Depends on the warranty
I'm in the camp that says to get the extended warranty, IF it is from the manufacturer. I spent 20 years as a service advisor/service manager in Ford and Lincoln-Mercury dealerships, and had to deal many times with extended warranty issues. With the Ford extended warranty, you know right then and there if it is covered (once it is properly diagnosed, of course). With outside company warranties, I would have to call and get authorization. And often the outside extended warranty would have a limit on parts and labor prices, so sometimes customers were covered by the outside warranty but still had to pay big bucks for labor and parts prices beyond the coverage of the outside warranty. With labor rates currently about $130 hr. nationwide at dealerships, and parts prices rising every year as well, the $2600 is cheap insurance. By the way, our new tow vehicle (2017 Journey GT AWD) has a LIFETIME warranty on it, which Chrysler still offers. The retail is $4,900, but because I got the employee pricing through my grandson who works for Chrysler, it was $2,700. That means the Journey could have 300,000 miles on it, and covered items would still be taken care of by Chrysler with only a $100 deductible, as long as the repair did not exceed the value of the vehicle at the time of repair. And if the value of the vehicle is not worth the repair, Chrysler gives me my $2,700 back. Cannot beat that deal!
said keep the money you would spend on them in a separate savings account. Do that for everything you have an interest in buying the warranty on. Most likely, you will always have more money in that account than what your expenses will be. Good for building an emergency fund too.
