海角大神

I don鈥檛 like high pressure sales situations.

Whenever I find myself in a situation where some cheesy salesperson is trying to give me the hard sell on some product, I find myself walking away. Even more so, I usually find myself getting a negative gut impression of the product being sold, one that鈥檚 usually reinforced when I go home and do the research only to find that the product is overpriced or underwhelming.

Case in point: when Sarah and I bought our Prius in 2009, most of the people at the dealership were friendly and hands-off, but there was this one guy who we interacted with that tried to do the hard sell on a service contract.

We were ushered into a small conference room by him where he attempted to do some kind of hard sell on us on a service agreement. It came off like one of those police interrogations on television.

After about a minute, we told him we weren鈥檛 interested. I got up to leave and he said, 鈥淣ow, just hold on a minute鈥︹��

I told him, flat out, that I was walking out that door and if I was stopped from doing so, we were leaving the dealership without the car.

That鈥檚 how I often react to the hard sell. I just walk out of the room. I don鈥檛 trust the 鈥渉ard sell鈥� and I鈥檓 certainly not going to listen to it. If your product is so questionable that you have to resort to the 鈥渉ard sell,鈥� I鈥檓 not interested.

Of course, a big part of the reason I walked out is because, most of the time, that initial offer for a service contract or an extended warranty is way overpriced and does little for you. It鈥檚 a questionable product, which is part of the reason why they went for the 鈥渉ard sell.鈥�

For example, if you鈥檙e looking for a service agreement for your car, you鈥檙e going to want to make sure that the contract you鈥檙e being offered does not merely duplicate things that are already found in the warranty. You鈥檙e also going to want to carefully read over the exclusions, because things like 鈥渘ormal wear and tear鈥� make the service contract nearly worthless (as they鈥檒l claim almost everything is 鈥渘ormal wear and tear鈥� and thus excluded from the contract). These two factors alone will eliminate most service contracts you could buy.

If you鈥檙e still interested in finding one, shop around. Check with various auto repair shops in your area and ask if they offer service contracts. If they do, ask for a copy and review it carefully. The vast majority of contracts that you find will have exclusions and restrictions that make them a pretty poor value.

What about an extended warranty? These usually just extend the terms of your car鈥檚 warranty. However, they鈥檙e not a particularly good deal, either, because most of the defects in a car show up before the end of the normal warranty and the warranty often excludes things like 鈥渘ormal wear and tear鈥� (just like that service contract). It鈥檚 much like buying an extremely overpriced and very limited insurance policy for service on your car.

In my opinion, your best move is to take the money you would have spent on these things and put it into a savings account. Then, tap that money only when you actually need repairs to the car (repairs that the service contract wouldn鈥檛 have covered anyway).

This post is part of a yearlong series called 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap (Revisited),鈥� in which I鈥檓 revisiting the entries from my book 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap,鈥� which is available at Amazon and at bookstores everywhere.聽