| Author | Message | ||
     Nillaice |
it's almost time for my extended warranty to expire on my 03 xb9s. 14.5 K with out any manufacturer defects or component failures. but as Murphy's law would have it, the day after my warranty expires the lifters will collapse, the voltage regulator will melt, my headers will break clean off at the cylinder heads and the whole thing will go up flames. i don't really think that buells are unreliable, but it is nice to have that piece of mind, how ever small that piece may be. i'm armed with the service manual and a small toolbox full but no garage to call my own, so major DIY repairs are out of the question. so my question: to re-new or not? any body re-newed and regretted, or any body not and wish they had? is that piece of mind worth the renewal fee, even if that's all i'll be paying for? thanks in advance, guys. | ||
| Slaughter |
I thought that with "Omniscient" being used in context, it merited a response! I'd say renew the extended warranty ONLY if you have a dealer you can work with. A crappy dealer will NOT help you in dealing with warranty issues. There's hardly anything you can't do yourself in very little space (as long as you can lock it up at night) | ||
| Pwnzor |
Warranty, shmarrantee... The service manual is your bible, it's all you need. over 40k miles on my 2004 XB12R, no real problems. | ||
| Bebop |
your O3 is still in warranty? Is Buell's warranty mileage only or is it a 5yr deal? Hmmm... I just bought an 03 with only 5K miles, I wonder if it is still under warranty... | ||
| Nillaice |
Bebop, i got the extended warranty. the standard is 2 year unlimited mileage any body else like Pwnzor out there, or is he standing alone? | ||
| Danger_dave |
Depends on the premium and what it covers. Down here the cost is about the same as a full engine rebuild. I figured if I need one rebuild it's break even. 2 and I'm behind - none and I'm ahead. Best chance is none or one so I decided against - i put some of the premium money aside - and change my oil regularly. | ||
| Etennuly |
If a warranty is what makes you sleep better at night buy a new bike. Most of those extended warranties are great, until you have an actual claim. I'm just saying read the fine print before you sign up again. The Buell two year factory warranty is one of the best in the business. A new bike with a good dealer is the best path to less concern for mechanical failures. Having said that, I'm with Pwnzor. I will fix my own when the factory warranty runs out and I do my own maintenance. But then I do own a collision shop and have tools and skills. | ||
| Toona |
What's the cost for the renewal? Have you had much warranty work on it so far? I always figure any $ paid for an extended warranty is free money for the company selling it. I usually don't buy them, but I have a nice garage and tools galore. | ||
| Pwnzor |
If you spend some time searching the threads around here, you'll find plenty of horror stories about people trying to get stealerships to honor extended warranties. It comes up again every once in a while. My personal philosophy is "never buy an extended warranty on anything". I waited almost exactly two years for my warranty to expire before I installed the race kit. Plenty of dealerships told me "don't worry, it won't void your warranty", but I thought better of it and waited. I've had zero problems, and I've been riding this bike steadily for 4 years, 4 months and 16 days. Not that I'm counting. | ||
| Tx05xb12s |
Best Buy extended warranties are the cat's ass. Break a digital camera and bring it back, the response will be to go pick out something new off the shelf and they'll apply 100% of the purchase price from the original equipment plus the remainder of the warranty toward the new one no questions asked. So, I've established that I'm not completely against extended warranties. Now, about Buell warranties; I wouldn't accept an extended warranty from them if it were free. That would mean I'd have to let a Buell "trained mechanic" touch my bike and probably damage it again and fail to fix it both times I tried to get warranty work done. The only damage my bike's ever had was from Buell mechanics. The only problems it's ever had that got fixed were repaired by me. Save your money or give it away if it makes you happy. Just don't waste it; it's the principle of the matter. Oh and another good argument against the warranty is the bikes are fairly bulletproof as far as major problems are concerned and they're about as easy to work on as the old Briggs and Stratton lawnmower you've got parked out behind the garage under a galvanized washtub. That's why I can't figure out how a mechanic can be so inept. I've never worked on a Honda in my life and all my motorcycle repairwork is Buell specific thus far, but I feel pretty darn confident I could keep a Honda running with a copy of the shop manual. Know what I mean? It's almost like they screw up on purpose. Don't get me started... (Glad I've got the bike though) | ||
| Bad_karma |
Hard to answer with the info you have provided. Proper maintenance, riding style calibrated life span. Keep the bike, inspect it routinely and enjoy the savings. joe | ||
| Brumbear |
that bike owes you nothing so forget about another warr. buy some BLING instead | ||
| Lost_in_ohio |
Service your own bike. It is not worth the hassle of #1 losing the bike while fighting with the dealer to have the bike's warranty honored. I have see it be a couple of weeks.#2 Do you trust the dealer. That is a huge Nope in my case. He has the special buell labor rate table you know. You can get the parts darn near over night from andy and install them and be done in a couple of days.....My dealer will take a couple of days to look at the bike and then a week at least to get the parts, then another couple of days to get the parts installed. As brumbear said spend the money on Farkles. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
The Buell extended warranty requires a $50 "deductible" per claim. Most of the repairs aren't that expensive. I've had just about every problem that has been reported with the 06 Ulys. BAS-extended warranty wouldn't have helped. Bearings-extended warranty wouldn't have helped. Bad Fan-extended warranty would have covered about 60% of the cost. Bad Fuel Pump-extended warranty would have covered half the cost. Broken throttle cable-extended warranty would have covered about 20% of the cost. Front brake and rotor-extended warranty would have covered about 65% of the cost. If you add in the cost of the warranty plus the deductible, I would still be under water. I'd say, don't get it. Put the money into a good growth fund and "self insure". | ||
| Tx05xb12s |
That's true about Andy's (Appleton HD/Buell) responsiveness to your needs. I called him last week with literally two pages of part numbers I need to convert my front end from an S to an R. Amazingly, he had everything I needed except for two little items already in stock. A couple of days later the box was on the way to my address just like that. Every time I order something from either Al @ American Sport Bike or Andy @ Appleton I am back on the road by the end of the same week. And we're talking about me making purchases from halfway across the nation with people I've never met in person. There's lots of other sponsors here on the BadWeb that will give you the same kind of service and will even sit with you on the phone and walk you through your repairs if need be. I can't count how many times Dave S., Andy and Al have spent over an hour on the phone with me emailing photos and diagrams back and forth when I was just a newbie to help me do modifications, maintenance and repairs. I feel quite confident I could literally build a Buell from the ground up in my garage if I wanted to. And I'm no mechanic. Do like Phat B said and take your $1,000+ and sink it into something that's going to give you a return. The extended warranty is not a good investment IMO. If you treat the bike with just a little care and keep up with her maintenance, she'll do you right in return. Parts are cheap. If she needs a little something down the road to keep her happy, then that's what you do. | ||
| Pwnzor |
/shameless plug on Al at American Sport Bike is the best. /shameless plug off | ||
| Al_lighton |
Thanks, Phillip and Matt. Until recently, I was batting 1000. Every time one of my bikes went into a dealer for warranty/recall service (7 times), it came out with something wrong with it that it didn't have when it went in. Sad, but true. The one service trip that wasn't warranty (out on the road, Stator failure), the bike got screwed up pretty good by the dealer and just about got me killed. There are some good dealer mechanics out there, but it's a crap shoot as to whether the one that works on your bike is one of them. I've never been lucky at craps, I guess. Extended warranty? Fuggedaboutit. Heck, I like to farkle with my bike too much for it to remain valid anyway. Al | ||
| Kyrocket |
Never bought the extended warranty and never needed it. Guess I'm ahead. For once. | ||
| Nevrenuf |
new m2l with extended warranty, the bike gets totaled from a rearender. bought a used bike with no kinda of warranty, it took 4k to get it out of the shop after the engine rebuild(had to split cases), but that also included new rear tire, oil cooler, cylinders, pistons and a list of other things. of course i don't think the warranty would have covered this any how because of the performance parts that were inside her. hope fully she won't go again. bottom line is your damned if you do and damned if you don't. so do like vern says, do what ever makes you sleep easier at night. | ||
| Tx05xb12s |
No problem Al. It truly is all about the FARKLE, right? I'll probably be calling you soon about getting some real turn signals after I'm done with my S to R front conversion. I should have listened to you in the first place. Those darn colored bulbs I made such a big deal about getting are all almost white after just a couple of months of running them. Live and learn.... | ||
| Corporatemonkey |
You guys have got me thinking again. We DO have some wonderful sponsors on BW, and some lackluster real world dealers. Well I was thinking if something major ever happens to my bike (knock on wood...) I might just be tempted to crate the damn thing up, and ship it to someone who will fix it right the first time. It would be worth the $ for peace of mind. So who want to start a mail order service department?  | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
+1 on the don't bother list, as others have said, regular oil changes & put some aside for unexpected repairs. You say you've got a manual & tools but nowhere to work, doesn't mean you can't diy it, just call one of the numbers in the RAN, I'm sure another local badwebber would be happy enough to lend you a bit of garage space & another pair of hands too probably. Save your money for something useful, like an 06 oil pump drive upgrade. | ||
| Xl1200r |
I also don't ever bother with extended warranties. They're kind of like insurance - over your lifetime, you'll net out anyways (except you don't have to pay a "profit for no service" fee to anyone), so why pay the money before you have to? Like Pwnzor said, the cost is usually just too high to make it worth while. Plus (and this isn't meant as a snide remark), you have a 5 year old XB9 - is it really worth enough to justify that cost? I think it all depends what the warranty costs and what's covered. My guess is it's too much and covers too little. | ||
| Bcordb3 |
I don't know what you are paying for the warranty, if it fits your budget, go for it. I would weigh the cost of the warranty against the cost of potential repairs, then decide. Some of those warranties aren't worth the paper they are written on. Buell's are relatively simple machines to repair and basically bullet proof. Like Pwnzor, I bought the repair manual and parts book, a hand of tools, worked carefully, and saved a lot of money. Find a decent mechanic in your area (everybody has a guy who is the best mechanic there is, go to a bike night and ask around). I would rather have $700.00 or so in my pocket than in a warranty that you may never use. Keep up the basic maintenance, go around tighten things up a bit. Buy a Craftsman torque wrench to ensure you don't over tighten (Gorilla testing can cost you money). |
