Harbor Freight DC- Protection Plans?

[jessrice]

Hello all,
managed to get out to HF this weekend and pickup the DC on sale with the 20% off coupon, 136.00 out the door. Grabbed one of the tool stands and a 6" digital caliper, as well.


As always, they tried to sell the protection plan with the DC. did anyone buy this plan with thier DC?

I have always hated these plans form the days of SEARS but sometimes with the stuff from HF i think twice.

Does anyone get the protection plans, and if so on what type of stuff.

I am currently in the early phases of building a new shop so i really dont plan on opening the DC till fall, but since i had the coupon, cash, and it was on sale and in stock i went ahead anyway.

Should i open the box and test the motor, and call it good, or go give them an additonal 35.00 for two years of warranty?

Thanks

Jesse

[tfischer]

Not a fan of the extended protection plans either.

My wife bought me the 14" BS for Christmas a couple years ago and was talked into the plan. I didn't need it, nor have I bought it for any other tool (with the exception of my Craftsman jointer -- they offer a free set of blades every year and that made it worth the $$$'s).

I've read (mainly here) that HF will honor those plans with no balking, though, so it is a little peace of mind if you like that.

There's not THAT much to go wrong with a DC so I'd pass...

-Tim

[joekj]

Out of all the HF power tools I own (many) only one has died, a 6" chop saw that the brush holder came apart. fixed it in a half hour. If what I was buying is over $500 I would consider the extended warranty. Joe

[LCHIEN]

No, I never buy a protection plan with anything.
It's basically insurance. It's a losing propostion, Insurance by its nature is intended to give the odds by design in favor of the seller who makes money (and lots of it) by selling. You only buy insurance because the potential risk is too high to bear.

In the case of an appliance or tool, the risk you can stand (a few hundred dollars). And the likeli hood that you'll need to use it, although finite, is not so high that' you'll have more than one or two appliances go bad, thus all the money you pay to "insure" TV, Stereo, Washing machine, refregerator, Dust collector etc will cost you way more than the bad item. Worse, people typically toss the item (now obsolete) and buy a new one, forgetting the warranty.

In the case of the DC, the worst that can happen is the motor dies. A replacement motor is easy to find and easy to replace and will cost less than $100... (Guessing, but that's already 2/3 the price of a new one) so if it seems likely to you that there's a one in three chance of failing, buy the warranty. if i thought it was that bad, I'd not buy the thing. Besides its covered bywaranty for a year, for free, isn't it?

[messmaker]

The motor went out on my HF dust collector with only about 10 days of the 90 day warrranty left. I extended it to 2 years when I got replacement. I think it was $34.95. You have until warranty expires to buy extra protection. I use the dust collector more than any other tool so if it ever makes sense, it does for the D.C. I feel a bit of comfort in having it each time I hit the switch.

[LinuxRandal]

I bought the dust collector (on sale for $159 till April, check ad's in last Octobers and I believe January's Wood Magazine, then used a 20% off coupon). I chose not to buy the warranty. I figure it was $133 and I could replace the motor if need be, easier then disassembling and removing it from my shop, travel time, etc. But when I was there, I did see someone getting a tile saw replaced with that warranty. They got the new tile saw, but had to buy a new warranty for it. He told me outside, that was the second one he's used (warranty) and with how hard he was on tools, they have paid for themselves. So if you plan on abusing (not just using) tools, then go for it!

[tfischer]

but had to buy a new warranty for it.

Just to clarify, I don't think they make you buy the warranty on the new tool -- it's just if you choose not to, you won't have the remainder of your prior warranty (it ends upon tool replacement).

-Tim

[Kristofor]

No, I never buy a protection plan with anything.
It's basically insurance. It's a losing propostion, Insurance by its nature is intended to give the odds by design in favor of the seller who makes money (and lots of it) by selling. You only buy insurance because the potential risk is too high to bear.

I'm also not a fan of extended warranties in general. However I think your statement implies some assumptions. Namely that all products in a given class have the same failure rate, the seller knows what that rate is, and that their profits are not coming from people forgetting about their service plans.

For instance Best Buy will sell you a warranty for $50 (or $200, or whatever) on more or less any computer. Some of those models will have a higher failure rates than others. Best Buy will make money on a whole but there may be specific models that actually lose money (bad caps anyone?). So, if you're buying a model that fails frequently, and you know this will be the case (and you'd want to do this why?) it would be in your best interest to buy the plan.

Finally, a lot of the money these companies make is due to consumers forgetting about them when they would otherwise be entitled to. I have heard corporate employees from a large electronic retailer headquartered locally (that may have been mentioned above ) that they would lose money in several departments on their service plans if they were fully utilized. So, again if you're on top of that (I wouldn't be) it may be a good idea for you.

Kristofor.

[jobucks]

HF waranty

[quote=tfischer]Just to clarify, I don't think they make you buy the warranty on the new tool -- it's just if you choose not to, you won't have the remainder of your prior warranty (it ends upon tool replacement).

I bought a cut out tool, like a Roto-Zip, from HF, the bigger one with the D-style handle. Use them for cutting out receptile outlets etc. in sheetrock/drywall.

Went ahead and bought the extended warranty, no matter how hard you try the dust always ends up inside the tool. Especially with overhead cuts.

After some time of use it quit. Took it back to HF and they gave me a new one. Told them that if that one quit, also, then I'd be back to get my money back. They told me, "hey, if it quits anytime during the extended warrranty, just bring it back and we'll give you another new one." Nothing about "having to buy, or did I want to buy another warranty on the new replacement."

[jobucks]

OPPPSSSS!

Don't know what happened with that last post, the quote didn't come out right for some reason.

[lago]

I am not a fan of extended warrantys either. I passed on it when I bought my HF DC right before Christmas last year. When I unpacked it, I was thinking maybe I should have. The motor failed to start up. I already had it assembled and HF let me bring the motor back in and swap it out with another. I had them plug it in and check it out first before I left the store.

Of the 2 times I purchased the extended warranty, I did not have to use them. We bought a Mercury Mountaineer a few years ago and the dealer offered an extended warranty that if you didn't use it, you got your money back at the end of the warranty. Needless to say, when the radio went out, they wanted us to use the warranty. I declined and paid about $400 and 2 yrs later, we got the $1300 back. When we traded the vehicle in, they no longer offered the same deal. Wonder why..

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Over 10 years of insurance regulation work experience here but I will keep it as simple as possiable.
A warranty is not insurance, but it is quite similar. However, not being insurance it is not regulated by your local friendly state department of insurance. Therefore, pricing is completely and totally up to the seller of the warranty.
So we are talking about paying $35 to insure a $135 item for 2 years? That would be the same as paying $26,000 a year to insure your $200,000 home. As prior posters eloquently note, one should not being paying these astronomical prices for "peace of mind". One should retain as much risk as feasiably possiable. Take the money you would spend on extended warranty for cars, tools, appliances, etc and put it into an emergency savings account.

Taking this warrenty concept to the extreme, I over heard a Circuity City sales person selling a person "Scratch Insurance" on $10 CD's. For $.99 they would warrant the CD against scratchs. If you CD got scratched beyond repair, they would give you a new one. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY THEY ARE GOING TO MAKE OFF THIS STUPID IDEA??!?!?!

[jziegler]

Taking this warrenty concept to the extreme, I over heard a Circuity City sales person selling a person "Scratch Insurance" on $10 CD's. For $.99 they would warrant the CD against scratchs. If you CD got scratched beyond repair, they would give you a new one. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY THEY ARE GOING TO MAKE OFF THIS STUPID IDEA??!?!?!

That is just crazy! Do people actually buy scratch insurance on CDs? I can somewhat understand appliances and electronics, and I acttually fell for it once, on my second DVD player. My first player died within a month on the warrenty expiring, which was a very common problem on this and similar models (and is a major part of the reason why I refuse to buy Panasonic today). The second on got the warrenty and is still going strong about 5 years after buying the player, well after it expired.

Back to the CDs, I remember one store back about 10 years ago gave you a little sticker to put on the case saying that you bought it from them. You could then exchange it if you ever had a proble with it. Long gone, I suppose. And personally, I rip CDs to my computer, giving me a backup (although currently one that is of lower quality than the original).

-Jim

[tfischer]

LOL when we bought our Honda, pre-sale they went on and on about how reliable their cars were and how happy we were going to be over our previous car regardling reliability.

Then while in the business office writing up the sale, they give us this incredibly high-pressure thing about how expensive car repairs are, and how some in particular are very common on the model we purchased. I laughed and said "gee-- I thought I was buying a reliable car -- maybe we should just call off this whole deal" after which they shut up quickly and finished the deal, sans extended warranty...

-Tim

[Jeffrey Schronce]

I paid my way through college selling cars for Nissan and Mazda. The F&I department is full of such tricks. They probably quoted you a 5 year warranty (remember the car already has 3 so you are only getting 2 more years!) for $1000 - $1200. Franchise dealers tend to stick to their proprietary products, however they will sometime sell warrantys that are offered by folks other than the manufact. Problem here is, as advised earlier, warranty contacts are not regulated by Depts of Insurance. First you have to deal with the fact that rates are based on what you are willing to pay, versus sellers actual warranty work costs plus reasonable profit of say 10 - 15%. Instead the warranty folks sell the warranty to the dealership for fixed price. In most cases for 4-5 year near bumper to bumper dealer cost is around $350 - $450. Anything they can collect over that amount they keep in the dealership profits after paying commission of 30 - 50% of premium to F&I salesman.
I have bought an extended warranty on 2 items in my life. High end receiver when my wife worked for Circuit City in college. Bought a $2000 receiver for $300. I knew I could not replace the item for $300 in the future since my wife would not be working there, plus the warranty was based upon the sale price of the item, so with employee discount based on $300 sale price was about $35!
Second warranty was on a 1 year old Ford Expedition that I purchased. I was not sure about the Expedition but my wife wanted a large vehicle (wasn't a lot of 4 wheel drive 7 person seating options in 2000, thus the Expedition). Knowing what I know about the car industry I asked the F&I guy if he had any incentives of volume of Warranty Contract sales. So happened Ford was offering 10% bonus on commission if F&I guy sold over 30 contracts that month. I told him I would buy one at cost plus $50 and he agreed. 5 year bumper to bumper from INCEPTION date of contract. NOTE: When buying a used car or dealer demo you must find out when the car went into service, ie first time it was titled by DMV. This is the "birthdate" of the vehicle and this is what extended warrantys often rely upon to determine how long the warranty will be. Example : car you are buying went into service 01/03. You buy the car 01/06 with a 5 year warranty. Your warranty coverage will cease 01/08 (in other words you are getting 2 years of warranty on the car).