Many electronics retailers offer an extended warranty when you purchase a new device or appliance. Best Buy, Amazon, and Costco all offer extended warranties on certain products for an additional fee, to name a few. These warranties are often touted as a way to protect your investment by ensuring that you won’t have to pay full price to replace your new toy if it’s damaged, but in most cases they’re not worth buying.
Instead of purchasing an extended retail warranty, it is best to look for products with excellent manufacturer warranties. For example, some of the best laptop warranties offer up to three years of coverage at no extra cost. These built-in warranties generally offer comparable protection to these expensive retail plans, so there is virtually no reason for the average consumer to pay extra for coverage. There are also high-end manufacturer warranties, but these can be mixed.
Consumer Reports says Samsung Care+ isn’t always worth it for Android users. On the other hand, Apple fans might enjoy some of the surprising benefits of AppleCare+. Extended warranties provided directly by the manufacturer are often preferable to those offered by third-party retailers, but even then, relying on the standard limited warranty is still one of the smartest decisions.
Invoke your consumer rights instead of purchasing a warranty
Another alternative to extended warranties is to simply exploit your consumer rights. Notably, the Uniform Commercial Code ensures that products purchased in any state (except Louisiana) are protected by the “implied warranty of merchantability” (via Cornell Law School). This means that retailers automatically guarantee that their products are free from defects and “fit for the ordinary purposes for which such products are used”. In some states, this implied warranty may protect your purchase for up to four years.
If you use a credit card to make a purchase, you may benefit from additional consumer protection through the card’s policy because most credit card companies extend a product’s standard manufacturer’s warranty by a year or more. If your card offers this type of benefit, it will apply even if you use a digital wallet or payment app to make the purchase; just another reason why no one needs physical credit cards anymore.
As a consumer, you also have the right to take advantage of a retailer’s return policy. These typically don’t extend beyond 90 days, even at the high end, but it’s something that can protect you during the critical first days of a purchase without the need for an expensive warranty. Any “risk-free” return policy should allow you to return the product for any reason, so you don’t have to worry about whether or not your situation is applicable to the policy.
When DIY repairs are more practical than a warranty
Why bother with a warranty if you know you can repair your electronics yourself? It may seem like a daunting task, but there is a trend toward do-it-yourself repair that could replace repair shops in the future. Websites like iFixit provide guides on how to repair tech devices with your own hands, and iFixit even ranks products based on their ease of repair and the replaceability of their components. A pair of wireless earbuds has a perfect iFixit repairability score because anyone can repair them with just a few simple instructions.
Buying electronics with repairability in mind can help you save a lot of money on extended warranties. That being said, extended warranties aren’t always a scam; Some technologies are simply too complex in nature to be repaired by anyone other than a trained professional. But when you have the knowledge and resources to complete a DIY repair, you can dispel one of the biggest tech repair myths by restoring years of life to your damaged electronics.
