Comments on: Never buy the warranty: Repairing is cheap

By: Lance Wiggs

Lance Wiggs — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:29:18 +0000

Was that recent Sue?

By: Lance Wiggs

Lance Wiggs — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:29:03 +0000

70% – and that pretty much says it all. More to come on that.

By: Lance Wiggs

Lance Wiggs — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:28:32 +0000

nor me mine. They do get a few things wrong it seems.

By: Never buy the Warranty: Repair it yourself « Lance Wiggs

Never buy the Warranty: Repair it yourself « Lance Wiggs — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:02:07 +0000

[...] About Lance « Never buy the warranty: Repairing is cheap [...]

By: sue

sue — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:56:31 +0000

Lovely to hear magnum mac have gotten better, this is the complete opposite of my experience with them, despite paying the premium charges for fast service.

By: Bill Bennett

Bill Bennett — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:31:44 +0000

I used to run New Zealand Reseller News, which is the trade newspaper for people who sell (and repair) computers at all levels.

We once had a story about a company providing consumer warranties, it’s message to resellers was along the lines of “warranties have profit margins of 70 percent or better”.

While this might sound like greed, the truth is resellers make such a small margin on PCs and laptops and the prices are low anyway so the first time an unhappy customer returns to the store and asks for advice they are already losing money.

By: Kim Johannessen

Kim Johannessen — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:02:45 +0000

Check out the fiasco Apple are having with their 3.0 Apple TV upgrade .. luckily I haven’t had time to upgrade mine yet!

By: Lance Wiggs

Lance Wiggs — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:53:06 +0000

More to come on this Ben. I contend that $400/$1899 is a pretty poor cost of insurance. For you it was a waste of money as it didn’t break down.
For Ben – well he could have spent another $900 instead of $2000/$1899 – so the $400 saved him $900. Poor odds.

By: Ben Lilley

Ben Lilley — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:44:30 +0000

Good points Lance and I agree in some cases the warranty isn’t worth the money, that said I think in this case it worked out better for him for a few reasons:

1) 3 year warranty cost me $400. The repair of the laptop would have been around the $2000 mark.
2) While the current White MacBook is $1699, upgrading the RAM to match his model (4GB) bumps the price to $1899.
3) He’s a student, dropping $1,6999 is completely out of the question. I mean I sold him the laptop for $900.

So potentially yes, for somebody employed full time or has their own business, the warranty can be an unnecessary expense but for students or people who can’t afford $1000+ products or repairs the warranty can be a smart investment — especially as it works out over less than $140 per year for full cover (except water/drop damage).

By: Lance Wiggs

Lance Wiggs — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:23:30 +0000

I also found them frustrating in the past from their retail side – and have seen substantial improvement there as well.