Appliance/HVAC service contracts for older appliances/HVAC

[Donald]

Companies like American Home Shield offer home appliance warranties (and more).

Has anyone take one out for older units like HVAC expecting them to fail in the next couple of years and the home appliance warranty to over the repair.

The HVAC guy said the most likely failure as the heat pump gets older is the coil in the air handler or outside compressor. Either of which are several thousand dollars.

As I get closer to the 10 year end of warranty on my two Trane heat pumps I am considering a service contract.

Good thing I have in-house counsel to read the fine print before deciding (wife).

I should say generally I am not a fan of service contracts.

 

[Warstud]

Just like most all insurance.....waste of money

 

[LazyDog]

Put the original cost into a savings account and used for the future repairs if needed!

 

[Hall]

I have a feeling those companies do everything they can do to get out of paying, even more so when it's a $10k replacement.

 

[atikovi]

Unless you can show receipts for the overpriced annual preventative maintenance service done by their authorized contractors, they will deny your claim.

 

[javacontour]

Companies like American Home Shield offer home appliance warranties (and more).

Has anyone take one out for older units like HVAC expecting them to fail in the next couple of years and the home appliance warranty to over the repair.

The HVAC guy said the most likely failure as the heat pump gets older is the coil in the air handler or outside compressor. Either of which are several thousand dollars.

As I get closer to the 10 year end of warranty on my two Trane heat pumps I am considering a service contract.

Good thing I have in-house counsel to read the fine print before deciding (wife).

I should say generally I am not a fan of service contracts.

They will try to fix it as cheaply as possible.
Which means the odds of getting a replacement unit after an expensive failure are about the same as winning the lottery.

 

[MadAmos]

My sister recently bought a house that the seller paid for an American Home Shield warranty. Long story short, the fridge died they used every trick in the book to not pay. Everytime a service person said replace it they came up with one more opinion being necessary.

Two months and no help, my sister had to by a fridge no they won't cover it because it is not being used. A lawyer might be able to help but would cost more than a fridge and they know it.

 

[ammolab]

Buying a home or car extended warranty is like buying a lotto ticket.

You hear stories only from the RARE winners while the vast majority of buyers never reap even what they paid to “play“.

 

[MNgopher]

If you think you want to go that route, you'd be way further ahead to save that money in a fund for replacements like this.

Companies like that make money for someone, and it likely isn't going to be you... So now you're making payments to them, funding their overhead and profit needs, another layer of people to run the business, and the infrastructure to market, sell, and service the product, plus the replacement of whatever is broken...

If you have the money on hand, hard pass....

 

[zzyzzx]

Since you have two heat pumps, what's the ramifications of getting by on one while you DIY as much as possible a replacement the other one?