If you’ve ever bought a used car warranty thinking it would save you from financial disaster, you’re not alone. And if you’ve ever felt burned when that warranty didn’t deliver when you needed it most, well, you’re in some frustratingly common company, too.

I spent years as a service advisor watching customers learn the hard way that the promises printed in bold on a glossy brochure mean a lot less than the fine print buried a few pages deep.

Those tiny clauses (often perfectly legal) are where many drivers find out the expensive “peace of mind” they paid for might not actually cover an expensive failure.

That’s exactly what happened to Dennis Morgan of Morristown, Tennessee.

One car buyer spent nearly $6,000 for an extended warranty on his used Jeep Wrangler only to have a major repair denied when he tried to use it

Morgan bought a 2014 Jeep Wrangler back in November 2021. It already had 109,000 miles on it, so he paid extra for what was marketed as a high-mileage extended warranty from Reliance Protection.

The deal: a 60-month plan, good for repairs up to 200,000 miles, with an optional add-on to cover engine seals and gaskets. The total bill for that coverage was $5,789. So, hardly pocket change.

Fast-forward to May 2025.

The Jeep’s check engine light came on

Morgan took it to Farris Jeep, a certified repair shop in Morristown. After a diagnosis, the shop recommended replacing the cylinder head, a job with an estimated cost of $4,438.

Confident this kind of repair was exactly why he’d purchased a warranty, Morgan filed a claim with Reliance.

Then came the gut punch: the claim was denied.

Morgan said the company told him the Jeep’s odometer had passed a hidden mileage limit

Unbeknownst to him, once the Jeep hit 150,000, seals and gaskets coverage dissolved. Even though his overall plan ran to 200,000.

At the time of the breakdown, the Jeep had about 178,000 miles, well within what Morgan believed was the warranty’s protection range. But Reliance said the root cause of the failure was a valve seal, which wasn’t covered past 150,000 miles.

The company sent Morgan warranty documentation showing this mileage cutoff. But he said that information wasn’t disclosed to him when he bought the plan

He claimed he only received two pages of the warranty agreement and that none of them mentioned the 150,000-mile seal and gasket limit.

Had he known about that detail, he said, he would have chosen a shorter plan rather than paying for five years of coverage.

Instead, Morgan was forced to pay the $4,400 repair bill out of pocket

He’s since hired an attorney to dispute Reliance’s denial and is seeking reimbursement as well as the continuation of his coverage for the remaining year on his contract. Reliance declined to comment on his case beyond the written explanation they already provided.

As frustrating as Morgan’s situation is, it’s not unusual

I watched this play out countless times when I worked behind a service counter. Extended warranties (especially third-party plans) tend to be riddled with exclusions, sub-limits, and technicalities.

Many times, the sales pitch drivers hear at the dealership sounds simple and straightforward: “Covers you up to 200,000 miles.” But what they’re actually agreeing to is a maze of conditions that can limit or even void that coverage entirely.

The best protection isn’t just buying a warranty. It’s fully understanding one before signing anything

That means demanding all the pages of the contract, not just the summary. It’s critical that you read every clause, including mileage limits on specific components.

It might feel tedious, but it’s a lot easier than arguing with a claims department after your so-called fully-covered car breaks down.

These kinds of warranty disputes rarely hinge on fraud or illegality

The problem is that most of the limitations are perfectly legal because they’re spelled out in the fine print. And once you sign, you’ve agreed to them. Even if no one highlighted them at the time.

I’d also recommend folks with mileage limits go and get a certifiable inspection before their coverage expires. If that Jeep’s cylinder head had a problem that started at say, 148,000 miles, he might have gotten the repair covered.

With extended warranties, what you think you’re buying and what you’re actually buying are sometimes very different things. And when thousands of dollars are on the line, every driver should take the time to understand it before the check engine light ever turns on.