Lowes and Home depot tool replacement plans

[edwardh1]

Home depot has a tool protection plan for under $300 price tools.
It says if the tool breaks in the 2 years, they replace the tool with a gift card.
Anyone used this plan? on sawzalls for example????

or used Lowes 1 year tool replacement plan (I think Lowes gives you a new tool, once)?

Plans cost about $10 to $12

 

[edwardh1]

my problem is solved, there is no such thing as group whatever oil.

 

[skyactiv]

I never buy any type of product/tire/carpet stain.. insurance.

You gotta read the fine print. Rigid offers a lifetime warranty. Buy a $179.00 corded Milwaukee drill at the Home Depot and the
warranty cost is $25. The Milwaukees warranty is five years and the Home Depot two year extended warranty does not kick in for five years.
The surge protection part of the warranty is worthless imo.
If I was using a home owners grade Sawzall to cut up mobil homes for scrap metal, I would consider the insurance plan.

 

[crazyoildude]

I have been told that the home depot and lowes are secretly owned by the same company.. I don't know how true true that is.. It was from a Lawyer that represents people that are in the slip and fall business.

 

[JayhawkRoy]

Lowe's and Home Depot are both publicly traded companies. I don't see how they could be "secretly owned by the same company". Their stocks are owned by public investors.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted By: crazyoildude
I have been told that the home depot and lowes are secretly owned by the same company.. I don't know how true true that is.. It was from a Lawyer that represents people that are in the slip and fall business.


It's not true at all. I used to work for a law firm that did insurance defense. They farm those jobs out. So you could have a lawyer that represents both Home Depot and Lowes, but they are not the same company, they're two separate companies just hiring the same law firm. I wonder if that's how these rumors get started. (It was fun explaining to people that the company's job was to make sure you didn't get a dime when you slip and fell.)

As the previous poster said, they're both publicly traded stocks.

 

[4wd]

Atlanta and Mooresville NC

 

[Johnny2Bad]

If you buy extended warranties, you may like this one.

I never buy extended warranties, so my "kitty" (money I have not spent on them) is way, way bigger than $300.00. It's probably bigger than $3000.00.

Like all extended warranty options, either you ALWAYS buy them or you NEVER buy them. You have to decide, preferably early in your consumer life, which one you are going to follow. The cheaper option is never; after some years you will have saved enough to cover any out-of-pocket expenditures when things break out of warranty. But some people are poor managers of money, so the upfront cost makes it worthwhile because they can never save money to cover unexpected expenditures.

Having said all that, this looks to me like a particularly poor extended warranty program. What's with the Gift Card? Since it is well documented that not all gift cards are actually redeemed, they are profiting from this two ways.

People should be cognisant of the concept of "Infant Failure". This is an industry term that describes the typical failure modes of electronic goods.

Put briefly, roughly 98% of all failures of a product will occur in the first 30 days, with a significant portion of those happening within hours of first power-on. A product that manages to live beyond the first month will probably work forever. Even if it does fail, the rate of failure is very low after that point, so the value of an extended warranty becomes a mathematical question.

Price of warranty x 50 (2% failure rate after 30 days) is greater or lesser than the replacement cost?
So $12 x 50 = $600.00 This tells you the expected profit of the warranty; the company offering the warranty will earn the cost of two devices for every one they pay out (and that's assuming the price is equal to the maximum; profit increases significantly if the covered tool is worth less than $300).

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted By: Johnny2Bad
If you buy extended warranties, you may like this one.

I never buy extended warranties, so my "kitty" (money I have not spent on them) is way, way bigger than $300.00. It's probably bigger than $3000.00.

Like all extended warranty options, either you ALWAYS buy them or you NEVER buy them. You have to decide, preferably early in your consumer life, which one you are going to follow. The cheaper option is never; after some years you will have saved enough to cover any out-of-pocket expenditures when things break out of warranty. But some people are poor managers of money, so the upfront cost makes it worthwhile because they can never save money to cover unexpected expenditures.

Having said all that, this looks to me like a particularly poor extended warranty program. What's with the Gift Card? Since it is well documented that not all gift cards are actually redeemed, they are profiting from this two ways.


Depends on the laws in your country. In our state, the companies have to turn over unused gift card money over to the state as unclaimed funds. Extended warranties also depend on what you buy and how you tend to use them. This would good for contractors who buy this stuff all the time and use them til the break. If they use them every day, it might not even last a year or two. On the other hand a DIYer who uses it once or twice a year probably doesn't need an extended warranty.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Originally Posted By: Johnny2Bad
If you buy extended warranties, you may like this one.

I never buy extended warranties, so my "kitty" (money I have not spent on them) is way, way bigger than $300.00. It's probably bigger than $3000.00.

Like all extended warranty options, either you ALWAYS buy them or you NEVER buy them. You have to decide, preferably early in your consumer life, which one you are going to follow. The cheaper option is never; after some years you will have saved enough to cover any out-of-pocket expenditures when things break out of warranty. But some people are poor managers of money, so the upfront cost makes it worthwhile because they can never save money to cover unexpected expenditures.

Having said all that, this looks to me like a particularly poor extended warranty program. What's with the Gift Card? Since it is well documented that not all gift cards are actually redeemed, they are profiting from this two ways.


Depends on the laws in your country. In our state, the companies have to turn over unused gift card money over to the state as unclaimed funds. Extended warranties also depend on what you buy and how you tend to use them. This would good for contractors who buy this stuff all the time and use them til the break. If they use them every day, it might not even last a year or two. On the other hand a DIYer who uses it once or twice a year probably doesn't need an extended warranty.


Companies have to have some means of retiring gift card money (and reward program points, etc) because if not, the un-remitted value starts to drag on the books as a liability ( with "liability" in bookkeeping terms). There is potential for unredeemed gift card liability to eventually exceed a company's total assets. So we know from the start that there will be unused funds and these will somehow disappear over time.

It's interesting regarding your State legislation, where unredeemed funds are confiscated by the government, versus acting as a profit to the issuing corporation as the liability is retired. Neither is a benefit to the consumer; although it may appear that it acts in the interest of the consumer as it prevents the issuing corporation from benefitting from the retiring of the liability, functionally it is a tax on the consumer who initially paid for the card.

 

[Merkava_4]

You must be talking about power tools, not hand tools; it took me awhile to figure that out.

 

[edwardh1]

yes power ,

 

[ford46guy]

Originally Posted By: Johnny2Bad

People should be cognisant of the concept of "Infant Failure". This is an industry term that describes the typical failure modes of electronic goods.

Put briefly, roughly 98% of all failures of a product will occur in the first 30 days, with a significant portion of those happening within hours of first power-on. A product that manages to live beyond the first month will probably work forever. Even if it does fail, the rate of failure is very low after that point, so the value of an extended warranty becomes a mathematical question.

Price of warranty x 50 (2% failure rate after 30 days) is greater or lesser than the replacement cost?
So $12 x 50 = $600.00 This tells you the expected profit of the warranty; the company offering the warranty will earn the cost of two devices for every one they pay out (and that's assuming the price is equal to the maximum; profit increases significantly if the covered tool is worth less than $300).


Yup, this is known as the "bathtub" curve. Given a quality product, it will fail in a month or last 15-20 years (or maybe even longer).

 

[BHopkins]

Originally Posted By: Johnny2Bad

Price of warranty x 50 (2% failure rate after 30 days) is greater or lesser than the replacement cost?
So $12 x 50 = $600.00 This tells you the expected profit of the warranty; the company offering the warranty will earn the cost of two devices for every one they pay out (and that's assuming the price is equal to the maximum; profit increases significantly if the covered tool is worth less than $300).


When you consider that the cost to a business for a replacement item is at their cost, as opposed to retail, the profit margin on extended warranty items is even greater.

 

[BHopkins]

Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Originally Posted By: Johnny2Bad
If you buy extended warranties, you may like this one.

I never buy extended warranties, so my "kitty" (money I have not spent on them) is way, way bigger than $300.00. It's probably bigger than $3000.00.

Like all extended warranty options, either you ALWAYS buy them or you NEVER buy them. You have to decide, preferably early in your consumer life, which one you are going to follow. The cheaper option is never; after some years you will have saved enough to cover any out-of-pocket expenditures when things break out of warranty. But some people are poor managers of money, so the upfront cost makes it worthwhile because they can never save money to cover unexpected expenditures.

Having said all that, this looks to me like a particularly poor extended warranty program. What's with the Gift Card? Since it is well documented that not all gift cards are actually redeemed, they are profiting from this two ways.


Depends on the laws in your country. In our state, the companies have to turn over unused gift card money over to the state as unclaimed funds. Extended warranties also depend on what you buy and how you tend to use them. This would good for contractors who buy this stuff all the time and use them til the break. If they use them every day, it might not even last a year or two. On the other hand a DIYer who uses it once or twice a year probably doesn't need an extended warranty.


It seems doubtful that an extended warranty may benefit a contractor as you suggest. First, most warranties for consumer products exempt themselves if the product is used for commercial use. Second, most warranties don't cover failure from normal wear and tear.