Is ESP sort of smoke and mirrors ?
 

I am looking at buying the Extended Service Plan for my 2017 and it seems like the years you can purchase are sort of smoke and mirrors
example
you can buy x years and x mileage for x price
6 years 60k miles zero deductible $1040
6 years sounds nice but it says the plan starts at the original retail date
the truck comes with a 3 year so after the smoke and mirrors you are buying a 3 year plan that says it is 6 years

am I missing something here?

It is and it isn't,

The reason they do that is if you drive a lot of miles your mileage will be out before your factory warranty time is out. If I put 5000 miles a year on mine its a lot, but I bought the warranty for me its piece of mind. I wont have any out of pocket repairs while I'm paying on the truck since I did have to go 48 months on mine. So other than maint. I'm good to go all across the country. If I have an issue I just pull into a dealer and let my ESP worry about it.

Sarge

Just be happy you get to buy them online at great prices from various sources, in Florida we don't get to do that and prices are much higher here.

first question would be why live in FL?
My selling dealer is in CO. I called them and gave them Flood Ford's web page and they told me they could not come within 500 dollars. wow that is crazy talk
you know Flood is not loosing money so to say you can not come within 500, makes no sense to me
oh well Flood Ford has yet another customer :)

Money well spent in my book. You wont be able to touch anything on these trucks for what the warranty costs. After my ESP runs out the truck will be 8 years old and paid for so at that point I may invest in deleting it and continue to drive happy. By then I should have between 25-40k on the clock so lots of life left anyhow.

Good luck with the new truck,

Sarge

I don't know,,,, It always has been a dream of mine to experience that great offshore fishing you have in Wyoming.....

I am buying a 8/125000 BaseCare from Flood when my truck arrives. Covers drivetrain, turbo, and other components. Not the most comprehensive coverage but covers the main, really expensive stuff for my expected ownership cycle which is 8 years. Ford has an excellent ESP program. It is a Ford plan and not a plan "endorsed" or "sponsored" by Ford like other OEMs have done. Ford employees manage this program. It is 100% backed by Ford. Only the uniformed would by a non ford esp in my opinion. For all intents and purposes, it is a warranty. They can't say that, but that is how it is administered in practice. Great plan.

FWIW a few years ago I tried to price out a ESP warranty against Floods and I wasn't able to get to their pricing as a commercial account manager. I asked Ford if Flood got some sort of leverage and they told me no. To this day I never figured out how they could undercut me. It wasn't by much, but it was below my dealer cost. I had the sheets directly from Ford and even cracked their excel spreadsheet to look into the formula and couldn't figure it out. I know for a fact it wasn't any markup on our end.

Florida does have some laws preventing getting warranties for different pricing. It's price fixing by the state. Not saying someone wouldn't sell you the warranty, but I don't think it's legal. Does it matter and could it get you into trouble? IDK. I don't believe Flood will sell to you if you live in Florida, but you may well find a dealer that doesn't know about such laws, or perhaps they've changed since I looked a few years ago.

To the OP, yeah, most vehicle warranties are based on time in service. Also, not all 3rd party warranties are crap (though some sure are!) IMO the biggest red flag is a warranty that has to be serviced at specific dealers. The dealer I worked at before used Resource Automotive warranties, and they've been around since the 1960s I think. I've seen them cover things that the factory Ford warranty declined, so it's not even a waste to have them overlap for the first few years. The dealer I'm applying too is all ESP, so less questions and I'll be glad for that, but I seriously was always happy with Resource and have it myself.

ESP is cheaper to buy on a new vehicle. So if you know you're keeping the vehicle beyond the factory warranty it makes more sense to buy new. Also remember you can get a refund on some of the unused part of your warranty if you trade in, or total the vehicle. But since your'e getting 6 years from date of service, and it's cheaper when new, you're ahead getting it then rather than waiting until the factory warranty runs out.

FYI years ago when I dealt with ESP warranties and lived in Florida I got me a UPS Store mailing address in Georgia and paid to have my mail forwarded to me monthly. Gave me the physical address for the warranty I needed and I never had to go to Georgia to get my mail either.

Since a new Truck is already covered under the factory warranty what benefit is it to the "consumer" to purchase an extended service contract while the item is already warrantied by the manufacturer anyway? Keep in mind your boat payment doesn't count ;)

So I'll add my $0.02 from my research into this topic. Everyone says "buy the ESP before the 12 months runs out!". Ok, so I looked and yes, it is more expensive.............by $100! For $100, I will wait until months 30-32 and then start to look into whether I want to spend the money. Ok, maybe the rates will go up by then but still I do not see an order of magnitude worthwhile tying up my money when I am currently under warranty.