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Author Topic: Extended warranty  (Read 571 times)

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Charris771

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Extended warranty
« on: October 25, 2021, 09:01:43 PM »

Thought I would vent about my recent experience with Protective's XtraRide Extended Warranty that I purchased when I got my bike in 2019.

 :soapbox:

2016 FLTRUSE
117 Screaming Eagle Kit installed by HD when new.
Magna-flow true-dual exhaust system
Tuned with the HD tuner by HD
(all done before I bought the bike and warranty)

Towards the end of July I started hearing some strange engine noises while on a trip up to Maine. I was unable to isolate the noise myself and since I was having no performance issues I finished the trip (it was only a three day ride with some friends) and rode the bike home.  The weather was poor on the following Monday, so I didn't go back out to start the bike until getting ready for work on Tuesday. I went to start the bike, at which point it made a pretty god-awful sound and shut itself down. Not wanting to make matters worse I jumped into my truck and went off to work. When I got home I had my phone ready and recorded what happened when I tried to start it again, with the same result. I contacted my local shop, an independent registered warranty repair shop (I don't have much faith in the HD shop nearby) and let him listen, at which point he told me to bring the bike in. After taking a methodical approach to troubleshooting, the shop determined that the crank bearing was partially seized and contacted the warranty company. They sent out an inspector who agreed with the mechanic on the issue and the proposed fix, which was to replace the motor with a new, stock 110 long block (they felt, and I agreed, this would be more reliable) as the labor to rebuild was expected to be close to the replacement cost.

Then the problems start...1st they wanted to void the warranty due to the exhaust since it was aftermarket. This dismayed me since it was on the bike when I bought it, but apparently they don't actually do anything to validate that the bike will even be covered by the warranty when the dealership sells it to you, so you can spend thousands on a warranty that will potentially not do a thing for you, so make sure you are making sure that the shiny exhaust the PO put on the bike is legal for street use. Luckily mine was, but it took 30 minutes on the phone and countless google searches by the guy on the phone to reach that decision. Next was the battle the shop undertook to validate all of their labor charges for the diagnostic work they did to make sure it wasn't something simpler before finally checking the crank bearing, the shop ended up eating about $400 in labor that the warranty company wouldn't cover. The shop finished writing up the invoice for the entire repair, a little over $9k, and sent it to Protective, at which point the burger flipper on the other end questioned pretty much every aspect of the repair (the owner of the shop had to explain even simple terms as the warranty guy knew literally nothing about motorcycles, much less engines) and finally ended up having to talk to a manager to get the claim approved (this took about 4 days of back and forth since nobody actually works in the same place anymore with Covid, everyone was working from home). So now we have an approved claim and the warranty company is going to send the shop a check, which after a week of not showing up the shop calls and finds out they forgot to send it. They promise to send it that day (Tuesday) and another week goes by and the shop calls again, talks to yet another new person who then says that they are going to cancel the check because they don't pay until the work is done and that I need to cover the costs up front and then get reimbursed. Another call to a different manager finally resolves that bit of f$%*ery and the check has finally shown up. 

All-in-all the warranty company is paying for the covered repair, but the aggravation is barely worth the price. Due to their incompetence it has already been over two months since the shop told them what the issue was and the parts still won't be ordered until the check clears on Tuesday, with the estimated wait time for the long block from HD being in the neighborhood of 2 months.  If I didn't have friends with extra bikes, and then finally having picked up an extra bike myself, I probably would have gone insane during these last couple of months. All I can say in the end is be aware of what working with this warranty company can be like. I acknowledge that in the end I got a repair covered that exceeded the cost of the coverage, but I am certain I will never buy another warranty from this company again.

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