Route 66: penfed's extended warranty review

[poorlilpoop]

There aren't many reviews of Route 66's extended warranty on the net or forums.
However, I did notice that there is decent number of people, using PenFed credit Union service.

And I thought I share my experience with the service.

Background.

When I bought the 135i from a member here and I had a choice of extending the warranty through BMW or use the PenFed's extended warranty service. My mileage was low enough to have a choice.

As you guys are aware, BMW offers 3 levels of extended warranty; basic, gold or platinum. And the prices will vary, but all of them are expensive.

Then, here comes PedFed with their third party extended warranty with very reasonable price. (I believe they offer me $2200 for comprehensive coverage.) Of course you do have to meet their requirement before PenFed can offer you the extended warranty. I do not remember the exact requirement, but the car had to be within so many years/mileage.

Anyway, Route 66 offers, additional 5 years, and 100k over the current bmw.

E.g. if you bought 08 bmw on 2011 with 40k mileage, your warranty will be extended to 2016 or 140k mileages.

Also, there is no restriction on where the repair is done. You can bring the car to your favorite shop or BMW dealership.

It sounded reeeaaallly good. (Foreshadow: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.)

My AC stopped working. I live in New England State, and summer gets really hot and muggy. I know it's not hot as south, but it's painful enough.
I'm done being hardcore with the car nut, doing tracks, modding, etc.
In my earlier years, I used to take the AC out, and remove heat shields to save some weight. My suspension used to be so harsh that it felt like someone punched you in the kidney, if I drove it extended period of time, or bad roads. I did not care, I was having fun.
I still have my wrx for that, it's not for the BMW. BMW is still fun car, just not for hardcore modding/tracking.

Service.

I called the route 66 and would like to use the warranty to fix the AC. The warranty service is comprehensive and it covers the AC.
They just told me to bring my car to any shop and have the shop call them back with service agreement number. Route 66 will take care of everything else. This made me feel better.
So far, so good.

I brought the car to the shop and explained what is going on. Right from start, the shop gave me a sad face, and explained what may happen.
The shop has dealt with two extremes and everything else in between.
Basically, extended warranties do not cover, up front diagnostic fees and they will not talk to anybody until exact issue known. The good one will reimburse the fees, once shop founds out the exact issue.

This makes sense. This way, the warranty service is not getting ripped off.

Next day, I get a call from the shop.

Route 66 will cover NOTHING, NADA, not a single penny.

I was going to fix the AC, regardless of cost. I just hoped that since I had a warranty service, I could actually use it. Even if they only cover partial payment.
Maybe, they only cover AC unit itself, however, I do not know what they cover.

I'm going to give route 66 a call, and ask them to email me the extensive/every parts/service that they will cover and why the AC coverage was rejected. (I'm not sure if they will even release that information. From what shop has told me, their warranty service is on lower end of spectrum. )

If this is the initial impression they have set, what happens when the bigger items goes? E.g. turbo issue, transmission issue, or motor issue. This experience makes me feel like I just wasted the money, and should have gotten the BMW's extended warranty, even if the cost was higher.

I'm hoping that this is not their normal service, and I happened to be an exception. And I don't have to worry about other warranty service that may come up.

I'll post an update after I talk to them. (Give me 24 hours for the update)

I hope this will give some light on Route 66 extended warranty.

Cliff note/short version.

Route 66's extended warranty does not cover the AC malfunction, even though service agreement said they would. If you have choice between Route 66 extended warranty or BMW's extended warranty, pay little more and get the BMW warranty. So far, Route 66's warranty sucks balls.

If anyone else got personal experience with them, please post. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad.

I can't be the only one who has this warranty and try to use it.

[poorlilpoop]

Read the following post about extended warranty. It sounds like Route 66 does have some positive feedback.

This does give me some hope. Hopefully, my conversation with the service rep will shed some light.

Because so far, I want to punch them in the dick.

[ShocknAwe]

Read your exclusions list closely. You'll likely notice there are lots of little things that aren't covered, that commonly cause major failures. That is how these aftermarket vehicle service insurance companies get out of paying for repairs.

Read the list, talk to the representative and have them explain it line by line, and if they won't cover the repair, cancel your policy with them for as full a refund as you can get. Unfortunately I find most of these companies to committing borderline fraud. I know I'm not alone on that opinion. Any of these packages, even the BMW offered plan, is a big gamble.

[chdavis]

Shops don't like working with extended warranty companies for whatever reason. I had an Adaptive Xenon headlight fail in my 2009 E90 and the first response from my SA was that neither Route 66 or BMW would cover it.

Upon me taking control of the situation and acting as a liaison between BMW, Route 66, and BMW NA, I was able to have Route 66 cover half of the approximately $1000 repair and BMW goodwill the rest since my car was only 8k miles out of warranty.

YMMV