I just bought my appliances (fridge, washer, dryer) from Sears this past Sunday. The experience was quite good and I managed to squeeze an additional 15% off. This was on top of the 25% off that they were offering on Samsung appliances. Put it this way, I was able to get the added 15% off because I purchased 3-yr extended warranties on all three appliances. However, the net cost (15% off vs added cost of warranties) was only $120. Thus, I thought I got a great deal!

The Sears extended warranties actually seem quite good -- it even covers routine maintenance and cosmetic defects.

Thanks Trancemission! Very good to know. The last time I bought an extended warranty was for my Toyota and that was not worth it. I am only buying 2 appliances so I am not sure I will be able to wheel and deal as much as you did. I need a Liebherr fridge due to size restrictions and Sears does not sell them, but their parent company Great Indoors does.

The reason retailers push extended warranties is that they are pure profit items. They are pure profit because maybe 1 out of 5000 will actually need service under that warranty. If any repair issues occur, they usually occur during the first year, and those problems are covered by the manufacturer's warranty.

Your best bet would be to take the money that you would spend on the warranties and put it into a savings account and use that to pay any service calls. Put a little more into the account every month and you'll soon have enough there to replace any that cock out down the road.

I would call the manufacturer and make sure they cover the original warranty given with the appliance when it is bought from Sears. This was several years ago but I bought a Gemini range from Sears and it had a flaw that showed after six months along with a burner that went bad. Sears came to fix it and they fixed the burner but said they wouldn't fix the flaw in the enamel that popped off because it was past 6 mos. I had the warranty and it said it was covered for 1 year. The guy from Sears told me they do not buy the appliance with a warranty but cover it themselves and it was up to them if they wanted to honor it and they wouldn't. They also told me they would have covered it if I had bought the extended warranty. We had a lot of illness with my husbands mother and dad at the time and I couldn't pursue it. I would find out who will be fixing your appliance if it is broken or has other troubles.

live_wire_oak: While I think your line of reasoning is good, I think the issue with appliances more so than consumer electronics or other items is that the cost of labor is disproportionate to the original cost of the item. Because of this, as you mentioned, it may be prudent to replace instead of repair. However, in my case for example, my net cost of the warranties was $120 for THREE appliances, for 3 years of coverage. This means I'm paying about 11 cents per appliance per day -- not a bad deal and certainly "worthwhile" compared to putting money in a savings account.

Note that I would not have been able to get the additional 15% discount if I had not purchased the warranties. Thus, I'm pretty much no worse off than if I didn't buy them at all.

I forgot to divide by three (3 years), so the cost is actually 3.7 cents per appliance per day... Even less than originally thought! Cheap!

Presumably all warranty service is still handled exclusively by the A & E division of Sears?

Trancemission,
Where do you live that you got this amazing deal on the warranty cost? I'm in Texas. I bought a new Bosch induction oven from Sears this weekend and bought the extended 3-yr warranty. No such deals for me.
That said - I bought the warranty for a couple of reasons
1/It was an expensive purchase for me and new technology (to me). I want a for sure protection beyond the manufacturer 1 yr warranty. I also want a for sure on who to call for help (Sears is local).
2/ The warranty includes yearly maintenance calls. That seemed like a good deal to me. Paying out of pocket for a maintenance call would cost what I paid for the warranty.

They don't sell warranty's to lose money. After a year even if you had to have a service call it would be about the same price that you paid for the warranty.

Yeah, I think I got a guy that was itching to make commission, and I smelled it right away. I didn't stick it to him, but I made my intentions clear that I would only purchase the warranties if I got a discount on the appliances. I only did this after saying that "I would have to think about it overnight". The next day was the last day of the sale, so I think he felt that he was on the verge of losing a sale... You know how this goes...

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, by the way...

Sears is a major ripoff artist. They list some nebulous "suggested retail" price at which they never sell their merchandise and then everything is "on sale" every day at different meaningless prices. When they run their 20% off sales, they price it off of their suggested retail price that the merchandise never sold at. Half the time the stuff retails every day for only a tiny bit more than their special sale prices or sometimes it's actually cheaper before their sale.

And their "service" agreements are a joke. Maintainence appointments on ranges or fridges? They are nonexistant. There IS no regularly required maintainence on appliances other than keeping them clean, which one of those useless part changers from A&E would never do. If you ever do have a need for an actual service call, it will take A&E 3 calls (and 3 different changed parts) to figure out they still haven't fixed the problem. They have zero diagnostic abilities.

All in all, only buy from Sears if you do independent research about the exact price something is selling for, not what questionable % it's supposedly discounted by. Never buy their warrantiies, and if you can avoid having A&E doing any needed work under the manufacturer's warranty, insist on some other service company.

I have no issues buying appliances from Sears, but I shop around for price. I have a KA dishwasher and a Kenmore fridge (a GE design with icemaker) I purchased there. I did not get the extended warranty for the DW, but I did for the fridge. I feel that the warranty prices are too high at Sears for what you get.

I bought a W/D at Best Buy and also got their extended warranty. It was less than half the price that Sears was offering (the warranty, not the W/D).

Speaking of ripoffs, the GE freestanding induction range is $2799 on their website. Sears has it for the ripoff price of $2699. When it was on sale over last weekend it was around $2295, another major ripoff. AJMadison has it for $2389 with a 10% rebate, or $2150.

hollysprings: What I paid for the appliances at Sears was considerably below the price anywhere, including ANY online retailer. Nevermind the fact that the delivery and install was also free (the latter of which is almost never free if you buy online). Percentages also mean nothing to me -- I look at total absolute cost.

weedmeister: I do agree that warranties by Sears are expensive, which is the reason why I negotiated for additional discounts on the appliances to offset the cost.

Bottom line: I not only got great prices on the appliances, but I came away with warranties, that while expensive, were almost completely offset by the added discount that I negotiated.

I purchased a Kenmore washer and dryer from Sears in May of 2012 but in December 2013 the washer machine stopped spinning. I called an appliance Dr. Who would come out to look at it for $65.00 but he said that it sounded like a computerized problem and he wouldn't be able to fix it. He suggested I call Sears and purchase an extended warranty (which I did for $97.00) and wait for it to kick in and then call Sears to come out and fix the washer. My question is how long do I wait? 2 weeks? 3 weeks?

Sears master protection agreement has been worthless in my experience. I've had a washing machine that hasn't worked in a year in spite of being under warranty. They are not repairing it, not replacing it and 2 days this week were no shows for appointments. It is a nightmare.

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