Car warranties and maintenance plans

0:00- [Instructor] You bought a car with the following warranties, and they explain it out here, three-year, 36,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty and a five-year, 60,000-mile powertrain warranty. After four years, your car has 35,000 miles on it. Which warranty or warranties are still active?

0:18Pause this video. Try to think about that. Okay, before I even answer the question, let's just make sure we understand what these warranties actually are. A bumper-to-bumper warranty means it's a warranty on everything in your car, and once again, it has to be something that was a defect or something that should be working in the car.

0:39It can't be that you took a knife to the upholstery or the seat and now you expect it to be fixed, but if there was a defect in it, or if the thing didn't last as long as it should, let's say after two years, something falls off and it wasn't because you abused it in some type of a strange way, then if it's less than three years and less than 36,000 miles and has to be less than both of those, then the bumper-to-bumper warranty will kick in and they'll fix it.

1:08The powertrain warranty, this applies to, essentially, the parts of the car that make it move. Think about the engine, the transmission, the axle, the things that actually make the car move. And what you typically see is that the powertrain warranty lasts longer than the bumper-to-bumper warranty.

1:27As I said, the bumper-to-bumper warranty includes the powertrain, but it also includes things like a little plastic piece on the dashboard that could fall off or things like that, while the powertrain is, "Hey, this car, the transmission something broke or the engine something broke."

1:42Once again, it can't be because you abused it in some type of a strange way. It's something that should have worked that's just not. Now, as I said, these three year, 36,000 miles, it's whichever one is going to happen first. So if only two years have gone by...

2:00If only two years have gone by but you've put 70,000 miles on this warranty, then the bumper-to-bumper won't work, and even the powertrain won't work because you violated the second one. If only two years have gone by, but you've driven 70,000 miles, the powertrain won't work either.

2:19Similarly, if you've only driven 10,000 miles, but six years have gone by, neither of these are going to be in effect. So here you have this question, after four years, your car has 35,000 miles, so it's after four years, so regardless, even if you've never driven your car, you've already gone past this three years, so it's definitely not going to be the bumper-to-bumper warranty for this scenario.

2:43And now let's see, four years, you still haven't reached the five years, and the 35,000 miles, you still haven't reached the 60,000 miles, so your powertrain warranty will still be active. Now, another thing you might wonder is how do I get these warranties? Can I pay for it? Can I extend these warranties?

3:00And the simple answer is, a lot of times, these warranties are included in a new car in some way, shape, or form, but there are also ways that you might get an extended warranty. Sometimes there's a promotion that the dealership is running or that the car company's running.

3:14Sometimes you can pay for an extended warranty. Sometimes at the dealer, this one of the things that they might try to sell you, and it might actually make sense. You can also get these warranties on used cars. Oftentimes, if you get these certified, inspected used cars, they might do something similar as well.

3:30So keep a look out at for it, but make sure you really understand what you're getting when you get one of these warranties.