Vehicle Service Contracts

Today’s vehicles are extremely complex and built with sophisticated electronics and high-end technology.  Customers often ask us if they should buy an extended warranty for their new car.  We generally tell them to look up under the hood of their vehicle.  There really isn’t much under the hood of a newer car or truck that a lay person will recognize other than the engine cover, the battery, the engine oil level dipstick, and the windshield washer fluid refill lid.  

Nowadays, every vehicle is engineered with dozens of computers.  These computers control everything from the dome lights to the volume of the audio system.  The dome light that stays on for a few seconds and then gradually dims down isn’t controlled by magical light bulbs, that’s a computer that does that.  When you press a switch to adjust the passenger side mirror, your car’s multiplex wiring system allows the electronic control module to send a packet of data to a different module to activate the motor that controls the power mirror.  And when any part of that system fails … the actuator motor, the heated mirror, or the blind spot monitor … unfortunately dealership technicians cannot fix it – they have to replace the entire thing. 

In today’s world, dealership technicians might be referred to as component replacement experts.  If your gas gauge quits working, technicians can’t simply replace the gas gauge.  Instead, they have to replace the entire instrument cluster.  If your air conditioner fan only has one speed, a technician can’t just replace a fan switch on your late model vehicle.  Rather, they may have to replace the entire climate control and navigation module.  We once had a customer whose daughter threw a hairbrush at their car radio’s touch screen.  Cracked the whole thing.  Replacement cost for that module was $2800.  The fact is:  we seldom repair anything anymore.   We diagnose, remove, and replace components.   And most of the time, those components are not cheap.