Extended Warranty

rusty i do see a little sarcasm but not much.

he is right thou, any ins policy will wind up costing you lots of money. the older the boat the more it will cost, due to wear and tear. the ins is gambling that any repairs will cost less than what you pay for the policy, and they will limit what is covered. most likely any thing they can say you could have prevented means they wont want to pay. for example you go sailing on a day with a small craft advisory and your sails rip, they will say you should have not been sailing, there was a warning then they will refuse to pay.

what ever you do make sure you read the fine print, and very carefully read it.

here is one example of how they get you, Hyundai ( sp ) claims to have a 100k mile engine warranty. once you pass 36 k miles its prorated, if the engine dies at 99 k miles they will pay like 100 bucks. then you have to go to the dealer to have the work done and you will pay 20 to 40 % more.

In a previous life I was the service manager at a Mercedes/Porsche/Rolls Royce dealership. The sales department LOVED selling those things as the markup is huge (inside tip: if you do want one haggle like crazy, you can probably get it at 50% off). They also sold a version on dealer certified used cars.

For those that had them and really, really needed them for something big it was probably a good deal. One blown up transmission could mean a net savings. But 99% of car repairs are less than catastrophic and I'm sure (no actual data, just my gut feeling) the huge majority of the purchasers never got anywhere close to a good value. Which is why the insurers manage to stay in business.

As others have pointed out, the actual cost would be huge on a used boat. My view is that the money can be better spent on doing regular preventative maintenance religiously, getting professional help when needed, and knowing your boat inside and out so that you can detect right away when a problem is developing and can take care of it before it turns into a large one.

Noworries and Scotty both have good points. Would you be able to purchase an extended warranty on a used car, after the original warranty had expired? Would it be worth getting? Boats have so much more that can go wrong with them and so much more opportunity for it to happen that it is almost surprising that anyone would offer a warranty in the first place. If insurance is available, the deductible is likely to be quite high as well. The insurance company won't want to be covering incidental dings and maintenance items, but will certainly want you to do so. If you bend your pulpit coming into the dock because your rudder got stuck hard over, they are going to find out that you didn't replace the worn quadrant sheaves and that's what made the rudder stick. They will then say that you didn't maintain the boat properly, and won't cover the pulpit damage. If you're going to have to maintain the boat in such a manner, nothing is likely to break, so insuring against breakage makes less and less sense.

If you want to insure against damage you might cause yourself (going out when it's too rough, plowing into a dock or another boat), the fewer claims you have, the less your insurance is likely to cost. Of course if you have no cause to have claims because you're not going out when its too rough, and you're being careful not to plow into docks or other boats, then you need such insurance less and less.

Overall, as Noworries and Scotty both hint, extended warantees are a great way to soon separate some people from their money.