Considering that life has taken a crazy turn over the past few weeks, I decided to share my experience and provide a little warning to anyone that sees this. Today’s topic: extended warranties on appliances.
If you follow me on IG, you know I’ve had a few things fall in my lap right before vacation. We are now in the post vacation clean-up process as well as trying to get our lives back on track since returning home. Let’s just rewind to explore what all happened. It started with the van. Thankfully, this was the easiest fix of everything! After getting it looked at and shelling out a little over $50.00, we found out it was just a bad connection with the cable and the battery (which was done by someone at their business when we got our alternator repaired and a new battery). I won’t go into the air conditioner not getting cold as well because that too was an easy and inexpensive fix. Now to get on the appliance situation.
When we moved into our home in 2019, we were excited that the appliances were included. Whirlpool is a nationally known brand so we were confident that an extended warranty wasn’t necessary (we were WRONG!!!). A few weeks ago while shredding a pile of old mail, we saw information on extended warranties on the appliances. Knowing that it would cost a few hundred to get everything covered, we decided it would make the most sense to wait until after our vacation. As you can tell, we never made it to that point. The microwave initially just turned on the shade and would decide when it wanted to heat up stuff. Usually after a few tries we could get it to work, but eventually it decided it was done. After several YouTube videos, I feel confident that it is the magnetron that is defective but since appliances aren’t my specialty I’ll let a trained professional do the diagnosing. This happened early in the week and knowing that we would be going on vacation, it seemed like something that wasn’t an emergency. A few days later, the dryer decided to “give up the ghost”. I had used the dryer the night before so it was a complete shock for something like this to happen. The dryer was a much bigger deal than the microwave at that point because I need to wash/pack suitcases. After calling Whirlpool, we were able to schedule an appointment for 7/2/21 (The first appointment didn’t work because it was while we were gone). Once we returned, it quickly became apparent that we could no longer live without a microwave or a dryer so we attempted to find aid before the date we were previously provided. The problem was we were quoted (by one of the people we spoke to) at least $350.00 for the microwave. After a quick search, we found the brand new we would be looking at paying about $500.00. We immediately opted for new and decided to go searching for one. We went to about 3 different places and not one of them had a floor Whirlpool model close to the one we currently have or any in stock. This made no sense whatsoever! After an extensive Google search it was determined that we needed to order one online and just wait the 2-3 weeks that most retailers shared it would take. Of course, that meant we were still without something so we decided to just head to Walmart and get a “in the meantime” stand in that we could take back. We are so happy we did this. Now, we are just waiting on the technician to come to our house today (6/29) to fix the dryer. I am hopeful, but he originally was supposed to come on yesterday so we shall see. He’s got the model numbers of everything and plans on having parts with him to fix it. I will definitely keep everyone posted.
So what’s the point of this post? GET THE EXTENDED WARRANTY! I’m not speaking about everything because truthfully some of them aren’t worth it, but when it comes to appliances you will be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t. Please allow our error in judgement as well as expensive venture serve as your warning. I want to get the information out there so you’re not finding yourself stuck like us. This has been a long two weeks and it’s still not over. If you’re buying something new and it is relatively expensive when they as you if you’d like the warranty (unless it already comes with a lifetime warranty), just think of it as an investment.
Has something like this ever happened to you? Tell me about it.