Warranty Choices these days

[gdavison]

The Cayenne hits 3 years old in about 6 months time, so starting to look at extending its warranty . Called into OPC yesterday to ask and apparently I have to make an appointment to take out the Official one as they have to "spend about an hour with me to explain how the warranty works and what is and isn't covered" .. I assume that is 50mins telling me what is not covered and the weasel legalise re its always wear and tear and not failure and 10 mins of what is covered, they only do 2 meetings for this a day and its only done at noon ..

I did get them to tell me current costs - 1 year is £1200, 2 Years is £2140 and 3 year is £3080

Question to the folk here .. what other 3rd party options have folk used and general experience of them. Also any good/bad stories of OPC warranty

many thanks

 

[joseph.lord]

I'm not a Cayenne owner but a 718 GT4 owner. While I do get an off putting message when booking that I will get charged £300 for investigation if it isn't covered that charge hasn't yet been applied in 3 visits and issues have been fixed. First was to sort leaking wipers/screenwash, second was engine light due to failed fan and third was a warning message and disabling of the parking brake which didn't recur but they found and sorted with several replacement parts. I think I'm definitely getting value from the pure warranty cost.

I do see the real cost as being higher than the explicit warranty cost as it keeps me doing services at the main dealer and I fitted the official Manthey brake pads (manufactured by Pagid) rather than the Pagid branded equivalents that were hundreds cheaper. For me this year is an easy decision to keep the warranty as I don't have a service or expected maintenance parts like that (I'll probably do an additional oil service and brake fluid replacement at a specialist) and decide in another year whether to do the due service at the main dealer and renew the warranty then providing they don't object to minor suspension modifications).

I've not used but only heard pretty bad things about 3rd party warranties, my guess only worth it as insurance against catastrophic failures of engine/gearbox and you are more likely to suffer more minor but still fairly expensive issues. On 718's and some others the PADM engine mounts are a known risk, I don't know what goes wrong on Cayenne's, I think some have air suspension which sounds like the sort of system with a lot that can go wrong that I'd prefer warranty on.

Additional benefit of warranty is that the car can be sold with the warranty which can help resale.