Extended warranties are never a good deal. Ever. Connivance dealing with broken and worn equipment notwithstanding. This observation is sure to provoke all manner of obscure horror stories telling of how an extended warranty really saved someone's bacon. How they would have been living under a highway overpass if not for their wonderful extended warranty. Do not confuse vivid and/or connivance with common place. It is always interesting to note that the vast majority of these tales are told by those selling warranties who, of course, want to make the exception the rule and scare the crap out of you.
Statistically, for every individual that benefitted from an extended warranty there necessarily were thousands of others that did not. Just like a lottery. If this were not the case, there would be no extended warranties. Or lotteries.
Extended warranties are, percentage wise, an extremely lucrative business for those selling them and a piss poor deal for those buying them. They are not a device to ensure your peace of mind, they are a mechanism to make money for those seling them. I know this because I was, in a past existence, responsible for pricing service contracts for a pair of guys who's initials are H and P.
Simply put if a warranty costs you $X for some time period then it's highly unlikely that you will experience $X worth of violence to what ever it is you're warranting. But wait, say the warranty mongers, if you call for ad hoc service you'll have to pay some apparently hideous rate for labor and materials. So what says you, if that were more profitable than warranties, you wouldn't be offering warranties. Never forget that no one but you has any real concern for your best interests .
Take the chance, it's worth it. It's sort of like betting on both red and black on a roulette wheel. You won't win any money, the odds of losing are minute, and you get to play. If, every now and then, you do lose a chip or two, you're still money ahead of attempting to win, just chalk it up to the actual cost of being there.
