The extended warranties generally are pushed hard at places like Sears simply because they are nearly 100% profit. Almost nobody ever actually needs one. I've had at least three friends who tried working at Sears, and did a great job on selling the merchandise; but all got "shut out" by being given unworkable hours and erratic schedules when they failed to sell enough extended warranties. Apparently at Sears the guy who assigns your schedule gets a kickback from them?

But the other side of that is that they make ANY SERVICE that's not covered by warranty (extended or otherwise) so difficult and expensive that if you happen to be the one who needs something fixed, you're S.O.L. without the warranty.

Sears is the worst I've done business with. I've resorted to telling them at the point of purchase - and writing it on the bill of sale: "If anyone calls me about an extended warranty this product comes back and I will expect a full refund." And make them initial it.

Without doing that, any Sears appliance over about $75 will get you called by the beggars at least every other month for the next 3 or 4 years. Since I began annotating the sales receipts, I've only had ONE such call. I think I was more than polite with my explanation on that one... They might disagree; but they didn't call again.

Of course, since their quality has gone downhill so much, I don't buy nearly as much stuff from them as I once did. If it's going to be throw-away stuff, you might as well get it from the discounters for throw-away prices.

I suspect a lot of other places may actually be about as bad; but I avoid "consumer grade" whenever possible, and most major purchases are more or less direct from the manufacturers - where possible. If I can't fix it myself, I'll think seriously about arranging to not need it. (Being perpetually broke helps a lot there.)

John