Extended Warranty (not Line 6)? Opinions? Value?

[z3albw1rr]

2 important questions:

 

Are Footswitches covered under the Line 6 Warranty?

 

Are the power connections covered under the Line 6 Warranty?

 

When I purchased my devices from Amazon, I got an offer for an Asurion additional coverage as one does. 80 bucks for a device in this price range, or 20 bucks a year :-)

 

It adds additional coverage such as power surges, cracked screens, drops, and spills, etc. that L6 does not seem to cover.

 

The Line 6 warranty is 1 year, but my understanding is, if you register it is automatically (?) extended another year.

 

So I'll basically have a 2 year warranty on each HX Effects I bought, and then I could potentially have an additional 2 years on either or each from Asurion - which I have to decide within 30 days of purchase.

 

I've had many L6 products over the years and not really had the greatest luck:

 

M13 - footswitches went wonky within 2 years out of warranty (also, encoder knobs have started failing or moving parameters without being touched, and the LCD screens are going, etc.)

 

M5 - power jack connection failed about 2 years out of warranty.

 

MM4 - footswitches went wonky under warranty, L6 sent me ones to replace on my own and I did, and then they lasted a little while again, this time failing outside of the manufacturer's warranty. The power supply also eventually failed on this one as well.

 

DM4 - footswitches went wonky within the first year out of warranty.

 

I've been told by others the Footswitches on the Helix Line are much better and will last...no one I've seen have said they've seen one fail and some other people have said they gig them 340 nights a year and haven't had one fail on a Floor for the 4-5 years they've owned them and things like that.

 

But, no offense to bedroom players, a lot of bedroom players will often respond and they're babied in the house and not subjected to the rigors of live gigging (and I'm very careful - I'm not abusing it or anything) so it's not always clear if people saying "haven't had any problem with them" have only pushed them a total of 200 times in the time they've owned it versus 2,000 times or 20,000 times.

 

I want them to be like those old commercials where they show the robot opening and closing a car door thousands of times in the plant to make sure the car door will hold up :-D

 

If I can, I may just get ONE Asurion 4 year plan to cover either unit should 1 go bad first outside of the Line 6 2 year period - so I'll get protection on at least one of them for 4 years (and I'm checking with them to see if it's tied to a particular unit or I can just use it on the first one to have an issue) and then I'll just have the 2 years from Line 6 on the other one and hope for the best.

 

There are also different length plans I think I can get - 3 years total, or 5 years total (all of these are from date of purchase so they'll run concurrently with the L6 warranty the first 2 years of any of them).

 

Having at least 1 covered for pretty much anything aside from what L6 doesn't cover for 4-5 years especially if I can use it on either if there are issues, will at least keep me from losing $1,100 if both fail 731 days from now.

 

But if it's likely an HX Effects is going to have a 3 year quality life span at best before issues start appearing and getting worse, I may just need to spend the 4 years on both.

 

By that point I'll have gotten my money out of them and possibly be able to upgrade 1 should it fail 3-5 years down the road, and the other 6-8 years down the road.

 

If it's UNLIKELY that the HX Effects will fail beyond the 2 years, I wouldn't even bother. But, you know, peace of mind, my history with their QC (one of the units I just bought had one of the foot screws not screwed in all the way so the bottom rattles and the rubber foot is loose so who knows if it was taken apart by some You Tuber and sold as new, etc.).

 

Extended warranty - worth it, scam - you'll hate it you don't have it and something goes wrong...????

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DunedinDragon]

I took out the Line 6 extended warranty on my Helix Floor within the first two years of having it which was almost 8 years ago.  I've gigged every week (other than a few months break during COVID lockedown) with it and never had any reason to use the warranty and still don't.  One of the footswitches can be problematic once in a while, but I can just use the self-cleaning process of holding it down and twisting it back and forth several times to clean it.  I don't think I baby it but I do transport it in a hard case wherever it goes.  At this point and for the last year or so it doesn't get used that hard since I've started using a stage automation system with my band so it's pretty much always controlled totally by a MIDI controller.

Even though I never had a reason to use the extended warranty I don't see it as a loss since I was dealing with a brand new technology that had only been on the market a short time.

[z3albw1rr]

On 5/28/2022 at 5:10 AM, DunedinDragon said:

Even though I never had a reason to use the extended warranty I don't see it as a loss since I was dealing with a brand new technology that had only been on the market a short time.

Thanks.

 

I've found out the Asurion one is not tied to a particular device, so I could just get one and use it if I need it if anything happens within 4 years on one of them - if it happens on both in the 3rd year or on the 2nd one if something happens on the 1st as well I'm just simply doomed with L6 products. 8 years is a good lifetime and at this point I don't know if my hands and especially my ears are going to last that long. But I'd like them to be trouble-free for at least 5 years, and me be covered or mostly covered after 2.