Ridgid power tools now come with a lifetime warranty, including replacement batteries for cordless tools, if you register your purchase on the Ridgid website. Nonetheless, at checkout at the local Home Depot, you have the "opportunity" to buy an extended warranty ($9.99 for a $60 orbital sander, for example).
Waarranty extended beyond lifetime of the tool? interesting concept --
Regards -- JimR
There is a sucker born every few seconds. Some one will buy an extended warranty.
"Leon" wrote in news:vSMgg.46035$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com:
Especially someone who didn't read the thing about the lifetime warranty.
One computer video card maker did offer a double lifetime warranty, though. That is, if you bought the card and then sold it the next guy got a life time warranty also.
Puckdropper
I might just be a scam of some sore, but I can think of several reasons for an extended warranty. One might be a guaranteed 24 hour replacement or something like that. It would be a big improvement over sending a defective tool in and having to wait for repair and return post and could be a critical option for the professional needing his tools.
Another might be an option to upgrade to a newer model of tool instead of just repair and return of the old one. How about onsite repair in case of defect? Very handy for bigger tools. If I thought about it, I'm sure I could think of a few more possible reasons for an extended warranty. Don't knock it unless you know exactly what the extended warranty entails.
You just have to pay close attention to what you're getting.
Under many "extended" warranties, should you have a problem while the item is still under the "manufacturers" warranty, and should you happen to attempt to invoke the "extended" warranty by accidentally calling the wrong party, you will be refused and the extended warranty will no longer be valid for that particular problem.
This happened to me a couple of years ago with a computer monitor that went out on the 364th day of the manufacturer's warranty, a Friday, and I inadvertently, not remembering the exact day of purchase, called the wrong party. They did not get back to me until the next working day, at which point both invoked the fine print and neither wanted to repair/replace it.
... well, they attempted to, and would have, had they been dealing with a pussy.
That said, we always purchase extended warranties on appliances put in new homes because it is often past the manufacturer's warranty when the house is sold and the appliance put into use. I am beginning to think, that with all the shoddy goods out there, an extended warranty ain't such a bad idea in some cases.
Good points however the typical extended warranty literature is quite vague as what it covers and the salesman will almost always tell you it will even cover the Earth being hit by Mars. All you gotta do is call this 1-800 number and ....unfortunately you learn then what it really covers, in many cases. Also most all of these warranties go in to effect after the original warranty expires. But to reiterate what you said, when the extended warranty improves upon the original warranty from day one they can be of benefit. As an example, I bought my son a Dell laptop for college. I went through the school links to get to the Dell site and added the 4 year extended warranty that includes faster service and accidental breakage. The warranty cost about $500 extra but going through the school I ended up with $600 in discounts plus a $200 rebate. The advantage as you stated was that when the hard drive failed the computer was up and running in less than 24 hours and we had a more direct phone number to call to get warranty assistance with out having to wait on hold for more than 3 or 4 minutes.
Using your mention of appliances, I frequently buy an extended warranty, especially something has electronic circuitry ~ and what doesn't these days? Some 30 years ago an appliance came with 3, 5, 10 and sometimes longer warranty. These days, most come with a one year warranty. Recently, I've been pricing an electric, broiler/convection smooth top, energy smart range for my kitchen. $2000+ CA for it. It only comes with a one year warranty and due to the fact that it's composed in large part of electronic circuitry, all it takes is for one tiny component to fry and put the entire appliance out of service.
Analogue based products lasted for years. Case in point, the electric stove I've used for the past 17 years and the same one my mother used for 30 years before I got my hands on it. Before they used to repair products, now they just pop in an entirely new module. Not worth the labour to repair most stuff these days, if it they could be repaired at all. This great electronic information age we're in, it can be very convenient, but we're certainly paying through the nose for that convenience.
Ecaxtly. I have to be leary of the generic ones sold by the cashier at the cash register who may or may not enen know what you are purchasing. :~) Take Best Buy for example. I dont need an extended warranty on that CD I am purchasing.
Snip
Was that when you put your wife on the phone to wear them down. LOL. With all due respect for you and your wife I am only saying this because of your comments about her and how she gets the situation handled. ;~) For others reading this, Swingman's wife is a true "Good Luck Charm" great to have around when trying to resolve a problem or smply to have around when trying to find a close parking place.
I feel they are good when the repairs will cost you while still trying to finish paying for a particular purchase like a car or in instances like you have mentioned or.... when you need faster than normal warranty service.
My question is usually something like "Who's lifetime, mine or the tools?"
Mac
One could pay with MasterCard too...they double the seller's warranty so you'd get *TWO* lifetimes and could pass it down to your kid. :)
Seriously, the MC extended warranty has save my ass at least twice with HD drives that died just after the manufacturer's warranty period expired.
LOL ... no, in this particular case I held her in reserve in the event I wasn't successful. No need to use a nuclear option when high explosives will suffice.
For $500 you could have bought several laptop hard drives, and they are generally even easier to install than in a desktop or tower system. Did the extended warranty include data recovery, or just parts & labor?
Not necessarily. He didn't say that it was a removable hard drive. It may well have been an internal one. I'm not familiar with Dell as a user, but I also suspect that their drives may be equipped with a semi-proprietary OS that recognizes only their own hardware fully. In a case like that, some off the shelf drive would be mostly useless. It's also possible that some OEM drive could also void all warranty of any type.
I've never heard of any retail warranty that includes data recovery and most certainly, no $500 warranty of *any type* is going to include data recovery costs other than an OS recovery CD. If you consider that every user experiences a hard drive crash at one time or another, Dell would have been out of business a long time ago if they included Data recovery for the relatively paltry sum of $500. Data recovery costs thousands of dollars in time and labour.
First we start with the realization that many electronic retailers make more percentage profit when selling the extended warranties than they do on the items themselves. They are great little earners for the borgs.
FoggyTown
And this is an issue because? You can buy a kit specifically for the purpose of upgrading internal laptop hard disks at Best Buy for under $200, including the disk.
Then use a non-semi-proprietary OS that recognizes all hardware fully. XP Pro full boat retail costs 300 bucks, and nobody in his right mind pays list for it. You're out the door for 500, worst-case, which is the same as the cost of the extended warranty. Since you're buying a drive anyway you qualify for OEM pricing, so that's more like $150 for the OS.
Outside the US, perhaps. United States Code, Title 15, Chapter 501, Section
2302, starting at paragraph (c), states:"(c) No warrantor of a consumer product may condition his written or implied warranty of such product on the consumer's using, in connection with such product, any article or service (other than article or service provided without charge under the terms of the warranty) which is identified by brand, trade, or corporate name; except that the prohibition of this subsection may be waived by the Commission if - (1) the warrantor satisfies the Commission that the warranted product will function properly only if the article or service so identified is used in connection with the warranted product and (2) the Commission finds that such a waiver is in the public interest."
How many experience one on a machine under warranty? The extended warranty doesn't last forever you know, and it only covers the one machine.
And if one out of ten machines needs data recovery they can spend 5000 bucks on the recovery and still break even. If you check pricing, you'll find that 5000 bucks is at the high end of what a single-drive standard-priority data recovery will cost. For 500 bucks on a typical laptop I'd expect something beyond replacing the drive. Now if it also includes broken-screen coverage it's probably reasonable.
And most likely void any existing warranty? Try again.
Doesn't work that way. I put in a number of years doing technical support for IBM in their Thinkpad department. Even though it was Windows OS, some of the hardware at IBM is always proprietary (including hard drives) as are changes to the OS in contract with Microsoft. Dell is exactly the same. There aren't any other OS' with all the proper drivers. That among other reasons are why companies like IBM and DELL are able to stay in business, at least in this particular type of computer section. In most repects, you're forced to buy their products to keep something working properly.
Try investigating a little more. When I worked Thinkpad, it was technical support for the continental USA. Not Canada, not overseas, just the USA. The OS as I stated above, had plenty of proprietary code in it. You quote all the legal rhetoric you want, but my experience tells me what *was*, not what you've read that it should be.
standard-priority
And you'd be very, very wrong. Try calling a professional data recovery centre and ask them about charges for an entire hard drive ~ even a relatively small one, say a forty gigger. Ask them what it would cost and come back here to tell me that I'm wrong. I challenge you to ask around and find ONE person has has demanded and received data recovery for any reason! Not the reloading of the OS, but the recovery of personally loaded information.
Not a chance in hell. Sorry, but you're delusional if you think that
*ANYBODY* is going to offer information recovery on a retail purchase. It would set a very dangerous and costly precedent and then everybody would demand it. I've had salesmen screaming their heads off that they're going to sue IBM for everything they've got. Not once did we ever pay for data recovery. Warranties are limited to replacement of hardware, not to any type of information that's been loaded or saved by the user. It's the user's responsibility to back up any personal information in case of drive failure. Just the fact that you're suggesting it tells me you have absolutely no experience in this area.A great many users of Thinkpads are sales people, business people and the working person. Although prices have come down in recent years, the higher end laptops are greatly purchased by professionals, the ones that can afford to spend that kind of money. Everyday, I had people calling for a walkthrough with the recovery CD. How many experience the loss of the OS at one time or another? I'd guestimate at better than 50%. It happens to everybody at one time or another. Everybody loads programs that aren't supported by the manufacturer, programs that screw up some settings or they get a virus or whatever, it happens to everyone.
I suspect that you're going to try to tell me that it's Dell laptops we're talking about, not Thinkpads, but it's the same industry, just a different name. Like I said, you call one or two data recovery centres and then tell me what they told you. I'll take you at your word.
I was going the data recover route once and your right. It was going to cost right at 4 grand and then no guarantee that they could fully recover the data. I don't remember the name of the place, but it was out in Denver. I had some data on my Dell that I really needed, but not to the tune of 4 grand. And being a crap shoot on top of that??? Dell laughed at me when I asked them about recovery.
The $500 bought the better extended warranty plus it included a $200 rebate, and 20% discount on the whole order. In addition it bumped the initial purchase price of just the computer up to $2300 before any discounts which qualified my purchase for an additional $200 discount for going past $2000 on the order. Basically getting the big extended warranty got me a package deal that I was going to spend extra money on any way. We got an 80 gig HD over the 40 gig standard, DVD burner over the CD, wide screen display, 512 mem over 256, Blue Tooth and the better of the 3 offered wirelesses options offered, 3 year virus protection, an Argus back pack that holds a ton of books if wanted and the computer, an extra 50% larger lithium ion battery. XP pro, P4 processor, Centreno Technology, 4 years next business day repairs and accidental breakage and all delivered free.
While that still may sound expensive we were able to get the computer and all the extras delivered including tax for $1595. With out the extended 4 year contract that initially added $500, the computer would have been about $1480 with the school discount. Pricing Compaq, HP, Fujitsu, Toshiba and Sony, the closest competitor was HP at $1550 with a shorter extended contract with less coverage, smaller HD, less memory, regular screen, and no back pack. I was going for the HP with less features and with a 3rd party warranty for
3 years with out accidental breakage until I found out about the school link to Dell.I used every scenario to try to get the price lower with out the 4 year extended warranty, but when it qualified me for more discounts which got me better features and ultimately only cost about $115 more it became a no brainer. I went through the regular links to buy the computer from Dell and the cost was $400 more for the exact same order. Going through the school the total discount was $800, $400 more than not going through the school link.
No, data recovery was included however he backs up to a flash drive and had it all there to begin with. Reinstalling the OS and software took about 3 hours whether he did it or the technician did it. Dell walked him through it.
The HD has 2 exposed external screws to remove and the drive slides right out. A 2 minute swap out. The big advantage of the $500 extended watrranty was the BIG additional discounts and rebated it qualified my order for. Ultimately the extended warranty cost about $115 over no extended warranty and I doubt you can buy any laptop 80 gig HD for that price delivered to your door step next day.
All extended warranty contracts make the retailers money. If they didn't they would not be offered. Its a gamble that the consumer takes and normally comes out on the short end of the stick on. In my case the additional cost of the contract included 3 years virus protection and deep additional discounts that probably came closer to Dell employee pricing than any other deal.
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