buy the extended warranty for GCN or not?
 

$30 circuit city replacement plan protection for 24 months.

not been too happy with CC warranties in past (bad experience with laptop) and just wondered what you all think.... $30 for 24 month CC warranty? yes or no?

What console are we talking about here? How much did you pay for it?

sorry. added GCN to title now...

Gamecube and will end up paying $118 for it, wave bird and Metroid...

the price of circuit city's extended warranty is $30 for 2 years.

Don't do it.

1. I haven't heard of problems with the Cube or any other Nintendo product.
2. Nintendo supposedly has great customer service.
3. That's too much money.

I would not.

Here's why:

1) Most consumer devices fail withing the first 15 days if they are going to fail. If your system makes it past that you are likely to not incure any problems for a long time.

2) Nintendo, unlike Sony and MS offer a full 1 year warranty. It is not just a 3 month warranty. But look at #1...

3) Nintendo stands behind their products with great service if you ever have a problem. They work fast to help you out.

4) Nintendo will often replace equipment outside the warranty. It's true. They would rather have a happy customer that can buy more games then an unhappy one who won't buy another system.

5) Nintendo's stuff is generally of the highest quality. Yes there are some bad units. But the bad units to amount sold seems to be much lower then Sony of MS in my own experiance and from others I've talked with. Regarding the bad units, see # 1-4.

I agree. Even though I picked up one a while back when I got mine from best Buy. However, I payed $149 for the console and the prod replacement plan was $17. And I was not aware at the time that Nintendo's warranty was 1 year. Also at the time, there was all the talk about the bad X-Box units, etc.

$30 is too much to protect the $118 investment in my opinion, especially with the one year offered by nintendo.

I never buy it. In 24 months, a GC or PS2 or Xbox will be like $99 so with the $30 you spent now, you could use that toward a new system IF it breaks.

i bought one on my ps2. sure it probably wont break but the service plans for the systems are inexpensive and its better safe than sorry.

and spend another $70 out of pocket? great idea :lol:

Yes, you know why?

$30 is 30% of the cost of the base system. That's INCREDIBLY HIGH for Insurance cost. If you know anything about insurance, you know 30% is out of whack. Maybe they should charge you $10 or something, but even then I think it is very high. Trust me, companies make a killing selling insurance plans like these... If not, why do you think they make a sales pitch every time you buy an electronic equipment?

And, you are $70 out of pocket only if the damn thing breaks. I have bought over 20 systems in the course of my life and none of them has ever been broken. I don't abuse them, of course.

i know they make a killing on them and i agree its a high %, but the fact thats its $30 isnt really that much. if you just look at how much the actual cost is and that it last 2 years, and if anything goes wrong with the system at all you get a brand new one...i think thats what makes it worth it.

I agree, Insurance IS a peace of mind. That's the whole point of it really.

I have faith in electronics in general. I know they have a % of failure in any given mass produced electronics, I am willing to risk that the unit I buy will be fine (for more than 2 years). I figure with all the system I bought, if I were to buy the agreement for every one of them, that would be well more than $500. And since none of them has ever broken, I think it is a risk that's not too risky :)

Yes, I have had good luck even with the original Playstation and NES, when many others were reporting problems, etc.

all i have now is a ps2 and have no intention really of getting a gamecube or xbox but i can see the case of the person that buys all the systems and how it would add up.

regarding your old NES...assuming you still have it, do you still have to blow in the cartridges once in awhile or mess with loading the game so the power button doesnt keep flashing on and off? ;)

Yes, I do have to blow in it (NES). Actually, it helps if you take the system apart and clean the inside/connectors. It works really well after that.

The trick is that both the cartridge and the system itself needs cleaning, especially after all these years. Dirt and what not builds up on the connectors and that causes all sorts of problems, something that's common in all cartridge based systems.

Get an American Express Blue card, and it automatically doubles manufacturuers warranties. I have one and use it solely for electronics purchases.

I don't ever buy them. I considered it with the PS2, but all those $30 and $40 add up, and I've never (not once) had to take any electronics I've purchased within even 3 years (car's a different story); so why should I bother giving them the extra cash.

If you look at consumer magazines (like Consumer Reports) they demonstrate that in general replacement plans are a bad deal (why do you think stores push them so hard--it is like 99% pure profit for them).

Bottom line : Best Buy and Circuit City push extended warranties hard. Why? It isn't because they lose money on them, that's for sure. If they are making money on them, then far more people who buy them get nothing out of them. If you play the odds (which is what insurance is all about), you're far better off avoiding them altogether. If you were to buy one, to do so on a gamecube makes very little sense as they are pretty well made, don't see a lot of wear and tear and are pretty cheap to boot.

I should say for this particular case ($30/2 yrs on a GC now), I probably wouldn't, but...


I'm not so sure about the "If it doesn't break within 'x amount of time', it never will" rule of thumb when it comes to consoles.

Original PSX = 3 months to 1 year, people discovered they needed to flip the machine over to work

DC = large numbers started failing beginning at the one year mark

PS2 = various problems kicking in, thus no single time frame

Xbox = this seemed to be closest to the rule of thumb of electronics (if it's going to die, it'll be quick), but there seems to be a noticeable upswing recently of reports of early Xboxes giving up the ghost


When consoles switched from cartridges to CDs/GD-ROMs/DVDs, that's when my answer to this question switched from "Obviously, no" to "That might not be a bad idea".

If you buy a system at launch, especially a Best Buy-type warranty where 18 months down the road you would have a $299 credit to repurchase that system AND almost be able to buy another, I'd strongly suggest thinking about doing so.

Best Buy gives you the original credit equal to the amount that you bought the machine? I seriously doubt that... otherwise, I'd return my PS2, get my 300 bucks, and repurchase the 200 dollar one...

The caveat here is to read the fine print. A lot of times, they won't give you a new one when you bring your broken one in... they'll try to fix it. Which could take weeks, if they need to send it out. Sounds like this is a replacement plan, so looks good from that front. But make sure you know what is a valid reason for replacement. Does it have to be mechanical failure? If you drop it, can you get a new one? etc.

I admit, I had a bad experience with the PS1, where right after Resident Evil came out, it stopped working rightside up. Add that to the fact that Sony to this day STILL refuses to acknowledge that there was a production problem, and that PS2s were scarce at launch, and that's why I bought Best Buy's product protection plan a couple years ago. But I know they're moneymakers for the store, and that I hate standing in line to even return something at BB... can't imagine what it's like to get something repaired. I wouldn't buy the GC plan...

I thought this was common knowledge.

Depends on the parts. The Xbox has a hard drive in it, making it the most likely of the 3 current consoles to need service and it only has what, a 90 day warranty? I don't know because I haven't had to test that theory. Generally if the thing lasts for a week I don't worry about it. If my Xbox dies, I'll just buy another one or open it up and try to fix it myself.

Definately not. I can speak from experience as a former employee that places like Best Buy and Circuit City typically do everything in their power to get you to buy a warranty and then everything in their power to weasel out of it if you need to replace it.

Now, these things don't usually break fast (if they do, the manufacturer's warranty covers it). Chances are that by the time your console breaks, there will have been a price drop. Now, figure $30 for the plan, or buying a new console to replace the broken one at $99-149. So, you are betting there is a 20-30% chance of your console breaking. Now, raise that percentage further because it might break AFTER the 2 year warranty expires. Now, raise it a little further to account for the store trying to weasel out of honoring the warranty. By that point you are betting there is somewhere around 40-50% chance of your console breaking within 2 years. I can't imagine that the actual rate of consoles breaking down within 2 years could possibly be anymore than 2 or 3%, if that much.

Hell, my original launch Playstation, perhaps the most notorious console ever for breaking, lasted 3 years. And that was the only console I've owned in my 22 years of owning game systems that ever broke down. I say don't buy it.

iv'e stayed away from extended warranties up untill recently i buy if reasonable and anything with moving parts, does the warranty start after the mft warranty expires, if so not bad if not $15 a yr is really pennies depending on the usage it might get.

most extended warranties run concurrently with any mfg warranty ... so no, you get 2 years total ... NOT 2 years after mfg warranty runs out.

It is my understanding that the Best Buy extended warranty on consoles is product replacement (not fix it), but you can only do it once (friend of mine's son fried his X-box trying to solder in a mod-chip ... he was able to exchange it under the product replacement plan, but it's a one time only deal. If the second one breaks, you get to keep both pieces). I assume CC's is the same, but not sure.

I don't buy them.

My logic is if I add up the cost of buying a 2 or 3 year warranty on all my electronic equipment purchases (consoles, tvs, receivers, speakers, dvd players etc.) I would likely end up surpassing the cost of just buying a replacement for the one piece of equipment that craps out on me within 3 years (if I ever have that happen at all).