Costco extended warranty on appliances - experience?

[georgina]

So our GE fridge stopped working today. We bought this house in December and I am in contact with the previous owner. The fridge was purchased last Sept from Costco. GE says 1 year warranty, it was shipped on Sept 16 and delivered on Sept 25, so I am not sure if I am within the year for that. However, Costco extends the warranty by a year so that will cover it. I'm not sure how Costco warranty works though, they told me to have previous owner call in to set up a case because it is associated with her Costco membership number. I have a GE technician appointment in about a week, but I am still a bit confused about how the Costco coverage kicks in if it is necessary. Do we need to have Costco send someone out? Can I go through the GE tech and somehow coordinate with Costco? Anyone have any experience with this? It's funny, my sister-in-law was just telling me about a problem with her quite new fridge also.

 

[_19disnA]

If the extended warranty is through Costco or some 3rd party they chose, then I would ask those questions of Costco (or have the previous owner do that). I believe the warranty doesn't start until you take delivery of the item, so the factory warranty should still apply as the problem occurred before the original 1 yr warranty expired. Being 'in transit' shouldn't count against the warranty time. I would not arrange anything directly from GE until there is more clarity from Costco on who should arrange for service. Costco may contract out warranty work even if the GE warranty is still applicable.

 

[georgina]

If the extended warranty is through Costco or some 3rd party they chose, then I would ask those questions of Costco (or have the previous owner do that). I believe the warranty doesn't start until you take delivery of the item, so the factory warranty should still apply as the problem occurred before the original 1 yr warranty expired. Being 'in transit' shouldn't count against the warranty time. I would not arrange anything directly from GE until there is more clarity from Costco on who should arrange for service. Costco may contract out warranty work even if the GE warranty is still applicable.

The Costco concierge, after telling me to have the purchaser call to open a case, also said GE should be able to see the 2nd year of the warranty, which confused me, but now I am wondering if it is somehow already extended with GE. This is all complicated by the fact that we leave Saturday for Orlando. Went to Lowes to buy a small fridge to get us by (we have an upright freezer). I know parts are hard to come by these days, we could be living like Europeans for quite a while, going to the market every day or two to buy fresh food!

 

[_19disnA]

Due to the timing on when the initial warranty expires, I think the most important thing is to have reported you are having an issue that requires repair with Costco and/or GE and sounds like you have done that. Due to scheduling of the service call (or you being out of town), it is possible the repairs may happen after the 1 yr is up, but that shouldn't be an issue.

 

[kdonnel]

The extended warranty may not transfer from the original owner to you.

 

[barkley]

if it's in the 2nd (or subsequent) year under which it's covered by costco concierge then it should be a pretty stress free process. depending on the issue, esp. if there's an extended wait time for parts- costco may just opt to refund the original purchase price which in your case would go to the costco member who bought it so you would have to arrange getting the money from that person. my experience is based on a couple of lower cost appliances ($300-$400 range) and 2 computers (one was close to $2K) that we had to utilize the costco portion of the extended warranty on (in all cases costco evaluated the problem or had someone else do so and opted to give us a refund for the full purchase prices).

 

[georgina]

Original purchaser texted me a Costco case # and said Costco wanted the serial # of the refrigerator to call GE and link the cases, so it may be moving along.