# Is the TiVo 3-year warranty worth it on the Mini?



## dmk1974 (Mar 7, 2002)

I rarely buy extended warranties on electronics, but wanted to see what people think about it for the TiVo Mini. The downside is that it's the same $40 price for 3 years like a much more expensive TiVo Premiere. But unlike the Premiere, where if it fails it's 90% of the time the hard drive which is not hard to replace, I'm guessing a Mini failure will render it useless.

I have Lifetime on my Mini's so instead of being out $99, I'd be out $249 if it fails. How stable do you think these will be over a few years and is the extended warranty worth it for the Mini? Thanks!


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

If you have lifetime on it, it may be worth it. Otherwise, no.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

dmk1974 said:


> I rarely buy extended warranties on electronics, but wanted to see what people think about it for the TiVo Mini. The downside is that it's the same $40 price for 3 years like a much more expensive TiVo Premiere. But unlike the Premiere, where if it fails it's 90% of the time the hard drive which is not hard to replace, I'm guessing a Mini failure will render it useless.
> 
> I have Lifetime on my Mini's so instead of being out $99, I'd be out $249 if it fails. How stable do you think these will be over a few years and is the extended warranty worth it for the Mini? Thanks!


With no moving parts IMHO it is not worth getting the extended warranty, I have never seen a TiVo (Series 3 and newer) fail for any other reason than the hard drive, I know that some TiVos have had power supply problems, but with a 5 watt unit I don't think that will be much of a problem on the Mini.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

dmk1974 said:


> I rarely buy extended warranties on electronics, but wanted to see what people think about it for the TiVo Mini. The downside is that it's the same $40 price for 3 years like a much more expensive TiVo Premiere. But unlike the Premiere, where if it fails it's 90% of the time the hard drive which is not hard to replace, I'm guessing a Mini failure will render it useless.
> 
> I have Lifetime on my Mini's so instead of being out $99, I'd be out $249 if it fails. How stable do you think these will be over a few years and is the extended warranty worth it for the Mini? Thanks!


I got the four year extended warranty on both of my Minis I got from BestBUy. For only $20 it was a good deal($14 for the two year). Plus it can help with the resale value down the road. If a Mini replacement comes out in two or three years, I will buy the new version and sell my older ones. The extended warranty will help with the resale. That is the main reason I get extended warranties on my TiVos. And I'm sure the four year extended warranty on my Elites will come in handy when I sell them to get a six tuner TiVo.


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## Digital Man (Jan 2, 2013)

I got the 4 year Best Buy warranty for $20 as well. Seemed worth it since I have lifetime on it. I hope to keep using it for a long time. Plus I had an extra Best Buy gift card that I needed to use.

DM


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## dmk1974 (Mar 7, 2002)

Digital Man said:


> I got the 4 year Best Buy warranty for $20 as well. Seemed worth it since I have lifetime on it. I hope to keep using it for a long time. Plus I had an extra Best Buy gift card that I needed to use.
> 
> DM


Does the BB warranty cover the lifetime service though? Or just the $99 box? We may need to confirm this.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

dmk1974 said:


> Does the BB warranty cover the lifetime service though? Or just the $99 box? We may need to confirm this.


TiVo has said in the past that an authorized dealers warranty will include Lifetime Xfer, I don't think TiVo will change that policy for the Mini.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

You are basically playing the odds, which are that you'll be making the seller much more profitable.


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## farmermac (Jan 31, 2012)

If you pay with visa or Amex your warranty is effectively doubled. The third year is a gamble. I'm sticking to my credit card factory warranty doubling. I had a TiVo fail after 1 year and a few months, I had TiVo send me a replacement out of warranty for $79 and visa promptly reimbursed.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

exactly. And how much is an extended warranty? Even if you had not been reimbursed, you would have not had a major impact of cost. Extend that across multiple devices that also rarely fail, and its clear how much profit is made from these insurance policies.


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## lgnad (Feb 14, 2013)

I have only ever bought one extended warranty before, so I'm clearly in the " they're a ripoff" club...

However, when I bought a Mini at Best Buy, I thought it was worth it, like some others have said... I knew I was buying lifetime, and getting the mini was going to save me $7.50 a month on cable... Their $20.00 warrantee guarantees that I will make it well past the break-even point at around three years. Hey, there's always the chance of power surges, lightning and random failure.

I wasn't even thinking about the value-add of the warranty at resale time if its time to upgrade... Excellent!


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## wizardman13 (Feb 26, 2013)

aaronwt said:


> I got the four year extended warranty on both of my Minis I got from BestBUy. For only $20 it was a good deal($14 for the two year). Plus it can help with the resale value down the road. If a Mini replacement comes out in two or three years, I will buy the new version and sell my older ones. The extended warranty will help with the resale. That is the main reason I get extended warranties on my TiVos. And I'm sure the four year extended warranty on my Elites will come in handy when I sell them to get a six tuner TiVo.


So, I'll assume you only paid 20 as a total and not $40 for both of them?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

wizardman13 said:


> So, I'll assume you only paid 20 as a total and not $40 for both of them?


It's $20 for each Mini for the four year extended warranty at Best Buy. $14 for each Mini for the two year.


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## aristoBrat (Dec 30, 2002)

It's a first-generation product, which I generally try to avoid. I got the warrantee.


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## wizardman13 (Feb 26, 2013)

aaronwt said:


> It's $20 for each Mini for the four year extended warranty at Best Buy. $14 for each Mini for the two year.


I paid for warranty for just one of them (I got two Mini's also). I guess if they both go, I'm in trouble.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

lessd said:


> With no moving parts IMHO it is not worth getting the extended warranty, I have never seen a TiVo (Series 3 and newer) fail for any other reason than the hard drive, I know that some TiVos have had power supply problems, but with a 5 watt unit I don't think that will be much of a problem on the Mini.


A lot of solid state devices these days fail because of crappy capacitors. On the big TiVo boxes all of the capacitors are on the "power supply" which means they can be replaced relatively easily. I haven't seen the inside of a Mini but if there are any capacitors on the main board it's probably a good idea to get a warranty unless you're really good with a soldering iron.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

All extended warranties are a gamble. The insurance companies are the house. They build in their profit. How much risk are you willing to take?

I can't risk my house burning down even though I know that is pretty remote.

I just purchased a cell phone. The salesperson asked if I wanted the extended warranty. While it seemed reasonable, I happily thought of the 15 plus years of never having an extended warranty and all the money I have saved since I never lost or broke a cell phone and easily realized that I could buy a new replacement phone at full price several times over by what I have saved.

So, how much risk are you willing to take? Or in a nod to Harry Callahan ask yourself, "Do I feel unlucky?"


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

aristoBrat said:


> It's a first-generation product, which I generally try to avoid. I got the warrantee.


Thing is that if their is a defect because it is a first generation it usually crops up relatively quickly.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

waynomo said:


> All extended warranties are a gamble. The insurance companies are the house. They build in their profit. How much risk are you willing to take?
> 
> I can't risk my house burning down even though I know that is pretty remote.
> 
> ...


There was only one cellphone I've owned over the last twenty years that I did not get some kind of extended warranty. Of course that was the only phone I needed to use it on. It got stolen and if I had the warranty it would have covered replacing the phone.

The same with TVs. Out of the ten HDTVs I've owned since 2001, I didn't get an extended warranty on one of them. It died a few weeks after the manufacturer warranty ended. The other TVs with the extended warranties have been fine.

So I get the extended warranties on all my TiVos. And so far I've had no issues.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> There was only one cellphone I've owned over the last twenty years that I did not get some kind of extended warranty. Of course that was the only phone I needed to use it on. It got stolen and if I had the warranty it would have covered replacing the phone.
> 
> The same with TVs. Out of the ten HDTVs I've owned since 2001, I didn't get an extended warranty on one of them. It died a few weeks after the manufacturer warranty ended. The other TVs with the extended warranties have been fine.
> 
> So I get the extended warranties on all my TiVos. And so far I've had no issues.


I guess when you take an umbrella with you it never rains.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

lessd said:


> I guess when you take an umbrella with you it never rains.


Bingo!! 

And if I forget the umbrella it rains.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> There was only one cellphone I've owned over the last twenty years that I did not get some kind of extended warranty. Of course that was the only phone I needed to use it on. It got stolen and if I had the warranty it would have covered replacing the phone.
> 
> The same with TVs. Out of the ten HDTVs I've owned since 2001, I didn't get an extended warranty on one of them. It died a few weeks after the manufacturer warranty ended. The other TVs with the extended warranties have been fine.
> 
> So I get the extended warranties on all my TiVos. And so far I've had no issues.


That is bad luck. I suspect had you never started buying them you would be ahead now.

How much do you think you spent on your cell phone insurance over the 20 years? I would think a lot more than the replacement cost of the one you lost. It's not even close for me.

I have regretted any extended warranty purchase I have ever made. I purchased one on my first HDTV in 2004. I did need service and they fixed it long enough to go about 6 months past the expiration. It cost me about half what the original warranty cost to get it repaired correctly. It still works fine today. (Replaced the same capacitors with better ones.)

Don't let your short term results color your long term view. Understand the facts. Long term extended warranties are losing financial proposition for purchaser. Some places make a lot of their profit from selling them. However, people like the peace of mind that they won't incur a large cost to fix or replace something. There is nothing wrong with that. Just understand it for what it is for.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

waynomo said:


> That is bad luck. I suspect had you never started buying them you would be ahead now.
> 
> How much do you think you spent on your cell phone insurance over the 20 years? I would think a lot more than the replacement cost of the one you lost. It's not even close for me.
> 
> ...


I know what the odds are but I also know people that did not have extended warranties that had to pay a boatload to get a TV fixed or another electronics device. I am perfectly fine with getting extended warranties. Especially for the TiVos. Since it helps with the resale. And I always sell my TiVos when a new model is released.

As long as the price is reasonable I don't mind paying for the extended warranty.


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## dmk1974 (Mar 7, 2002)

Well, after going back and forth, I wound up purchasing the Best Buy protection plans for each of my TiVo Mini's. In the end, I figured it's $40 total to cover the pair of boxes until April 2017. If I didn't have Lifetime on them, I would have skipped it though.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

dmk1974 said:


> Well, after going back and forth, I wound up purchasing the Best Buy protection plans for each of my TiVo Mini's. In the end, I figured it's $40 total to cover the pair of boxes until April 2017. If I didn't have Lifetime on them, I would have skipped it though.


Pretty sure you could have gotten buy with one which would have covered both minis. I didn't think they recorded serial numbers.


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## dmk1974 (Mar 7, 2002)

waynomo said:


> Pretty sure you could have gotten buy with one which would have covered both minis. I didn't think they recorded serial numbers.


You are probably right, but I bought the Mini's on different dates. Didn't want to risk it and have Karma slap me on the head over $20.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

They scanned the serial number on some of my purchases when I got the extended warranty. Although I'm not sure if they did with the two Minis I got from BestBuy. I got one from on the shelf in the store and one shipped from BestBuy.com.


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