Responses[6]

Posted by Joe Walker on 22 February 2007 09:59:05 GMT #