Will You Work With My Used Car Warranty?

The short answer is yes. I will liken it to going to an out of network doctor. Your warranty will pay some money towards the repair and you will be responsible for the rest.

Most Car Warranties Are Really Insurance Plans.

Most car warranty plans these days are more like insurance plans than they are warranties. They come with deductibles and they only cover certain items. They also will not pay for preexisting issues. This makes them look more like Health Insurance plans than warranties. Automotive shops have started to treat them as such because they have become terrible to deal with.

Why Have They Become Bad To deal With?

There used to only be a few companies that provided warranties into the used car market. As cars got more complex the electronics on the engines became harder to diagnose and more expensive to replace. When this happened the warranty companies lost money. No longer were they able squirm out of paying by requiring regular maintenance receipts. Now the contracts got longer and harder to read. The excluded items became longer than the covered items and all electronic items like Headlights and Tail Lights have been put on the excluded list. When a shop calls into these companies to see if they are going to cover an item you usually get placed on hold for 30min or more, present your findings, and wait for them to make a decision if they are going to pay and how much they will pay.

Will You Work With My Used Car Warranty Company?

Yes we will. We have a policy in place because dealing with these companies is a time consuming process. A lot of Used Car Warranty companies like to have the car disassembled to the point of failure then send an adjuster out to look at it. They will not pay for disassembly unless a covered part is broken. You will need to provide confirmation that you are willing to pay to disassemble the car.  We also charge an administrative fee to make phone calls and move cars around for adjusters because of the amount of time they consume. It is not unusual for them to keep us on the phone for more than an hour. Our administrative fee is currently $150 per hour.  As a gesture of goodwill, we will discount the administrative fees by 10% of the total repair invoice. Example 1.  If we spend one hour of our time working with the warranty company = $150. The total authorized repair bill sans the admin fee ends up being $1500 or more; you would not have to pay the admin fee as the discount would cover the cost of the fees. Example 2.  We spend 30 minutes on hold and another 15 minutes going over the details and the warranty company denies coverage.  Should the client not authorize the repairs then the client will be responsible for the $112.50 administrative fee in addition to any diagnostics fees assessed. The discount amount cannot exceed the admin fee.  The fee is per visit and neither fee or discount can be carried forward or applied from prior or future visits.

Most warranty companies will not pay for sealants, gaskets, seals, fluids, nuts, bolts, disposal fees, tax or other items needed to fix your car properly. We can not incur the burden of paying for these items either. You will need to agree to pay cost associated with the repair that are not covered by your warranty.

This is the quick version of our Warranty Policy. To see the full version stop by the shop. We back all our repairs with a 3 Year 36,000 mile warranty.