First, I spent about seven years in the service side of the auto industry, ultimately as Director of Service and Ops. Second, I’m not sure you understand the difference between maintenance and repair. Cars require maintenance: oil changes, brake pads and rotors, other fluids and filters, and so on. These items are usually left to the customer to pay as everyone drives differently and differing amounts. There are maintenance plans which can cover this stuff, and if you drive a lot (> ~ 14,000 miles a year) then those maintenance plans can be good. (It does depend on the specifics of the plan offered though.) Factory warranties cover things which break within a certain period of time or mileage. These are pretty standard and easy to work with. The automaker assumes all liability for their product. These warranties come with the car. Finally, there are plans what people usually refer to as “extended warranties”. To be clear, these plans are NOT warranties. These plans are contracts, many of which have big limitations. Even so, these plans can be good to have depending on how old the vehicle is and how much you drive. Here’s an example: Last year I bought a 2017 Ford F-150 with about 94,000 miles on it. Cosmetically the truck was near perfect and because of the mileage, the price was really low. So I bought an “extended warranty”. The dealer wanted $4800 for the “extended warranty” but because I’d worked in the industry I talked him down to $4000 (dealers get ridiculous profits off these). Why did I buy the contract? At 94,000 miles, most engines start showing some wear. And in fact, this particular truck was throwing off some lifter-like noise on startup. This meant there was likely some big repairs needed. Also, I know water pumps are good for about 100,000 miles. Sure enough, about six months after buying the truck the water pump took a shit. Truck goes in for repair and I mention the “lifter” noise. Service guy goes “oh yeah, we know what that is”. Long story made short I walk out with over $7000 of repairs and I had to pay nothing - I effectively made $3000 off the service contract. And since I know there will be more repairs needed down the road, I’m just making more money. If the truck had fewer miles when I’d purchased it (say 50,000 miles) then the service contract would not have paid off. Dealers talk up the service contracts mostly because they make ridiculous profits from them. They’ll tell you it’s always a good idea to buy them. This isn’t so. You need to know the numbers of the situation. If you just want peace of mind and have money to burn then fine. But otherwise you need to know how many miles you drive in what time and weigh that against how many miles the vehicle in question has. Also, as I mentioned before, a lot of these service contracts have massive exclusions. Read that stuff very carefully. If a contract says it covers everything lubricated by oil, do not buy that contract. Sounds like it covers a lot but you’d be amazed at how a company will twist and turn to deny coverage. It’s all a big game. Sorry you feel you got burned here. There are ways to make it right, but basically you need to get repairs on the car and have the contract cover it.