Extended warranty?

[bwatters60]

I bought a 2008 Roadtrek 210P in ’17 with 88K miles that was meticulously maintained by the previous owner who had it for about 7 years/60K miles. She had a Good Sam extended warranty that was transferable, and in spite of my dislike of extended warranties, she more or less talked me into transferring it. I knew nothing about RV’s, and I initially thought I’d keep it for the first summer and see how things went. Another factor was that I bought this rig via the web. No test drive, just a lot of pictures and a long telco with the seller. Well, I noticed upon picking it up that the steering was rather loose as it liked to drift back and forth across the lane. Good Sam paid about $1100 of the $1800 bill to replace the steering box and outer tie rod (I had to pay a $500 deductible plus a couple hundred for some other normal maintenance – all work done at a reputable Chevy garage). The rest of the year went smoothly and I did not plan on renewing the warranty. But then I decided to renew it for the second summer. After the summer travel season was over I continued to pay the monthly bill. After a winter trip I took it to my Chevy garage for an oil change and they determined that the power steering pump (grinding noise) and hydro-booster were bad. And they found a pinhole leak in my radiator that only leaked under pressure. I had some other work done (e.g., water pump and hoses replaced since they had it tore apart and the rig has over 100K miles), but the warranty paid $950 (a little more than my annual warranty cost) of this bill. Three months late my black tank developed a crack. I brought it to Sunshine State and the warranty covered $1100 of that $1600 bill (and get this – the warranty company insisted on a new tank, but because of the Roadtrek bankruptcy a new mold costing $10K would’ve had to been made so the existing tank was welded). I am definitely not one to buy extended warranties, in fact I probably won’t on my next rig since I’m a DYI’er and I now feel comfortable working on RV’s. But with my first rig the extended warranty has worked in my favor – so far I’m ahead of the game about a grand, and after this year is up I’ll still be ahead of the game!