Additional Warranties??

[CJSpangler]

Well, today I got mail from Circuit City, informing me Pentax's warranty will expire in a month or two (yes my 1 year aniversary from owning the k10 is approaching).

I can pick up a Circuit City, 3 year extended warrant that on the surface appears it will cover repairs and if needed replacement of the K10 (and kit lense I guess). Price is 150 dollars. My first though is, heck I'll do it, as I doubt the K10 will ever be that cheap. Also, something will probably go wrong with it and worst comes to worst (not sure if they even carry the k10 anymore?) I'll get a refund of my purchase, or an equivalent new model to replace it. Seems like a decent deal to me.

Any thoughts?

I know full well that these warranties are mostly profit from the store side, however the odds of something going wrong with the K10d in 3 years is probably likely as I tend to use it several times a month.

Side note : Also, I am a bit hesitant as Circuit City isnt exactly the strongest retailers, the odds of it going bankrupt are definately plausable - but I doubt they'd can existing warranties in the process.

[MrApollinax]

The one thing you need to do is *read* the warranty to see if they will replace your unit with a *like* unit should your current unit be discontinued or no longer supported by the manufacturer. I did this with my PDA i got from CompUSA. My older model HP PDA got upgraded to the newer model.

[JohnV3]

I have always felt that, if an item doesn't fail mechanically or electronically in the first 30 days or within the warranty period, then the odds are pretty good that there will be no problem in the extended warranty period unless it gets dropped or smashed somehow which probably is not covered in the warranty anyway. Almost all consumer advocates with columns in magazines and newspapers recommend against extended warranties. It's pure gravy for the retailer and the K10 is not a problem prone camera. $150 sounds like way to much anyway.

John

[SpecialK]

Originally Posted by JohnV3

I have always felt that, if an item doesn't fail mechanically or electronically in the first 30 days or within the warranty period, then the odds are pretty good that there will be no problem in the extended warranty period unless it gets dropped or smashed somehow which probably is not covered in the warranty anyway. Almost all consumer advocates with columns in magazines and newspapers recommend against extended warranties. It's pure gravy for the retailer and the K10 is not a problem prone camera. $150 sounds like way to much anyway.

John

I agree on every point - unless it was a super-awesome, new-upgrade-even-if-you-hit-it-with-hammer-and-drop-it-in-the-lake warranty. But who really does that? And in three years there will be yet another "latest" camera that your dead K10D will allow you to justify purchasing.

If the extended warranties were not such a money-maker for those companies, I would not have gotten at least 10 similar thrown-out-unread warranty offers about my 6-year old car (that has not had one issue).