GAMBLING ANYONE?

What is an extended warranty? A wager between two parties. Look at
what each party brings to the table:

The manufacturer, with all his collective experience, design specs,
intimate knowledge of assembly techniques, tolerances, quality
control, etc., is betting that the product will not fail in any
manner specified in the warranty during the warranty period which
will cost more than the price of the warranty to repair (note who
writes up the terms of the warranty).

You, with no knowledge of the product, have only a vague fear that
it will catastrophically break down during the warranty period and
that repair of such failure will cost far more than the price of the
warranty. On what do you base this opinion? Are you intentionally
buying what you consider to be junk?

Cars, motorcycles, computers, and Zippo lighters are all
manufactured using statistical sampling techniques for quality
control. The normal warranty that comes with each is an admission
of that it is entirely possible (eventually, inevitable) that an
individual product will not live up to the quality of the group. It
allows the manufacturer to catch the odd substandard product and
bring it up to his standards of quality, without having to
exhaustively test each step of each product throughout its
manufacture. Once the product makes it through the initial warranty
period (whether it required service under that warranty or not), the
manufacturer knows that it is "up to snuff," i.e., conforms to his
specs, quality, etc. At this point, he *knows* how long it will
last. An *extended* warranty is not a safety net for the
manufacturer, it is a chance to make money, by making a wager with
the customer concerning the performance of the product -- *his*
product. He knows it better than you.

Do you wanna bet?