Mechanical insurance

jojo76, Feb 10, 12:23am
Is the mechanical/breakdown insurance the car dealer sell worth it or not! Cheers
thejazzpianoma, Feb 10, 12:27am
Depends on what you are paying for it and what cover you get in return. In many cases its not good value at all. Be especially wary of the ridiculous "blanket" premium for cover on anything not made in Japan, regardless of whether its cheap to fix and reliable or not. Those are the people that often lose out the most.

(Waits for the nitpickers to havea go at that one!)

If you want the best value when buying a car I would recommend looking privately as well, spend the "dealer premium" and warranty money on a car in better condition with lower km's. Also, spend some money getting a competant mechanic (not the AA) to do a proper and thorough check of the car and outline any upcoming expenses. Thats money that is VERY well spent.

Good luck!
bigracket, Feb 10, 12:28am
Its is if something happens to your car of a major nature, assuming of course its not one of the many things written out of the deal in the fine print!
thejazzpianoma, Feb 10, 12:30am
+1 and of course factor in how much you actually get after any "excess" you have to cover.

Sitting down and doing the math on any possible major failures is worth while. Unfortunately mechanical insurance is not properly competitive like other insurance in NZ. This leads to poor value in many cases.
jojo76, Feb 10, 12:31am
It is a 2006 XR6 with 30000km.It was $800 for a 2 year cover with $100 excess.
I'm thinking that i should'nt need insurance.but you just never know!
thejazzpianoma, Feb 10, 12:32am
$400 a year isn't too bad but having said that $1800 (cost of policy plus excess) would go a long way to covering most unexpected repairs on an XR6.

(you did mean $1000 excess and not $100 !)

If $100 excess I would be more inclined to sit on the fence on that one, probably wouldn't take it myself but then I could understand others doing so.
jojo76, Feb 10, 12:44am
$100 excess :)
bigracket, Feb 10, 12:50am
If $100 excess I would be more inclined to sit on the fence on that one,

+1

Personally I would keep the money and risk it myself, but I know alot of people in the trade.
phillip.weston, Feb 10, 1:23am
Jazz it's $800 for the whole two year period, where the heck did you pluck $1800 from!
anr, Feb 10, 2:07am
I guess it depends on the most expensive common problems for your car. Are these likely to occur in the period you own it! if so why not take it. I have an audi allroad which i love to bits but when common problems arise they will/have cost a fortune. for example the gearboxes commonly lose reverse. This alone is somewhere around 5k to fix. So i got insurance to cover mechanical stuff. 13 months later i have broken even and surpassed the value of the warranty including the excesses each time. I knew some of these problems were likely to occur and how expensive they are so i guessed i would break even somewhere.
elect70, Feb 10, 2:42am
Dealers love you to buy mech insurance . Less risk ofcar comming back to bite them plus they get a kick back . Some ,like Wyns warrantiesstipulated you had to fill every receptacle on the car with their crapevery 1000 k s or void warranty, also had to be fully serviced every 1000 ks1 k over & something goes wrongyou were shit out of luck .Learnt about a few of the tricks having worked for a auto trans repairer & a panelbeaer.
rovercitroen, Feb 10, 4:38am
Friend has a 2004 Mercedes. If not for mechanical insurance he would have spent almost as much as he paid for the car in repairs over a 2 year period. None of the faults could have been predicted via a pre-purchase check. With VW, Audi, Merc, BMW I would definitely get a mechanical warranty. You only need one two small faults for it to pay for itself. But check whats covered, excesses and exclusions because some warranties are better than others.
casper35, Feb 10, 7:55am
Its the old story if you have one you wont use it if you dont have ine something will go wrong.Just put the $800 in the bank and wait and see what happens.
franc123, Feb 10, 8:31am
Its a 5yo 30K XR6, not a yappanese import with 100K wound off it or else an obscure Euro with an auto transmission made out of cheese with too many gears that lasts 80K and cost $20K to recondition or replace.Get it checked out to make sure its life so far hasn't been an abusive one, maintain it by the book and forget about warranties.Even at the worst (and highly unlikely) case scenario of a blown motor, trans or diff a second hand one isn't going to break the bank and is readily available, not much else is likely to go wrong apart from the usual stuff like brakes and tyres and maybe the odd window switch or suspension part etc, most of which the sods don't cover anyway.
rod525, Apr 4, 5:54pm
No, I wouldn't. Not for that vehicle, age and with those km's. If it was Euro - for sure.