New Memeber - Warranty question

[jbillion]

Hi Fellow Altima Members,

I have been a member at the M forum for a few years and always enjoyed the community and the adviceI got from fellow members. I just purchased a Majestic Blue 2008 3.5 SL Altima Sedan and I am loving the car so far.

I have 36K miles and the dealer is pushing the Nissan extended warranty pretty hard. He lowered the price to $1550 from $2000 for the $0 deductible Security+Vehicle protection plan from NIssan and he will throw in free oil changes for the life of the pan, wich is about 11 or 12 oil changes. This is the 3 year 72k MILE PLAN.

What does everyone think? Do you have the extended warranty and is this a good price?

[Encryptshun]

When you say it's the 3 year, 72k mile plan, you mean concurrent with factory warranty or consecutive?

[jbillion]

Concurrent, but bumper to bumper instead of just powertrain. My bumper to bumper expired at 36K.

[Encryptshun]

Your car is a 2008, so it's already 3 years old. So you'd just be paying for a warranty for 2 months at most (depending on if it's calendar date or "in-service" date). What are the odds that your car is going to need over $1500 in repairs before January?

[jbillion]

Not really concurrent then, it starts from the milage when I bought the car. My current powertrain runs through 60K miles or December 2012. This would be three years from today or 72K miles on odometer.

[Encryptshun]

Ah, okay. Gotcha.

I can only say that from personal experience, I don't like messing with those extended warranty things. I mean, it's a gamble either way. You are betting Nissan's quality is bad and the dealer is betting that it's good. If the policy is underwritten by Nissan as an authorized originaly factory warranty extension, it might be worth it. If it's a 3rd-party policy that the dealer is just selling, don't touch it with a 10-foot pole.

[jbillion]

It's a Nissan warranty with $0 deductible. I just barely broke even when I bought one for the M45, I needed the instrument panel replaced due to a gas gauge issue and tie rods and wheel bearings. I'm leaning towards no, the dealer is doing such a hard sell, I expect him to come back with a lower price. As for now, I'm gonna pass.

I love the Altima so far. I don't have any issue with CVT as opposed to a 5 or 6 speed automatic. It is smooth and the power transfer seems to be just fine for me.