Top round 2: it's covered

[BoughtTheXLR]

Some of you may recall the story of my stuck trunk early last week. Dealer couldn't reproduce it, so sent me off to wait for another event. That happened last Friday afternoon. I pulled into the Home Depot parking lot, looked at the threatening rain and tried to put the top up. All started well, except then the top wouldn't come up out of the trunk. I made it to my dealer before the rain started, they saw it fail and pretty promptly handed me the fob for a 2013 SRX to drive.

Monday's detailed analysis was that I needed a new pump with a retail of $1300 or thereabouts. The folks from my Century service contract (bought through Costco) said the part was covered but they wanted to send an inspector to verify the problem. Tuesday the inspector came and of course that's when the top decided to work again. My service adviser told me that ordinarily a failure to fail would be a coverage problem. Between the recorded service visit earlier and who-knows-what other considerations, they gave my dealer the go-ahead anyway.

Now we wait to see what can be done about the pump being on backorder... If it's going to be more than another couple of days, I'll go turn in the SRX because I'd much rather be driving the XLR, even if I can't drop the top.

 

[CadillacCustomerService]

Some of you may recall the story of my stuck trunk early last week. Dealer couldn't reproduce it, so sent me off to wait for another event. That happened last Friday afternoon. I pulled into the Home Depot parking lot, looked at the threatening rain and tried to put the top up. All started well, except then the top wouldn't come up out of the trunk. I made it to my dealer before the rain started, they saw it fail and pretty promptly handed me the fob for a 2013 SRX to drive.

Monday's detailed analysis was that I needed a new pump with a retail of $1300 or thereabouts. The folks from my Century service contract (bought through Costco) said the part was covered but they wanted to send an inspector to verify the problem. Tuesday the inspector came and of course that's when the top decided to work again. My service adviser told me that ordinarily a failure to fail would be a coverage problem. Between the recorded service visit earlier and who-knows-what other considerations, they gave my dealer the go-ahead anyway.

Now we wait to see what can be done about the pump being on backorder... If it's going to be more than another couple of days, I'll go turn in the SRX because I'd much rather be driving the XLR, even if I can't drop the top.

BoughtTheXLR,

Appreciate the update. Let us know how it goes with the part being ordered!

William R.
Cadillac Customer Care

 

[Phrede]

I'm interested to hear about your experience with the service contract. I'm in the market. Did you buy it after the OEM warranty expired?

 

[BoughtTheXLR]

I'm interested to hear about your experience with the service contract. I'm in the market. Did you buy it after the OEM warranty expired?

I purchased it 3-4 weeks prior to the 4 year expiration. At that point I had 23,261 miles on the car. If I recall correctly, Costco's contract had a price change at 25,000 miles. I don't recall if warranty status affected the price. Anyway, I paid $3092 for 6 years/60,000 miles from time of purchase, with a $100 deductible. The Costco web site has a phone number you can call for specific pricing.

Note you must become (and remain) a Costco member. We had been members at Sam's, and switched. Costco is somewhat further away from us, but we find the stores generally cleaner, and are very happy to no longer have to listen to the incessant beeping of forklifts at Sams.

Being um, frugal, yeah that's it, we were very happy with the payment arrangements for the service contract. At Costco stores, you can't use Visa. But, for the service contract you can use any credit card with an excellent no-interest payment arrangement: 10% at time of purchase, 5% billed you your credit card each month for 18 months. So at this point I've actually only paid for a bit over half of the contract price.

I would have chosen GMPP majorguard, but GM's sales policies got in the way. When I bought my 2004, I went with the CPO coverage, and then discovered that at the end of 6 years (4 oem, 2 cpo) you cannot buy Majorguard. So, when I traded it for my current 2008 I specifically went without cpo, planning to buy majorguard just before the oem warranty ran out. When I reached that point, I discovered that GM would not offer more than 4 years of coverage. Weirdly, I could have bought 6 years of coverage if I had only done so when the car was 3 model years old. That would have effectively been only 5 years though because of the overlap with the last year of oem coverage.

So, I went with Costco, based mostly on an expectation that Costco would not tolerate my getting screwed by the warranty company. So far, so good.

 

[Phrede]

I purchased it 3-4 weeks prior to the 4 year expiration. At that point I had 23,261 miles on the car. If I recall correctly, Costco's contract had a price change at 25,000 miles. I don't recall if warranty status affected the price. Anyway, I paid $3092 for 6 years/60,000 miles from time of purchase, with a $100 deductible. The Costco web site has a phone number you can call for specific pricing.

Note you must become (and remain) a Costco member. We had been members at Sam's, and switched. Costco is somewhat further away from us, but we find the stores generally cleaner, and are very happy to no longer have to listen to the incessant beeping of forklifts at Sams.

Being um, frugal, yeah that's it, we were very happy with the payment arrangements for the service contract. At Costco stores, you can't use Visa. But, for the service contract you can use any credit card with an excellent no-interest payment arrangement: 10% at time of purchase, 5% billed you your credit card each month for 18 months. So at this point I've actually only paid for a bit over half of the contract price.

I would have chosen GMPP majorguard, but GM's sales policies got in the way. When I bought my 2004, I went with the CPO coverage, and then discovered that at the end of 6 years (4 oem, 2 cpo) you cannot buy Majorguard. So, when I traded it for my current 2008 I specifically went without cpo, planning to buy majorguard just before the oem warranty ran out. When I reached that point, I discovered that GM would not offer more than 4 years of coverage. Weirdly, I could have bought 6 years of coverage if I had only done so when the car was 3 model years old. That would have effectively been only 5 years though because of the overlap with the last year of oem coverage.

So, I went with Costco, based mostly on an expectation that Costco would not tolerate my getting screwed by the warranty company. So far, so good.

Thanks for the feed back. I made the mistake of letting it slide out of the warranty period, even though most items are covered by a certified warranty still. I would have to bake the price of being a CostCo member into the price since that is of no value to me with no stores near me.

 

[onalaska]

My pump was replaced at 30,584 miles when the XLR was two years old. Along with virtually every electronic and hydraulic component in the top proceeding that. Then a couple of hydraulic hoses at 49,418 and it's worked fine since. I'm out of warranty now. Makes me think I am crazy to plan on keeping this car for many more years. I think we will all get to be experts at manually raising and lowering the top as time goes on.

 

[BoughtTheXLR]

Looks like it only costs about $300 to have the pump rebuilt in a few days:
Cadillac Convertible Top Hydraulic Cylinder Rebuild/Upgade Service - Top Hydraulics, Inc

Or for $150, with a lengthy wait:
2004-09 Cadillac XLR Convertible Tops and Convertible Top Parts

 

[cubby558]

Great information!! Thanks for posting these links.

Looks like it only costs about $300 to have the pump rebuilt in a few days:
Cadillac Convertible Top Hydraulic Cylinder Rebuild/Upgade Service - Top Hydraulics, Inc

Or for $150, with a lengthy wait:
2004-09 Cadillac XLR Convertible Tops and Convertible Top Parts

 

[Phrede]

Looks like it only costs about $300 to have the pump rebuilt in a few days:
Cadillac Convertible Top Hydraulic Cylinder Rebuild/Upgade Service - Top Hydraulics, Inc

Or for $150, with a lengthy wait:
2004-09 Cadillac XLR Convertible Tops and Convertible Top Parts

It looks like the cheaper one only addresses the motor.

 

[b_pappy]

If the reason was for failure was because the drain tube was clogged and it got saturated I would just toss it. Not easy bringing those electronics back to life.
Bruce

 

[ald42]

Looks like it only costs about $300 to have the pump rebuilt in a few days:
Cadillac Convertible Top Hydraulic Cylinder Rebuild/Upgade Service - Top Hydraulics, Inc

Or for $150, with a lengthy wait:
2004-09 Cadillac XLR Convertible Tops and Convertible Top Parts

thanks for the info. great money saver and the second guy is only 20mi from me!!! I love this forum.

 

[aRTHUR7]

Extended Warrantee

I purchased an extended Warrantee from the dealer when I bought my 2009 last year. Briefly it was a 3 year plan for 60K odometer miles. I was advised by a friend to look into AAA for a warrantee plan. I did! It was for 4 years and the same 60K odometer reading for Approx. $1000.00 less than the dealer's plan. I switched. AAA also ate their membership fee as I paid in full for the plan. Good luck with your hunt.

 

[Phrede]

I purchased an extended Warrantee from the dealer when I bought my 2009 last year. Briefly it was a 3 year plan for 60K odometer miles. I was advised by a friend to look into AAA for a warrantee plan. I did! It was for 4 years and the same 60K odometer reading for Approx. $1000.00 less than the dealer's plan. I switched. AAA also ate their membership fee as I paid in full for the plan. Good luck with your hunt.

I suppose this really should be a thread of it's own.

I've found that it is a huge deal to all of the companies that the base warranty has expired. The fact that the car is cover by the certified warranty etc. does not matter to them. Then there are the discussions about the roof. Most that I have found exclude the convertible roof. The sales people claim it means the canvas roof and it will cover the mechanics. However, I can read english and that is not what the exclusions say.

 

[Stella]

I suppose this really should be a thread of it's own.

I've found that it is a huge deal to all of the companies that the base warranty has expired. The fact that the car is cover by the certified warranty etc. does not matter to them. Then there are the discussions about the roof. Most that I have found exclude the convertible roof. The sales people claim it means the canvas roof and it will cover the mechanics. However, I can read english and that is not what the exclusions say.

Now I will say that I have not had to use my warranty services yet. Last year I purchased a warranty through my credit union. The price was great 1600 for 6yrs or 75000 miles. Their are different classes the silver excluded conv. Tops but the platinum version I got states it warranties all conv top mechanics but doesn't cover material tops. Luckily as we know we have a hard top so I would think there's no problems.

 

[BoughtTheXLR]

Fixed and covered.

new 88958028 f-pump kit ($1311.64 list)
89024071 parts kit ($53.83 list)
labor 186.30
dealer in-house rental SRX for 10 days.

All covered by Costco/Century, except for my $100 deductible.

Service department said that the warranty folks were easy to work with.