Is Model S Extended Warranty Worth It?

[Dave121]

Sorry if this question has been answered 1m times, but couldn't find a thread easily.

My 2018 Model S is 2.5 years old and I have 41k miles on it. I have not had any issues with it but from my previous 2013 Model S, which had tons of door handle issues, I'm concerned the new one will potentially have more issues since it has more hardware in it than the 2013.

$4,750 with $200 "deductible" seems pricey, along with all the caveats etc.

 

[patrick40363]

2015 85D with 64K miles. The only thing repaired after the warranty ended was one door handle. I think that cost was $200. $4750 covers a lot of repairs.

 

[ucmndd]

In aggregate, no, extended warranties are never “worth it”. Statistically, it will cost you more than any benefit you receive.

Of course you may get “lucky”, but over time the house always wins.

If I were in your shoes, 2.5 years in with a car that has proven reliable, I’d most definitely not give Tesla $5k. Door handles are a $300 repair now - so with a $200 deductible it will take a sugar ton of door handles to break even.

Failure isn’t really an issue with MCU2.

Other expensive repairs could be things like the DCDC converter, onboard charger, etc - but those are increasingly rare and you’d need MULTIPLE failures just to break even.

Really it’s about your tolerance for risk. I would have had precisely $0 in covered repairs if I bought the ESA. Others around here treat owning a car out of warranty as an act of unimaginable recklessness.

 

[IslandHydro]

I agree with the prior comments, but would add that as with any insurance, your cost benefit ratio depends on how much stress you will harbor if uninsured. If your angst costs you more than insurance, then go for it.

 

[Dave121]

I appreciate the comments, thank you. I was leaning the same way, especially with the $200 deductible. I'm not overly anxious about getting a surprise bill for 1 or 2k, it was only a consideration if it would pay off.

 

[pabla]

I just sold me 2014 p85 and can say the extended warranty was WELL worth it. Face it these cars aren't made with reliability in mind. A few large things I got done under the extended warranty was, full sunroof rebuild, new battery heater, near door handles, new A/C compressor, new screen and a lot of other small things. To make the extended warranty worth it its best to do a bunch of fixes at once so you only pay the deductible once. It also was a great selling feature for the new buyer of the car as it gives them peace of mind. I would highly recommend ALL Tesla owners get the extended warranty if they plan on keeping the car past the 4 year 80k kms standard warranty.

 

[EVortex]

I bought the extended 4 warranty on my 2018 Model S. Just wanted the peace of mind of less risk of unplanned large repair expenditures in years 5-8. Argument against buying the warranty would have been to save or invest the money and use it for repairs as needed and hopefully total repairs cost less than the amount saved or invested/earned.

I chose a more predictable outcome over a chance to save some money. I expect each of us has a different risk perspective.

 

[David_Cary]

88k miles on 2015 70D.
Only repair over deductible is really battery heater. so $600 savings there. Hard to believe I would get $4150 in the next 12k miles.

To be fair, I did door handles myself - I have done two. But as someone posted above, with the deductible, it isn't a lot of coin. But I have intermittent issues so I could have bundled.

The extended warranty is uninsured so if car gets totaled, it is a total loss. This might vary by state/insurance of course.

My thought is generally, if you can't handle the risk of a repair, you shouldn't be driving a car as expensive as a Model S. Not always true, especially outside the US. I mean the $4750 is $100 a month. Just for warranty.

 

[Sunshine State]

We had purchased the extended warranty on our 2016 S that we traded back to Tesla early this year. The nice thing about the extended warranty is that if it never goes into effect it is supposed to be 100 percent refundable and our original 4 year warranty was only 3.5 years old. We filled out the required cancellation paperwork when we picked up our new Tesla and just a short 8 months and several dozen phone calls later we received a check back. Tesla is terrible at refunding money they owe. They also took unrealistically long times for other refunds for all our other credits in the past such as sales tax overages etc. I wonder how bad it is to be a vendor

 

[Ostrichsak]

In aggregate, no, extended warranties are never “worth it”. Statistically, it will cost you more than any benefit you receive.

Of course you may get “lucky”, but over time the house always wins.

If I were in your shoes, 2.5 years in with a car that has proven reliable, I’d most definitely not give Tesla $5k. Door handles are a $300 repair now - so with a $200 deductible it will take a sugar ton of door handles to break even.

Failure isn’t really an issue with MCU2.

Other expensive repairs could be things like the DCDC converter, onboard charger, etc - but those are increasingly rare and you’d need MULTIPLE failures just to break even.

Really it’s about your tolerance for risk. I would have had precisely $0 in covered repairs if I bought the ESA. Others around here treat owning a car out of warranty as an act of unimaginable recklessness.

It really is crazy to me how much weight this particular community puts in extended warranties. I guess they think that these exist not as a tool for profit but because some company out there really does care even if they lose money. lol

 

[David_Cary]

Well some people feel unlucky....
And then they are tools for minimizing risk just like many insurance's. All insurance companies make money too but presumably you have insurance. (I am just being devil's advocate here - you should have insurance for really bad things like a house fire).
But I do remember in the early days that 4 year extended warranty was $2k with no deductible. When I was looking (2013?), it seemed like a good idea at that price when reliability was so unknown. That was likely a money losing price and used to help convince people to take a risk with an expensive car in the early days. When they upped the price to $4k and added deductible, I decided against it.
Now we have better data and the price is even higher. Not worth it.

 

[pabla]

Well some people feel unlucky....
And then they are tools for minimizing risk just like many insurance's. All insurance companies make money too but presumably you have insurance. (I am just being devil's advocate here - you should have insurance for really bad things like a house fire).
But I do remember in the early days that 4 year extended warranty was $2k with no deductible. When I was looking (2013?), it seemed like a good idea at that price when reliability was so unknown. That was likely a money losing price and used to help convince people to take a risk with an expensive car in the early days. When they upped the price to $4k and added deductible, I decided against it.
Now we have better data and the price is even higher. Not worth it.

I honestly think its worth it if you make it worth it yourself. I made sure that anything wrong with the car was corrected and made sure to have all the fixes done at the same time so i would only pay the deductible once. The fixes I had done to my 2014 P85 totaled well over the 4k I paid. On top of that its a great selling feature and provides peace of mind for the owner.

 

[sharkcom]

I have a 2017 Model S 75 with 38k miles on it and my factory warranty expires this October. Does anyone have an idea of the most common issues and approximate cost of repairs if I keep this car for another 2-3 years driving which would end up having 75k miles on it?

 

[calm-one]

I have a 2017 that is 45 days away from the get the ESA or don't forever deadline and am debating obtaining such. The same 2017 has a MCU1. My only repair has been the yellowing main screen. My main screen has been starting to restart occasionally. Is it MCU1 failing or is it software upgrade / bugs? Who knows.

If I get the MCU1 to MCU2+FM upgrade and something doesn't fully work, I get a dash rattle, or service goofs up the dash trim during install of the "upgrade" (read about this in a different thread/post) does having the ESA help in any way or would you get the same service regardless?

Thanks

 

[paratrooper]

Everyone's experience is going to be different. However, in my case, with past vehicles, I've always gotten the full value and some out of my extended warranties. Especially with air suspension issues past basic warranty or other mechanical issues. Like clockwork, it seems, my past ICE vehicles around 80K miles started having all kinds of fun problems and got every penny out of the extended warranty. As others have stated, just depends on your personal experience and risk tolerance.

 

[cytranic]

Just spent 4k replacing my air suspension. 2 months ago spend $300 to replace door handle. a month before that I paid $800 to repair my screens. Definitly worth it.

 

[bob_p]

According "Vehicle Extended Service Agreement Terms and Conditions" (Tesla's extended warranty agreement), under item K, owners have the right to cancel the agreement and get a pro-rated refund for the unused portion of the agreement, minus a 10% penalty.

Extended warranties are insurance policies. Like health, auto, life, medical, ... insurance, on the average, in the short term, most customers will not benefit from having the insurance.

However, the extended warranty will protect customers from major expenses - such as replacing expensive components (FSD computer, MCU/displays, ...).

We've purchased the extended warranty for all 3 of the Tesla vehicles we've purchased - and have factored that cost into our purchase decision.

 

[SO16]

Depends on several factors and what you do with that money instead. I purchased an ESA for two other vehicles and the dealer made money on it. On average, an extended warranty is going to benefit the one selling that warranty.

In my case, I took that ESA cost and bought more TSLA instead which those shares are now worth many times over the original ESA price and any repairs I may need one day.

Had I purchased BTC instead of TSLA with that money, I’d be even much farther ahead.

I have had my Model S going on 5 years now. So far, no high repair costs. I am upgrading to MCU2 in about a month but that wouldn’t be covered under ESA anyway.

Of course all this could change and YMMV. But I have found that extended warranties end up costing me much more than what they give. That also means it’s good to have a rainy day fund.

 

[bob_p]

The same argument applies also for other insurance - home, flood, auto, major medical, long term care, ...

So far, we've been fortunate never to make a major claim to any of our insurance policies. So, we would have been better off in not purchasing those policies and putting the cost savings into a "rainy day fund" - which would by now be pretty significant.

But if we did have a major claim on any of those policies, it could cost us more than the rainy day fund.

The extended warranty, like any insurance, usually benefits less than half of the customers, who end up getting hit with his costs.

If you don't buy the extended warranty, there's likely a (slightly) better than 50% chance that you'll save $$$ by paying for the out-of-warranty repairs yourself. But there's also a (close to 50%?) chance that your out-of-warranty costs could be higher, and in some cases, much higher...

We purchased the extended warranty on our 2017 S and 2018 X and will likely keep each until we get close to 8 years or 100K miles.

 

[jelloslug]

I have it on my 2016 refreshed Model S. I have used it several times to replace headlights with bad DRLs. Frankly, if it were not for the warranty, I would not have bother to pay to have the DRLs replaced.