I would say to go for them.

As I am in the midst of dealing with a six year old Dacor range with a dead computer I rather wish I had an extended warranty.

If all those lovely Bosch appliances had mechanical controls, you would have less to worry about. But somehow solid state, heat, moisture and long term reliability would seem to be not the best partners.

How much do they want to charge you for the warranties? There are other threads on this forum about extended warranties, but the general consensus is no, they're not worth it except for laptop computers and HDTVs. Assuming the warranties are expensive, and they usually are, put the money in the bank and you'll most likely come out ahead. Of course, there are some people for whom it does work out but generally they're just lots of extra profit for the dealers.

So Sears just added in the cost of the extended warranty to the total? That's just plain dishonest.

Consumer Reports and the majority of people here on this forum say NO to extended warranties. Put the money aside and let it pay for possible future repairs. Yes, many people will tell stories about how the EW saved them on a nightmare appliance, but the odds just don't prove that it is a good buy.

Here is a link that might be useful: Consumer Reports article on EW

phillycook - an extended warranty wouldn't have helped you - they usually run 4 additional years at most - that's because the people who sell them know that most repairs occur during the first year when the manufacturer's warranty is in effect or after the fifth year when their extended warranty is no longer in effect.

Basically "insurance" policies and just about the highest profit-margin items they sell. Decide for yourself but if they just added it without asking you, I'd speak with them whether or not you decide to keep them.

Another note: If/when trouble may occur you will learn that you are restricted to THEIR people and schedules. There have been numerous complaints about slowness and inconsideration when the issues arise and Sears has been among the worst of them. Suspect somewhat related to locale.

No no no no no. Complain all the way up the chain of command, complain to your local BBB and to the local DA. TELL the Sears sales manager, NOT the stupid salesman, that you will not pay. Cross the amount off the invoice.

What they are attempting is illegal and you MUST stand up. Call me and I'll go with you and help you complain, but DO NOT PAY IT.

Wow - that's outrageous - I just helped a friend buy a DW at Sears - they offered the extended warranty - we declined. Adding it in automatically and then refusing to take it off is highly illegal. Don't stand for it.

I agree with the previous posters, DO NOT pay for the extended warranty if you don't want it. Sears has to honor the manufacturer warranty during the first year (or however long it is) without you paying for any extra service agreements...especially one that is so expensive. It is just an option and not at all mandatory to pay for an EW. Your builder should stand behind you and fight Sears on this one.

Good luck!

They'd lose my business just for trying to pull that cr@p.

You never did say how much they're charging - IIRC Sears' ext warr are relatively expensive.

Why does it matter who your builder has a contract with? Have you shopped these appliances around elsewhere?

ps. Regarding the legality of it, I don't see the problem. They quoted you the price, not like they added it on the back end. I would think if including the warranty is their policy that's their prerogative, no matter if we like it or not.

Similar situation - By me you can't buy a new Harley without buying a service plan and ordering your bike with $X of aftermarket add-ons. No one will sell you a stock bike straight and simple. (Hence I don't ride a Harley.)

Thanks again, all.

We will go for the final rewrite with the builder on Sunday and see if they will do something about it.

I do not have the time or disposition to fight with Sears - they give you 50$ discount as "commercial prices" and make that triple with the extended warranty... I assume I am not the first person to raise this kind of problems with my builder, but they have a contract and are both winning from this... why should they help me?

I cannot get out... or I lose my 25,000 down payment for the house :-)

BTW, the warranties are around 550$ + tax for the above mentioned appliances (I do not remember each one individually).

I've never heard of someone being forced to take the extended warranty. I would push back hard. When I was building, my builder had an agreement on several products (including all my lighting fixtures), but when I said I wanted to use another vendor, he just told me the allowance and we settled up. I agree that you should check around.

it is against the law to force the customer to take extended warranties. i know this from my husbands appliance business. it does not matter what contract your builder has, you only have to use his supplier, if it is in your agreement of sale, not buy extended warranties. my husband has been selling appliances for 30 years, and sells extended warranties. he never uses the extended warranties as a selling point. no one buys them, and consumer reports points out they are not worth it. i would not pay! also, you might want to go to a website called rate your builder.com and hadd.com voice your opinion about your builder after he fixes everything from your 60- 90 day list. good luck!

Why are you getting them from Sears? I don't live near a Sears but over the weekend had a chance to go to one. I checked out the appliances---there were a lot of them including Bosch and I was impressed by the selection and display. There were sales people running around talking about the current sale and discounts so this was attractive.

I looked at the Bosch cook tops as well as the ranges. I was not particularly impressed with the quality look of these items, seemed like lighter construction or something--I can't exactly put my finger on what made me uncomfortable, maybe it was the lightweight SS almost like aluminum, the burner grates, and the fan in the convection oven... I just didn't like the looks of it but I am comparing to the Bosch I purchased in 2006. Makes me wonder if these are made only for sears? Maybe even Bosch is making things cheaper now. I dunno Kind of disappointing.

Anyone know if Sears sells "different" Bosch than another appliance dealer that sells Bosch?

to jerod6
yes and no!
let me say my husband has been selling high end appliances for 30 years, in his showroom and on line. this is my biggest pet peeve, the quality of stainless on products and what gauge of stainless they use.i am not involved in his business, but we talked about this all the time. when i picked out my appliances (i could get whatever i wanted) i have different vendors in my kithcen and selected by who had the richest and best brush stainless. the best quality stainless is expensive. i have owned franke stainless sinks
in 2 houses now and believe they are the best, and do not show wear due to their high gauge of stainless used, same with grohe faucets, they are amazing. i believe appliances are like cars, it depends what trim package your willing to pay for, and the exra conrols (bells and whistles) are the options.the box stores hmmmm do have some vendors make product lines just for them. even though sears has a vendor make sears products for them with the sears name, the same vendor with the same product, gets lower ratings in a favorite consumer guide? why? it is the same product.
most box stores have some of these products created for them due to their target customer, who is not spending 12,000- 25,000 for kitchen appliances. stainless has been the look for 10 years now, with colored stainless coming on strong. but, to make a mainstream product you must cut back somewhere, and finish will be that area. the box store now can offer there customers that look. 5 years ago low to med end appliances were hard to find in stainless.some vendors,like viking, dacor, wolfe,and monogram will not budge and sell to box stores their current products, or create scaled down lines, but i guess eventualy they may, but hope they stick to their guns. even mercedes is bringing to the us the smart car used in great britain. they have a whole line of buget cars over there.i read here once a week. you are the first to comment on exterior appliance quality. i think most comparable appliances on the inside are made the same. outsides vary slightly.higher end is higher quality on the outside. most vendors have this in their upper lines, and these appliances come with all the bells and whistles. you were probably looking at a lower line in bosch at sears. the higher end my husband sells is very nice and good quality.he also carries the same vendors lower lines. the old saying you get what you pay for. sears still sells 55 percent of all home appliances. some vendors wil make them what ever they want to sell.

Grohe, FYI, the mfgrs do make items especially for the big box stores, but as discussed here often, if the product number is the exact same, the product will be exactly the same.

fairegold, fyi bosch does not make lines for sears. whirlpool does. ex. whirlpool duet frontloaders. exact same product spec for spec is made by whirlpool, for sears and the kenmoore name is put on it. same product, different product numbers. who do you think makes kenmoore products?

jerrod, I'm not sure you or sshrivastava would ever be anything but shocked at and disappointed in a Bosch product! :-) Bosch seems to be to you guys what Microsoft & Windows was to a good Mac or Unix hound in the 90s. Your own personal "evil empire". ;-)

Anyhow, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a stainless revolution coming - there have been reports in several places about the global difficulty / unavailability / scarcity / sudden skyrocketing in prices or something of SS304 which is used to make most consumer SS. I sort of read one of them many weeks ago but was much less enthused about reading about SS than about the Iraq war or Petraeus' anticipated (at the time) opinions or Rove & Gonzalez so I didn't retain much and can't reliably recapitulate the points but there was much to-do-ing about the state of SS304 - worldwide. Maybe someone who did read and record correctly will update.

BTW, I don't know anything about the Bosch ranges at all, but the cooktop (the NGT, NGP units) are the former Thermador products. When BSH acquired T'dor, they badged the very succesful ngt/p t'dor model to bosch and kept Thermador's higher/newer(?) end model with the star burners and god knows what else a T'dor product. The NGT/NGP stuff was apparently very succesful for Thermador so I doubt that Bosch would rejigger a tried and true item unless they needed to adapt to material difficulties.

Anyhow, I haven't seen the new 2006 or 2007 models so I can't say that anything's changed and I'm only opining based on your observations.
Chances are that nothing has materially changed and that it is just your natural prejudice against Bosch that makes you turn up your nose at the product. ;-)

Actually, Grohe, Bosch makes a dishwasher for Kenmore, but it is sold as a Kenmore and not as a Bosch. Kenmore products are make by various companies on Sears' specifications and labeled and sold as Kenmore products. And other companies also make Kenmore appliances, such as GE and Frigidaire. But a Bosch sold at Sears will be the same Bosch product that your husband sells, as long as the product number is exactly the same.

I am only speaking to the myth that a product sold at Home Depot or other big box store is not the same as the same product sold elsewhere. It is, if the product is labeled the same. Your example was not clear.

Mindstorm

I don't have a natural prejudice against Bosch, if I did I wouldn't have bought Bosch products(microwave and dual fuel range). But I am comparing the ranges I saw at Sears with the one I have which I love.
It has, and does, continue to provide good performance for me and I like the dual fuel with convection feature.

For example the grates. This is not a big deal but on mine I almost need two hands to pick up one grate. I picked up the one in the store with one hand expecting close to the same weight and instead almost hurled it across the room at other customers. Weight does not necessarily reflect quality but this made me examine the rest of the range.

I certainly do a detect a material change in the new range (and the SS cook top did look like brushed aluminum instead of SS maybe it was and I mistook it for SS) from the one I have and that is why I asked the question.

I would prefer to think that this is specially made line but perhaps it isn't, so that Is why I asked the question.

I am disappointed when I perceive quality declines in products I have trusted while companies still charge a premium for them.

If this continues we won't be able to buy anything that is well made and will last.

Forgot one other Bosch product I have which is a whole house Tank less water heater purchased several years ago. Supplies hot water to kitchen, laundry, and 3 bathrooms. I have hot water whenever I need it and never run out...so no...not prejudiced against BOSCH.

jerrod, That was said with a wink and a nod, so no worries.

Anyhow, once again, let me preface this by saying that I don't know and haven't seen any of their late models in person nor do I know anything about the ranges (in other words, I have no idea what I'm talking about) BUT here's a concept that may explain your observations. Bosch's sister company is Gaggenau. Gaggenau has made a real virtue of offering their products - from ovens to hoods to cooktops - in shot-blasted aluminum finishes (sort of looks brushed, I suppose). I wonder if BSH has proliferated that concept to Bosch if you say that the material looked like brushed aluminum. The s-b-al certainly does have the white-metal look of aluminum as that is what it is, and the shot-blasting enhances that whiteness. I have a Gagg hood in this shot-blasted aluminum finish and I like it very very much indeed as it does an awesome job of keeping fingerprints at bay. Not to mention that I just like that whiter finish. I don't notice any flimsiness in the finish of my hood but then I don't thump it much.

Jamesk has a gaggenau cooktop and while I don't recall if he got the aluminum or the SS, I do recall him deliberating one vs the other.

Now, for all I know, this has nothing to do with the reality, but frankly, the Gaggenau finish is what first popped into my mind when you mentioned Bosch's aluminum finish - them being sister companies and all. Also, the Bosch dishwashers made for Gagg are also (or rather were, when I looked) offered in this aluminum panel rather than the stock SS.

Mindstorm

The shot-blasted aluminum finish could be what I saw. Today in my memory it just didn't look like SS although that was what I was expecting. I also didn't look at the tag for information or anything like that so I don't have product numbers. I was more upset at seeing something from Bosch that looked like mine, but didn't look as "good" to me as what I had, and was being sold as new. I will say that what I saw looked like it would hide scratches and fingermarks.

Back to the OP's problem.

Forcing a customer to take an extended warranty is illegal. It sounds as if your contractor is getting a kickback from Sears.

I would immediately contact your state attorney general and file a formal complaint. Do not except this deal! If you have a private attorney, I would have him/ her send a letter immediately expressing your displeasure with Sears and your contractor. Also have your attorney inform them of the legality surrounding their practice.

Enjoy the journey.

eal51 in western CT