The first thing people who need a new computer think of is going to a large retailer such as PC World in the UK to buy a “cloned” machine costing anything from £200 upwards, depending upon its capabilities. I myself used to rely upon such retailers at one point. – But the problem with such retailers is that they sell you what they want you to have to a certain extent., rather than a machine tailored to your particular needs. OK – they do suit the machine to the customer to some extent, but they only have a limited number of different models of computer to sell to all customers, at a huge profit to themselves of course – but computers are so inexpensive these days that they simply can’t make too much profit from their computer sales or they’d just price themselves out of the market. In the case of PC World stores in the UK in particular; their profit comes, not so much from the sale of the computer itself, nor from the associated peripherals with inflated price-tags that you might opt to buy whilst in-store, but from the sale of invisible extras such as extended warranties.

Such products are sold to the customer to give them a sense of security; such that in the event of a breakdown of any kind during the lifetime of the warranty, the repair costs are covered and usually a technician visits the customer’s home and either repairs the unit on the spot; or takes it away for a day or two and returns it working in due course.

That in itself isn’t a bad thing at all: However I personally will never buy such a warranty. Here’s why: -

Usually the retailer pushes a 5-year extended warranty onto the customer at point-of-sale, warning of the possible costs of not being covered by it, whilst advising of the peace-of-mind that such a warranty will give. The problem I’ve found with these is that, firstly the 5-year-extended-warranty can cost almost as much as the machine itself, and also, after 5 years and in a lot of cases, you realise that you’ve paid a lot for very little other than cover, aka “peace-of-mind” in actuality.

Two examples, on a personal note that happened to me, are: –

In 1999, before I started building my own machines, I bought a computer from a catalogue along with a 5-year extended warranty that cost over half as much again. By 2002 the machine was an “ancient relic”, and the only thing that had gone wrong with it was the floppy-drive, which I’d had replaced under warranty.

At that time I’d just bought a new computer with an Intel Pentium 4, 2.8GHz, processor. The old machine had a 256MHz Socket 7 CPU, and was far too slow for most things at the time; so I sold it on for peanuts. The salesman at PC World where I’d bought the new computer from managed to nag me into buying another 5-year extended warranty. I’d managed to negotiate a deal that I’d do so on the proviso that he included a free XP Professional upgrade disk (Worth £99 at the time.) so that I could upgrade from the preinstalled XP Home installation.

A problem occurred in 2003 when a CD exploded in the CD-RW drive. I called the repair-man out under the extended warranty and he fixed it. That machine started noticeably showing its age around 2005, and just after Christmas that year I lost it to a power-spike while flashing the BIOS. I might have been able to get it fixed under the warranty; although the custom-built MSI motherboard inside it was no longer in production. However I decided that it was time to buy new again. I never bought an extended warranty again though; even though I only bought one more pre-built computer after that. I’ve had 6 since; 1 of which I built for myself last year, 1 in December the year before, and the other 4 between 2006 and 2008 inclusive.

Now the point is this: I paid over £300 for the first extended-warranty; and all I got was a new floppy-drive for my money.

I paid nearly £400 for the second extended-warranty, and for that price all I got was a new CD-RW drive for the outlay.

Now correct me if I am wrong; but isn’t £700 a bit steep for a CD-RW drive and a floppy-drive?

Yes I’m aware that some people call out the repair-man when their screen gets dirty, the fuse blows in the mains-plug, or they scratch their case: That’s why it’s so bloody expensive; because people abuse it. – Also those type of people get a reputation, and the powers that be become unhappy about sending technicians out to them, even in real emergencies. Why should I pay for time-wasters? I’m “covered”, true, but I’ve not in actuality needed that cover much. – So what am I actually paying for apart from to support assholes who abuse the system?

In reality, by taking out an extended warranty, I’m paying to perpetuate my own ignorance. I have a choice of 2 options: -

1) Pay too much for the peace of mind of knowing that if anything goes wrong I can have someone come out and put the problem right for me within 24 hours. Result = I learn nothing, I gain no experience.

Overall result = I pay a lot to stay ignorant.

2) Learn how to do it all myself, so that if something does go wrong I can put it right myself at the price of the replacement component.

Overall result = I add to my knowledge and skills, and only pay for parts. Result = I learn and grow in ability as an individual at a vastly reduced cost.

I chose option 2 because it’s far more profitable for me as a person. I now build my own computers, do my own repairs, and pay only for the parts I use. – Rather than allowing a retailer to make a vast profit at my expense whilst not knowing anything about the insides of a computer myself, and paying for a sales-gimmick that doesn’t actually exist in any quantifiable form as such; namely “peace-of-mind”.

(Another thing there is that your computer may be covered by your home contents insurance in the UK; depending upon what type of home contents insurance you have. – So there’s possibly no point in buying an extended warranty anyway in some cases. – It may be just a total waste of money.)

So under what circumstances should you buy an extended warranty? If your home contents insurance doesn’t cover repairs to your computer; plus also either you don’t have time to do computer repairs or learn how to do them, or you’d simply rather stay ignorant and let everyone else do everything for you. – Or, of course, if you’re learning about computer repairs/hardware, but don’t feel that your standard of competency is up to it yet. Or, finally, if you’re just lazy, have more money than sense, know how to do it or not, and simply can’t be bothered with doing it yourself.

Other than that; to my mind, extended warranties are a waste of money. What’s your take on it?