BMW R1200R R1150R/T F800 K1200R R1100R/T R1250R RnineT Message Board

Hello, All!

I just purchased a gently used 2007 R1200R here in Houston, Texas, after two years of training on an F650GS. I am enjoying the R immensely !

I have about 6 months factory warranty remaining, and am considering taking up the dealers offer to purchase an additional 36 month extended warranty from “Western Service Contract Corp”.

My question is, has anyone here heard of this group, and can you speak to their reputation? It’s not cheap ($1200), but I am guessing could pay for itself after one major repair?

Any thoughts?

Many Thanks!

DJR

When you say gently used, do you mean very low miles or that it was well taken care of?

I can't say anything about this company. Is this a decision you'd have to make now, or could you put as many miles on the bike as humanly possible under the current warranty and decide before it expires?

I was asking myself the same questions but got discouraged after talking to my local dealer. They told me straight out to not waste my money, and that if something breaks due to a manufacturing or assembly flaw it usually shows during the first three years. If your bike has little miles then this statement may not apply. At any rate, it is a gamble, because things can happen at any time IMHO, but $1200 is more than I was quoted.

I'd be curious though to hear of other board member's opinions and experiences.

Any extended vehicle insurance is a bet. The owner is betting they bought a POS and it's gonna cost them more to have it repaired then they pay for the warranty. The warranty company is betting that it isn't a POS, and the repair costs to them will be less than 1/2 the cost of the warranty (since there is a 100% markup on this sort of policy..) and that 1/2 has to include administration fees and profit for them.

Who do you think is right? The insurance company who has all the numbers or the owner who has been scared a bit by the people selling the policy to them? There are always cases where someone makes out great with a warranty - there are lots more cases where people never collect a cent (and they pay for the person who made out great - plus expenses and profit for the company.)

Feeling lucky?

Don's right, in the aggregate the insurance companies make out like bandits with this.

That being said, you're also right in that one or two semi-serious incidents could have the warranty paying for itself several times over.

This is an interesting dichotomy: Just gamblers vs. the house in a casino, the company selling you the policy can work off the averages; they're smoothing their returns over many hundreds or thousands of policies. You, on the other hand, can't smooth out the cost of a repair over 100 other riders, it's all yours. In the end, only you can decide whether the peace of mind is worth the upfront cost.

If you decide you want to go for an extended warranty, I strongly urge you to check out other options & companies. While most of them aren't "good deals" for the consumer on the average (e.g. the company makes money), a number of companies offer such policies and it can be worth your while to shop around. You could get a better price, better coverage, or both. I've never seen an extended service policy offered through a dealer that I couldn't get for better elsewhere. (At least that's been the case with the cars I've bought; I've never bought one of these for a bike.)

Also, check very carefully what's included and what's not, and where you can go for service. Generally, you want an "exclusionary" policy, e.g. it tells you what's not covered (and everything else is), rather than lists what is covered (and everything else isn't).

Good roads,

- Lewellen

Just my 2 cents worth, I did a rough costing as to what is would have cost to repair my "R" in " Firing on one " had it not been under warranty - the cost would have been close to half of what the bike cost new. Of course if I had had to carry the cost myself I would probably not have gone to the (imho) extremes that BMW had to to be sure of no comebacks. (ie) I would have only replaced one cylinder, piston & complete cylinder head which would have been a lot cheaper whereas they replaced both cylinders, pistons, connecting rods, big end bearings & cat converter the only thing not replaced was the left cylinder head. This was one of the reasons that a while after I got it back and just before the original warranty expired I opted to trade it for a new bike and have the assurance that for the next three years if something went wrong I could just place a call and it would be sorted out.

+1 on the "It's a gamble". I had been told it is a waste of money from several different industry people.

I paid for an extended warranty on my wife's Honda Element, 150,000 miles later, nothing ever broke.

Super Duper front loading smart washer and dryer, Extended Warranty is more than paid for.

I have heard of Western on various discussions regarding extended warranties with no bad comments being offered, but do some google searches on complaints, etc. Peace of mind means a lot to folks and even though the R1200R model has a great rep, there are expensive failures on BMW's that can't be ignored . How many miles driven would be a big part of my pro/con list. I bought an 07 in January with 3K on her and I am now just shy of 10K. The 3/36 is up in June, 2010. I will be out of warranty with a few miles to spare as I am pretty much a 15-20K miles a year rider. I have no doubt about the drive train going the distance, but the cost of warranty repairs with the ignition switch, gauge cluster and fuel strip r+r, would have made my ownership experience VERY BAD if I had been paying for them. It is my understanding you can get these extended coverage plans as long as the original warranty is still in effect. I have read you can negotiate a good deal on them (lot's of profit as Don posted) so I would consider one now for a great price or wait closer to the end of the 3/36 and see how she is doing. Just my $.02.

Cheers and safe travels.

Bob

Thank you all for the great replies. Thanks, Bob, for letting me know you've heard no bad reports on Western. To purchase or not to purchase an extended warranty is indeed a gamble. The few I've purchased for automobiles paid for themselves.

I've never purchased one for a motorcycle, but I get the feeling $1200 is a bit steep. I plan to shop around as suggested.

Ciao!

If you are going ahead with a warranty purchase - two things to do:

1 - see if the shop you uses will accept and work with the warranty company. Some shops have been burned by warranty companies and will refuse any warranty work, or refuse to process the paperwork needed to collect on the warranty.

2 - run the company though the BBB website (Google it).. see how many complaints there are and how they were resolved.

On #1 - that is about the only reason to consider buying the warranty from the dealer (and not beating him up too badly on the price.) If the dealership sells it to you - they have some legal responsibility to helping make it pay off. And they can't very well refuse the warranty work because they don't like the company.

Just a thought: If you have doubts, or have some nagging issues, have the bike thoroughly gone through by a BMW mechanic that you trust before the warranty expires. May cost 1/2 the price of the warranty, but this should confirm your suspicions or put your fears to rest. If the bike has been properly maintained and there's no issues, you can probably beat the house. Things typically do not go south without warning, electronics excepted. If you have a bit of an unknown quantity like the Brides X3 bought used then the extended plan may be worthwhile. $3,500 later the $2,200 extended warranty was worth every penny and she still has a year left.

+1 on a reputable vendor.

The conservative accountant in me says buy the coverage.

The finance guy in me says do your homework on the bike and the warranty vendor and then listen to your gut.

Doug

I have experience with an aftermarket extended warranty for my BMW car. It is very important that you read the fine print on the warranty being offered very carefully. On my car when it needed a new alternator or other parts, the warranty company would not agree to pay for BMW OEM parts. They want to put in aftermarket made in China, or remanufactured parts and the fine print says they have that option. There is, therefore, no recourse and I pay the difference when "covered" parts are needed. The warranty company also will not pay the BMW dealer's shop rate, they pay the prevailing shop rate determined by them with no appeal possible. So I pay the difference for labor at my dealer. Then the warranty company stalls on payment to the dealer who is left holding the bag waiting for slow pay. The dealer hates to see me come in for repairs. Too, the extended warranty cost me more than it is likely I will ever recover.

Considering how well these bikes are built, you can do a lot of fixing for $1200. Frankly, I have not spent $1200 on repairs beyond routine maintenance on the last 3 or 4 beemers I have owned put together. I ride each about 50K miles before getting a new one. If there is nothing wrong with your bike and it hasn't been abused, statistically the warranty company stands to make a handsome profit off of you. Only you can decide how much the peace of mind is worth. If I had it to do over again, and BMW cars are far more expensive to repair than BMW motorcycles, I would not have purchased the extended warranty. Naturally I would not purchase one for my bike either.

Take care,

Bill

Thank you Bill!

Based on yours and other member’s comments I'm being pulled in the no extended warranty direction. I've read the extended warranty brochure and it very nebulous. That scares me!

The owner’s manual is stamped for all of the major service intervals and the dealership the previous owner purchased the bike from provided me with a record of other visits the bike made to the shop. I think I'll squirrel my $1200 away in a safe place to use on the bike if I need it.

Thanks Again!