Most car owners carry a rough summary of their factory warranty in their head. It sounds something like 'the car is covered for a few years' or 'the engine is covered longer than everything else.' That summary is usually close, and it is exactly the kind of summary that goes wrong at the worst moment. Before you spend money on any service contract, check whether the gap you think you have is real.
Find the paper before you trust the memory
The manufacturer's coverage lives in a warranty booklet, usually kept in the glovebox or in the owner's account the maker runs online. Some makers print a separate booklet for the powertrain and another for the rest of the vehicle, and each runs on its own clock. Find every booklet that applies. If you bought the car used and the booklet is missing, ask the seller for the original paperwork, or contact the maker and give it the vehicle identification number so it can confirm the coverage on record.
Read the start date, not the purchase date
Many factory warranties start on the day the car was first put into service, which can be the delivery date to the original buyer rather than the day you signed. For a used car, the clock may have started years before you arrived. Write down the start date the booklet gives, then work out the end date using both the time limit and the mileage limit. Whichever limit arrives sooner usually ends the coverage.
Check what changed after you bought it
Coverage can move. A maker may have extended a specific part under a published campaign, and a recall repair is a separate matter from a warranty claim, so do not assume one covers the other. Skipped service can matter too, since warranty booklets usually list required maintenance, and a missed interval can give the maker grounds to refuse a claim. Keep the receipts for every oil change, tire rotation, and inspection together in one place.
Tell a gap in the paper from a gap in your head
A gap in the paper is a coverage end date you can point to in the booklet. A gap in your head is the assumption that the car is still covered when the booklet says it is not, or that coverage has run out when a particular part is still protected. The fix for the first is to accept the date and plan around it. The fix for the second is to read the words for that specific part. Write the answer on a single page: the part, the limit it falls under, the date or mileage where that limit ends, and the section of the booklet that says so.
Before you buy any service contract
Lay that page beside the contract you are being offered. Look at where its start date falls against the factory end date. Ask whether the contract starts at purchase, at factory expiry, or at some other point, and whether a waiting period applies before it pays anything. Ask what it requires from you to keep coverage active, such as service records or odometer readings. Ask which parts it excludes that the factory warranty already covers, because some buyers pay for overlap they never use. Good sellers answer these questions in writing. If an answer is only spoken, ask for the written version before you sign anything.
Be skeptical of any pitch that starts with a vague worry about the car after the factory term. A contract can fill a real gap. It cannot fill a gap that exists only in your memory, and it may charge you for a period the factory already protects.
Where to check the terms
Once you know the exact gap, you can compare contracts on the terms that matter. Our methodology page explains how we score the companies in our tables, and the published figures sit in our own comparison tables rather than in this guide. The list of providers that post a sample contract shows which companies let you read their form before you pay anything. A sample is the fastest way to see whether a contract's coverage starts where you need it to.