Published on: Monday, July 20th 2026
I recently bought an extended warranty for the first time in my life.
I once heard a comedian do a bit about buying a toaster at a department store. When he went to pay for it the clerk asked him for his name and address. He said: “I want to buy it, not adopt it.”She explained that it was to register the warranty. He said: “It’s a $40 toaster. I’ll take my chances”.
And that kind of sums up the way I’ve thought of extended warranties in the past. I have never seen the value in them. It also irked me that manufacturers were not committed enough to their products. Why didn’t they feel that they owed me more than one year of good working conditions in exchange for what I paid? A tv that would cost $1,000 was guaranteed to work for one year. But for $1,250, it would work for five. Same tv. That annoyed me.
But my thinking changed recently when I traded in my car. The new vehicle is a hybrid and is equipped with a lot of technology. I’ve read that modern cars have over 1,000 sensors and computer chips.
If someone had offered my father an extended warranty when he bought the 1965 Chevrolet Biscayne that was our family car when I was a kid, he could have estimated the cost of repairing the radiator or the starter and considered the likelihood that those things would need repair. That would help to analyze whether the cost of the warranty was worth it.
But the complexity of vehicles today makes it impossible for me to do that kind of analysis. What would it cost to replace that screen that looks like an iPad and is now used in lieu of buttons and louvers for the heating and cooling vents? How reliable is hybrid technology and can the car company get that right? What is the cost of the battery or one of those 1,000 chips and sensors?
So, I decided to pay extra not to have to worry about it.
I framed it in different terms than I would have years ago. I didn’t think about it in relation to probable malfunctions and their costs. I didn’t say to myself: “The warranty is $2,500. Will I otherwise have to pay $2,500 in repairs over the next five years?” No. That’s the old way. I have no way of knowing or even guessing that. The question was: “Is it worth $2,500 to me to have no worries about whether this car breaks down and how much I’d otherwise have to pay over the next five years?” I bought an insurance policy on the functionality of the car.
The measure of its value will not be, in five years, “what ended up breaking down and was it worth it?” The measure is the peace of mind I get every day knowing it’s not my financial problem if something breaks down.
It wasn’t an insignificant amount. That’s where Glenn Frey comes in. It wasn’t the price, but the value I’m getting for it. That’s really what refuge is. It’s not a guarantee that nothing will go wrong. It’s a guarantee that if it does, it’s not entirely your problem to solve alone. The Eagles weren’t wrong. Refuge does have a price. I guess I realized what mine is.