Infiniti Q50 Turd Edition: When Buying Extended Warranty Goes Right

In April of 2017, I decided to purchase a new vehicle for myself. I had shopped around and looked at every vehicle on my list, then ran across a really nice 2014 Infiniti Q50 at the local Infiniti dealer. It was the exact color I wanted, with pretty much every feature I had wanted as well. I wasn’t originally considering purchasing a Q50, but I have been loyal to the Nissan and Infiniti brand for years and thought it was at least worth a gander.  I set up a time to go look at it and after a long test drive, I decided it checked enough boxes that I was ready to buy it. I talked them down quite a bit on the price and also put down a few thousand of my own cash to help with the purchase.

I felt like I had done really well on this particular purchase, but I did something I don’t normally do – I let them talk me in to their extended warranty. Infiniti offers an Elite Protection Package that covers the vehicle for 5 years or 60,000 miles, which would ensure this particular vehicle would be covered until 100,000 miles. I bought in, even though I was worried I was wasting my money. Little did I know that it would be the best decision of this purchase I made.

Fast forward to a year later and I was considering trading it in on something with a lower car payment. Our careers had changed a bit and I had 3 cars to myself, so I was looking for ways to trim back some. So I started researching and found out the value had tanked on the 2014-2015 Infiniti Q50 due to the new twin turbo models being released in 2016. Considering how much I had put down on the vehicle, I was more than a bit upset to find out that I was nearly $10,000 upside down in a vehicle a year later. Yes, all vehicles depreciate pretty rapidly, but this particular situation was utterly insulting. Needless to say, I was pretty much stuck with it and decided to just deal with it rather than trying to trade it in at this point.

Not even two months later, it decided to freak out one day after picking my daughter up from day care. Every light on the dash board lit up like a Christmas tree and it started flashing a bunch of error codes. I called the dealer and they told me to go ahead and bring it in. They met me with the typical outstanding service I had experienced here at Louisville Infiniti, helping me move all of my stuff over to a loaner vehicle and get my kids moved over as well. The next day they messaged me to let me know that the ABS sensor had failed at 48,000 miles. No big deal – go ahead and replace it. It’s under warranty. They also informed me my battery was bad as well. I went ahead and let them replace it, because they offered me an outstanding price on it. I picked it up the next day and all was well again.

Three months later, it’s 98 degrees outside and I notice the A/C isn’t blowing cold all of a sudden. After checking further, I realize it’s only on the drivers side that it’s not blowing cold. I called again and the same process as before – dropped off and moved over to a loaner vehicle. They called me the next morning and informed me that A/C blend door actuator had failed. Again, under warranty, so I told them to proceed. I picked it up the next day and the A/C was working fine again.

Fast forward just over a month later and I hop in one cold morning to no heat for the entire drive. Then I find out after messing with the controls that only the drivers side was blowing cold air, while everywhere else was getting heat. Pretty similar to last time, so I call up the dealer again and schedule to drop it off assuming the same thing had happened. I get a text later that afternoon and now the A/C compressor has failed in addition to another possible bad blend door actuator. Outstanding! This car is quickly becoming a pile of junk for only having 56,000 miles on it. As usual though, they fixed the problem within a very reasonable amount of time and I picked my Q50 back up with no issues again… for now at least.

While my typical reaction to these type of issues is to dump the pile of lemon scented garbage as quickly as possible, I realized that for once I really am winning in this situation, while it may not appear that way.  Let me explain why: I purchased the Elite Protection Package for an extra $1,500 on this vehicle. If you add up the three issues alone above, I have already greatly exceeded that amount in repairs, only having to pay a $100 deductible each time. So while I’ve spent $300 out of my own pocket over the past 6 months or so, the vehicle has had upwards of $3,000 worth of work performed and I still have 44,000 miles remaining on the warranty! In addition to that, my dealer provides me with a loaner vehicle any time my vehicle is in for service, which is another huge value because I never have to have a ride or arrange anything other than to drop off my vehicle.

So in a lot of situations, people tell you purchasing an extended warranty is a massive waste of money – Always, ALWAYS do your research before making a decision to purchase one or not, because the vehicle you’re buying may be very costly to repair when it does break, while some may never need anything outside of basic maintenance. I made the decision to purchase it in this case because I had done my research and found that the InTouch system in the Q50 failed a lot, and if it did fail, the system was around $2,000 to replace. This system controls all of your HVAC, stereo, and navigation, so without it the vehicle could be very difficult to operate properly.

In summary: Do your research before signing on the dotted line and finalizing that purchase. Make sure your vehicle isn’t prone to a lot of major issues before going without coverage. Also, if the vehicle uses that warranty to its full extent while it’s covered, you may want to consider not keeping it once the warranty is up. Just a bit of advice from a country boy that has been through it more times than I care to remember.

In this situation, I will likely be dumping this Q50 as soon as the warranty has expired. I’ve honestly never owned a car that I spent this much on, to be so underwhelmed with it. It does nothing particularly well, it looks alright for what it is, it’s not as fast as it could be, and it’s expensive to upgrade to make it as fast as your would expect it to be. Overall, it’s the most disappointing car purchase I’ve made in a while, but it certainly won’t be my last Infiniti – because while the Q50 may not be an exceptional car in my eyes, the service department at Louisville Infiniti is beyond exceptional and I plan to keep my business there as long as I can. Thank you for reading along and hopefully this will shed some light on why you should consider an extended warranty on certain vehicles – such as an Infiniti Q50.

-Chris Longino

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