Our Expert Automotive Service & Collision Repair Blog

A number of years ago, I bought a new Lexus RX.  The Salesperson kept telling me what a reliable vehicle it was, and I told him I agreed because Lexus is highly rated. As soon as I handed over the check, the F&I person told us about all the things that could break, and therefore I needed the extended warranty.

We see a lot of TV and radio ads for automobile extended warranty products. Car Shield, American Auto Shield, Endurance, and Route 66 are some of them. A question that comes up is, “Are they worth it?” and the answer is, “It depends on a number of factors.”

Car insurance rates in Colorado have increased since 2011 a whopping 52%. Aurora is the most expensive town and Fort Collins is the least expensive town to insure a vehicle. In Colorado, the average person is paying $1427.

In the last few years, numerous new safety features have been added to many vehicle models. These are known as “advanced driver assistance systems” or ADAS. These include automatic braking, adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning or correction and blind spot detection. All of these should help prevent accidents, so why would they cost more to insure? Many of these vehicles have expensive sensors in areas that get damaged even in minor accidents. Sonar or radar sensors are often mounted just behind the plastic bumper. In addition after the repair, recalibration of components is often necessary. For example we recently repaired a 2017 Audi A3 and after replacing a $726 distance sensor, it needed to be recalibrated by Audi at a cost of $1300 and a delay of 4 days. On a 2015 Audi SQ5 the distance sensor for cruise control is located in the front bumper at a cost of $2400. The lane change assist sensors are $800 each (there are 2) and are located in the rear bumper. These components can cause the price of a bumper job, almost always damaged in a front or rear end accident, to skyrocket.

Average auto insurance rates in Colorado have increased 15% over 2015 according to Carole Walker of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association in an interview on CBS Denver 4 last month, adding that Insurance Companies are having a hard time keeping up with payouts in the state. There are numerous reasons for this. Colorado metro areas have been hit with major hail storms three years in a row. Colorado is second in the nation for hail claims and also second for increase in accident repair costs because of severity. 2015 was the deadliest year on Colorado highways since 2008.

We like to cover questions in our newsletters that come up regularly by our customers and this question is on our top ten list.

After an accident you don’t want to discover you’re covered by an insurance company with reliability issues.