Optimum time to purchase an extended warranty

[Yossarian]

There are a few threads in the forum about extended warranties, but none that I could find were dedicated to discussions about when to purchase, so I started one.

From what I've read, it looks like roughly 35,000 miles is the sweet spot, assuming that the mileage is also within the four (or five for quad owners) year term of the Rivian comprehensive warranty. The logic is that while you are to some extent paying for unneeded coverage, the cost for an extended warranty increases sharply once the vehicle hits 40,000 miles. Buying before getting to that threshold is less expensive and would be less costly overall. While that seems likely to be true, I'm not sure how to test that thesis.

In terms of specifics, my 2024 R1T is unlikely to get to the 35k mile mark much ahead of the end the term of the comprehensive Rivian warranty in mid-2028. That would seem to mean that I should keep an eye on the mileage, and target purchasing the EW early in 2028.

Would love to hear the views of others on this.

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[Dave Cundiff]

Going without extended warranty (at least so far) on our R1S.

Reasoning: I don't know how long we'll choose to keep it. I don't want to prepay for a lot of warranty we might not use.

Best wishes!

 

[Yossarian]

Going without extended warranty (at least so far) on our R1S.

Reasoning: I don't know how long we'll choose to keep it. I don't want to prepay for a lot of warranty we might not use.

Best wishes!

Understand completely the wish to not pay for coverage that you may not use @Dave Cundiff and my thread is an attempt to try to gain some insight into that.

I'm pretty well convinced that the most costly element in any EV, the traction battery, and the drive train, are unlikely to often be problematic. They are hugely expensive to replace or repair, but are covered by warranty for a pretty substantial term. The data I've seen indicates that both have long service lives, substantially more than was initially anticipated. They are covered by extended warranties, which given the long terms of both their initial warranty and their service life, is a "sleeves off the vest" type of thing that the insurers use effectively as advertising hype .

The real worries for me are the internals like displays and the distributed computing components. These are often difficult to access and are expensive to boot. My biggest worry however is the complicated suspension of the R1 that has shown to fail at a worrying rate and is very costly to fix. I think a set of dampers, a component who's failure has been the subject of many posts in this forum is in the $4k range. That's not much less than the cost of extended warranty.

As to your specific case, if you want to hedge your bet, you could consider a higher deductible warranty from XCare. Those are not only less expensive, but (I think) can be transferred to a second owner for a small fee.

Best of luck either way.

 

[II R2 II]

I am actively looking at getting one of their warranties for a 2025 R1T I am going to pick up on Monday. Playing around with their pricing calculator, the cost of the 10/125k goes up by $1400 if I don't purchase it before I get to 30k miles.

 

[Yossarian]

I am actively looking at getting one of their warranties for a 2025 R1T I am going to pick up on Monday. Playing around with their pricing calculator, the cost of the 10/125k goes up by $1400 if I don't purchase it before I get to 30k miles.

Is this a used Rivian? I think that that the comprehensive factory warranty is transferable, which in turns means that the R1T is covered through 2029. Check the detail from XCare, but I believe that their policy essentially provides no coverage until then. That detail - the overlapping period of the factory warranty - is what makes the timing of the purchase of an extended warranty difficult.

Best of luck with the new truck!

 

[II R2 II]

Yes it's used with 28k miles on it. You are correct that if you wait until the factory warranty is almost gone, more of the extended warranty is "useful" as it doesn't overlap with the factory warranty. However, they also start reducing the amount you can buy and raising the price.

Right now, what I see is:

Under 30k - Around $7k to get coverage to 155k (10/125k)

At 60k - Around $9k to get coverage to 160k (8/100k)

So for me it seems to make sense to buy it now, save $2k and get about the same ending mileage.

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