Extend Your Car Warranty for Free

Posted On January 3, 2019 By Scott Stratton, CFP(R), CFA In Financial Planning /

When it comes to saving money, there are two expenses which will make or break your budget: your home and your cars. If you keep those expenses below your means, you will have a surplus to save and invest. That’s how you generate wealth.

Unexpected car repairs are the worst. You can spend thousands and it feels like you are just flushing your money away. That’s why we love car warranties: they help extinguish our fear of repair bills. For a lot of people, when their car warranty runs out, they want to get a new car because they can’t stand the thought of a catastrophic repair bill.

But buying a new car every three or four years exposes you to the steepest part of the depreciation curve. Most cars will lose 50 to 60 percent of their value within five years. Owning new cars is trading the mere possibility of car repair bills, which might not happen, for the certainty of significant depreciation, which is inevitable.

Of course, car dealers would love to sell you an extended warranty. It’s one of their most profitable areas. That alone makes me think they are not worth it. You are spending $2,000 to buy a $1,000 warranty. And the insurer probably only pays out 50 to 80 cents in claims for every dollar in premiums it receives. It seems like you would be betting against yourself.

I don’t usually endorse products or services here in my newsletter, but I came across a benefit which I think many of my readers might enjoy. It’s a way to provide protection against unexpected car repairs. This might allow you to keep your vehicles for longer and then direct more savings into your investment portfolios. (Selfishly, I will make more if my clients have larger investment portfolios, but hopefully that’s a goal we can both agree on!)

There is a company called BG Products which makes fluids for cars and trucks. They make motor oil (including synthetic), transmission fluid, brake fluid, anti-freeze/coolant, steering fluid, etc. BG offers a Lifetime Protection Plan that when you use their product regularly, if that component breaks down, they will reimburse you for the cost of the repair, up to a specific limit.

Best of all, they will cover your car, even if you don’t start using their fluids until 50,000 or 100,000 miles. That means that if you have a car with 80,000 miles, past the manufacturer’s warranty, you can actually add protection to your vehicle today. They offer double the protection if you start before 50,000 miles, so you might want to start sooner if you can.

There is no limit on miles. As long as you continue to change the fluids within the specified number of miles, your car will be covered. You could keep your car for 300,000 miles and it would still be protected.

Here are the service intervals required for the Lifetime Protection Plan. If your manufacturer suggests more frequent changes, I would follow those instructions. To stay under this protection plan, you need to replace fluids before reaching these limits.

Engine Oil: 10,000 miles

Coolant: 30,000 miles

Transmission Fluid: 30,000 miles

Power Steering: 30,000 miles

Brake Fluid: 30,000 miles

The BG plan will reimburse repairs if these components break, but not for normal wear and tear. You would have to get the repairs done and then submit your receipts for reimbursement, which are subject to the following limits:

Plan 1, started before 50,000 miles: $4,000 coverage

Plan 2: started between 50,001 and 100,000 miles: $2,000 coverage

Full details of covered components HERE.

BG Products are not available in stores, you have to find a shop which uses them. Here in Dallas, I have used M2 Auto Repair, near Love Field. I’ve had a great experience there and can recommend them. If you talk to Eddie, the owner, please tell him I sent you.

If you’re not in the Dallas area, you can find a BG Dealer here. I have not filed a claim with BG, so I cannot vouch for that process, but obviously it is going to be very important to be able to document that you did have the services performed within the mileage limits and that the repairs required were on the specific parts covered by the protection plan.

It doesn’t cover electronics, which is an increasingly large component in modern cars, but can give you some peace of mind over mechanical failures. If you’ve used BG and had a claim, please send me an email and tell me about your experience.

I am aware that other fluid makers offer warranties, including Mobil 1, Castrol, and Valvoline. In reviewing their warranty pages, they may offer similar benefits, but I think it may be more difficult to document proof of eligibility, and they don’t cover all of the systems that BG Products covers.

I’d also love to hear from you if you have ever filed a claim with another oil company and what result you received. Regular maintenance is an important part of keeping your car healthy, and it’s great to see a company stand behind its products. I’m no expert on cars, but I have spent a lot of time looking at spending behavior. Any techniques which can help us spend less over the life of our vehicles will help you achieve your other financial goals. So, even if you don’t end up using the Lifetime Protection Plan, just knowing you were covered may provide you with the extra confidence to keep you car for 150,000 or 200,000 miles.

Car Subscriptions

Posted On February 23, 2018 By Scott Stratton, CFP(R), CFA In Financial Planning /

The question used to be “Should I buy or lease a car?”, but there’s a new alternative, a Car Subscription. It’s intriguing and I am curious to see where this goes five years from now. Maybe you are hearing about it here for the first time.

A car subscription is all-inclusive: for one monthly price, you get the vehicle, maintenance, registration, roadside assistance, AND insurance. You should have no other cost than gasoline. These car subscriptions are brand new and being tested by major manufacturers including Ford, Volvo, Cadillac, and Porsche. Right now, subscriptions seem to be targeted at opposite ends of the market: luxury vehicles for the very wealthy and more entry level vehicles for younger adults.

At the high end, Cadillac offers Book, which will deliver a new Cadillac of your choice to your door. Get bored with an Escalade? Log in to the Book app and swap it for a CTS-V or one of five Cadillac vehicles. You can change vehicles 18 times a year. The program’s monthly cost is $1,800 and it includes 2,000 miles a month. Presently, Book available only in NYC, Los Angeles, and right here in Dallas.

Porsche’s subscription service, Passport, offers your choice of different vehicles for $2,000/month or $3,000/month, currently limited to the Atlanta area. Porsche’s service has unlimited miles and unlimited switches between models. Weather’s going to be nice, order a convertible. Taking a road trip? Swap for an SUV.

The Porsche and Cadillac deals might appeal to people who are very wealthy and aren’t price conscious. I’m sure some companies will offer this as an executive bonus. Other subscribers may have a temporary need for a few months and may find a subscription appealing for its flexibility with being able to switch from a sports car to a sedan or SUV. But for most drivers, it isn’t a very economical alternative to owning a vehicle.

There are two other programs which might be more suited to the average driver, especially if you are paying a lot for car insurance. Here in Dallas, it seems like everyone pays several hundred dollars a month in car insurance, and possibly more, if you have a younger driver in your household, or have some tickets or claims in your recent driving history. In a subscription, the insurance is already included and doesn’t change based on your individual background.

Care by Volvo is the first nationwide subscription program, and will be available for their new XC40 crossover this spring. Both the car and the subscription are targeted at Millennials, but I think will have appeal to many others. The subscription is $600 a month, but if that saves you $200 a month in insurance, that would be similar to a $400 lease, except there’s no down payment. Is the insurance any good? Yes. It’s Liberty Mutual, with $500,000 in liability coverage, and a $500 deductible for collision and comprehensive.

Volvo’s subscription is a 24 month commitment, with 15,000 miles a year included. You can get a new car after 12 months, by restarting the 24 month clock. This program is more like a traditional lease, with the inclusion of insurance and all maintenance and repairs.

Ford subsidiary Canvas offers used vehicles in their subscription program, presently available only in Los Angeles and San Francisco. These are 2-3 year old lease returns, and are offered for $375-$575 a month for a Fiesta, Fusion, Escape, Explorer, Mustang, or F-150. The monthly base price includes 500 miles, or you can upgrade to 850 miles for $30, 1250 miles for $60, or unlimited monthly miles for $90. This is a month to month subscription, with no long-term commitment. You can change cars every month if you want, but if you keep one vehicle, they lower your base price each month.

A subscription might be an opportunity for someone who has very high insurance costs to lower their total costs. The unlimited miles subscriptions, could be an alternative to leasing or buying for the road warriors out there who rack up a lot of miles. For a family that needs a second or third car for just a month or two, a short term subscription might be an alternative to keeping an extra car all year around. While some car subscriptions are targeted towards the very wealthy, other plans will appeal to people with a low credit score who might otherwise have difficulty getting credit to buy a car.

Would I recommend this? The reality is that all vehicles depreciate very quickly when new, so your most cost-effective choice will always be to keep your existing car and drive it for 200,000 miles. But many of us don’t want to keep one car for 10+ years and carry the risk of having to pay for unexpected and expensive repairs, even though these costs are likely to be low when considered over the life of the vehicle. Some drivers will prefer to have a fixed monthly cost for their transportation, rather than tying up $40,000 or more in one car. And that’s why I think Subscriptions are going to be popular, they’re a good match for our innate preferences for flexibility and predictable costs.

Are you considering a car subscription? I’d love to hear about your experience if you proceed or decide against it. For many people, their cars are their second largest expense after housing (or third largest, if we consider taxes). Cars depreciate quickly, so saving money on transportation can leave more of our cash available for investments which do appreciate. Here’s how I hope people will evaluate subscriptions: is the cost of the subscription less than if you pay for the vehicle, insurance, and other costs separately?

My Used Car Adventure, Part II

Posted On May 6, 2017 By Scott Stratton, CFP(R), CFA In Behavioral Finance /

Some people in Dallas pour more money into new cars than they do their investments and financial future. They get a new luxury car every three years, but tell me they cannot afford to put $5,000 into an IRA. I think their priorities are backwards! To sink our hard-earned cash into a depreciating asset will keep us poor and stressed, rather than allowing us to enjoy the peace of mind of financial independence.

Last night, a friend was asking me whether he should fix up his 10-year old Toyota (facing a $400 expense) or buy a new car. Previously, I have written in this blog about my real costs of buying a high-mile used car. Three years ago, I purchased a 2002 Toyota 4Runner with 179,000 miles for $4,500. Seems like an invitation to disaster and disappointment, right? Well, here’s how things turned out…

I sold the 4Runner last fall, after two years of ownership, with 197,000 miles on the odometer. During my ownership, it never broke down and always started on the first try. It was completely dependable and there were no unexpected repairs, only routine and preventative maintenance. I sold it for $4,150, my full asking price on a (free) Craigslist ad, to the first person who looked at it.

That means that over the two years, my total depreciation was $350. I cleaned the car meticulously before selling, and you truly can polish money into a car. If it looks great and you can show detailed maintenance history, you will do well.

While my depreciation was very low, I had maintenance expenses over the two years. The biggest expense was a set of four new tires, $744.84. (Those are some big tires, 265’s!) The rest of the work I performed myself and included: four oil changes, replacing the rusty radiator, hoses, and thermostat, changing the differential oil, steering fluid, and brake fluid, wipers, air filter, PCV valve, two indicator bulbs, and one headlamp. Sounds like a lot, but most of those are 5-minute jobs. My total spend on maintenance over two years was $574.33.

The average car on the road is over 11 years old, but many of us still hate older cars. It is definitely a headache when a car breaks down and leaves you stranded, but that can happen even in a new car. From a behavioral perspective, the inconsistency in our thinking is that we have such a strong aversion to paying for unexpected repairs but are so willing to accept the known and inevitable loss of depreciation.

Why is spending $1,000 on a repair so much more painful than losing $4,000 in depreciation over a year? Depreciation is the bigger expense. Almost every new car will lose 50% of its value in 5 years. By 10 years, you will have an 80 to 90 percent loss.

The reality is that today’s cars are more dependable than ever. When you trade in your 8 year old car with 100,000 miles, chances are that someone else is going to drive that vehicle for another 8 years and another 100,000 miles. But you will have paid 80% of the depreciation!

Now, I realize that a sample of one (my experience with one 4Runner) does not prove a statistical case that all used car purchases are going to be effortless and inexpensive. It is entirely possible that I was just lucky. The car could have blown up the day after I bought it and I’d have lost my $4,500 investment. Fortunately, it did not, but that is a gamble I can afford to take.

My advice remains that the least costly course of action is to keep your current vehicle for as long as possible so that you can spend years on the flat end of the depreciation curve. Maintenance costs should not be unexpected, even though the timing and amounts are always unknown. The key is to remember that your repair costs are still likely to be a fraction of the depreciation costs of a new car. When you have to get a new vehicle, consider a used car and let someone else pay the steep depreciation of the first 3, 5, or even 10 years of the car’s life.

I know rationally that keeping cars for 10+ years is the best option, but truthfully, I get bored with cars. If you are fine with the same vehicle for a decade, that is fantastic. You are undoubtedly being very smart to keep one vehicle for 10 years. But I’d rather get a different vehicle every couple of years, a habit which could get very, very expensive. Luckily for me, I don’t really care if a car is new or used, just that it is new to me.

When I sold the 4Runner, everything still worked and I could have kept on driving it. But I just wanted something different. I purchased a 2006 Mercedes E350 sedan with 123,000 miles for $5,300. Now I am not only flouting the conventional wisdom of avoiding older, high mileage cars, I am doubling down by going from a dependable Toyota with cheap parts, to a luxury car with very expensive German parts.

I’ve had the Merc for a few months and have already put on 5,000 miles, with zero issues. The engine seems quite strong and everything on the car feels very well made. Fingers crossed that it holds up! We’ve had a number of BMWs in the past and I always wanted a Mercedes. I’ve gotten a number of compliments on it, but I think people would be very surprised if they knew how little I paid for it! I expect that, unlike the Toyota, I will not do all the work myself and that my maintenance costs will be higher. I will continue to keep a spreadsheet and report back to you, my readers, and let you know how it turns out – good, bad, or ugly!

Is Your Car Eligible for a $7,500 Tax Credit?

Posted On July 18, 2016 By Scott Stratton, CFP(R), CFA In Financial Planning /

If you are in the market for a new vehicle, you may want to know about a tax credit available for the purchase an electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle. Worth up to $7,500, the credit is not a tax deduction from your income, but a dollar for dollar reduction in your federal income tax liability. In other words, if your tax bill was $19,000 and you have a $7,500 credit, you will pay only $11,500 and get the re