OK guys, I work in finance (and have fairly intimate knowledge of how the insurance industry works), so I know the whole drill about extended warranties being useless for the most part and basically money minters for the companies that sell them.

With that being said, I'm in a bit of a pickle and wanted to hear your take on it.
Here are the details. I'm purchasing a Hertz Rent2Buy car - basically, it’s a rental car that Hertz is selling.

- Nissan Maxima 2014 3.5S (CARFAX showed it was purchased originally in May 2014)
- Pearl White
- Mileage: 34,200
- Cost: ~$16,000 total including taxes, title, registration, etc.

I paid to get a full inspection at a local Nissan dealership - it got a great bill of health. Everything looked great, all the filters were new, fluids were topped off, etc.

The only two things that came up were:
- the windshield had been replaced; they think its likely a rock or something hit it, and Hertz ended up replacing it
- the rear bumper was a bit of a different color. Nissan’s Pearl White is apparently a very complex color that is a combination of 3 different coats. They couldn’t find any structural damage in the bumper, so they think Hertz probably repainted it after it got scratched (and it still has a few visible like where people take luggage out of the car), but since they don’t have the knowledge of what went into the stock white color, they just painted it the white they had. It’s only noticeable if you’re standing like 5 inches from the car, and again, only if you’re really looking at it.

The dealer service rep said several times, if it was him, he would definitely buy the car. I drove it around for 2 days now, I like it a lot.

Long story short, I’ve decided to buy the car.

Of course, the day before paying (today), the finance guy from Hertz called me to tell me about their extended warranty program.

See attachment for details: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...edWarranty.pdf

As you can see, the highest version is about $2500 (and probably the only one worth buying) and covers 6 years or 72K miles starting from the day of purchase. So it would cover me for another 6 years starting tomorrow or 72K miles starting tomorrow, so it would cover my car from its current sub-35K mileage to a little over 100K. Also, if you look at page 2 and 3 of the document, it shows what all is covered. The Gold Plus is the warranty that is priced on page 1 over the various time periods/mileages, so it basically would cover everything that is on page 2 and 3. Of course, it doesn’t cover routine wear/tear like replacing brake pads, oil changes, tires, etc. It also wouldn't cover, if for example, a rock hit the transmission while driving and caused a leak. But it would cover rack/pinion, control arm, suspension, all the electronics, etc. Take a look at page 2 and 3 in the PDF linked above for the list of full coverage.

Nissan’s manufacturer warranty expires at 3 years, 36K miles, so I’m almost out of that on the mileage requirement side, but the manufacturer powertrain warranty is 5 year/60,000, so I still have some time left on that.

So the math here comes down to: will the 2014 Maxima w/ 35,000 miles that I’m buying cost me at least $2500 in repairs that would be otherwise covered in this warranty? A.K.A. what is the probability of this Maxima getting any breakdowns/requiring repairs included in the warranty (see page 2 and 3 in the link above) while the car is in the 35,000 to 105,000 mile range?

I called the Nissan dealership that inspected the car and asked a service rep what he thought about the Hertz warranty (and sent him the PDF I've linked above) - he said things like the rack and pinion go bad around the 60-70K, same with the lower control arms. And the tire pressure monitoring system also costs $400 per tire and can go bad every 2-3 years. And those items alone can make up the cost of the warranty. Is this accurate? Regarding the rack and pinion and things like the lower control arms and the TPMS?

However, I talked to my mom - she said they bought an extended warranty on their 2004 Sienna when they got it brand new - said it was a complete waste. They never had any larger repairs like rack/pinion until the van was well past 100K miles.

Is this very likely the same case with the Maxima? If this was a German luxury car, I definitely would’ve gotten the extended warranty because they do tend to go in the shop more often, and each repair is pricey. Granted, the Maxima is Nissan’s most expensive car, short of the 370Z and the GT-R, so it would have more maintenance costs than say, a Sentra, but it’s still a Japanese brand, so I have a little more faith vs. a BMW/Mercedes/Audi.

Would love to hear any thoughts/words of wisdom/“you’re an idiot for considering the extended warranty”/“I own a Maxima and I wish I had gotten this”/etc.
Thanks again!