Protect My Car

Before I got Protect My Car, I had received many spammer calls asking me if I wanted to get an auto warranty. I talked with reps from different companies and discussed their warranties with them. Other warranty companies wanted me to pay an enormous amount of money up front. Alternatively, they wanted me to pay a startup fee and I would then have the warranty for 14 days to review it and make sure I wanna keep it. Then, they would charge me a couple of thousand dollars. I never went with them and I got discouraged from them repeatedly calling me after I requested that they remove me from their call list.

With Protect my Car, I used their warranty, took my car to a dealership and they gave me a loaner car. When I left my service advisor my Protect My Car identification card and told him to contact them if there were any repairs that needed to be done, he called me and said that he had not been able to reach Protect My Car and that he had been on hold for an hour. He said this was one of the reasons why he did not prefer to use warranty companies. I told him that I can call or send an email to the representative that I normally deal with and that rep could get someone to call him back. I got into contact with Tara and she made arrangements for a rep to call my service advisor and get everything processed. This problem could have been due to the time of day or I brought my car to the dealership on a day of the week when Protect My Car had a large amount of phone calls. Still, Tara was able to get things resolved and approved.

The dealership diagnosed all kinds of things and determined that things needed to be done. My car needed electrical work. They also recommended that I get two new tires. I just paid for my deductible and for the tires and Protect my Car covered everything else. I've only had good experiences with this company and it's due to the rep I've been dealing with. She has a great personality and cares about dealing with people. She is a customer service specialist who is committed to Protect My Car and her job. There was a time when I called in to cancel my coverage and I talked to her. She resolved issues and told me to stay in contact with her for any concerns and she would help make sure everything is okay.

He moved fast, trying to get my service, and he might have left a few things out that I needed to know to get it started with them. Because when I took my car to mechanic, they said, “Hey, you gotta wait at least these many days before taking the car to…” I wasn’t aware of that. So, they did a recording and they found that he didn’t explain it to me in the telephone call. So, they called me back and said, I could go ahead and take my car to the mechanic shop because I was right, he didn’t explain it to me.

I felt that he lied to me about one part that I had called in for. I used Protect My Car to get the car fixed, and I paid the other half. It was like he did a good job because he said it was this one thing, but then it came out to be another thing, and then I just was like, “Hey, since you really don’t know what you’re doing, just don’t put regular struts on it.” Because I got the airbag on my car. And after it kept falling on me, after the mechanic was supposed to replace the suspension airbag, then the compressor air pump came, which with the central airbag, they really didn’t get me out of that. And then, because I didn’t use Protect My Car for the compressor pump, I paid 350 extra for it. And then once the mechanic put that on there, it lit up and then it went back down all the time. So, I got with a family friend who told that I could switch them out from the airbag to the regular shock.

I was having a difficult time with issues with the car, and then not being able to take it to a mechanic shop due to all this COVID-19 stuff, and me not working. My job was cutting people off, and then my car started to act up. I’m not too far behind. I may probably be about a payment behind, and I was like, “Can I take it to a mechanic and still use your service?” And they were like, “No. You have to be caught up to date with it.” Also, I’ve been reaching out to them due to the COVID-19 with trying to make the payments. And there was something else that they told me. I called in the other day and spoke with someone, and they did really good on handling my payment, telling me that I can pay this, and when I commit to it some more, I could pay it like this.

Protect My Car is really a good coverage for a person because they do help save money and if you needed something done, they would be there. Even though I couldn’t use it because I had that one payment that was out there, I still see that you can call and they work with you. They wouldn’t just give up on the person that called them.

My car was running fine and I only had 3,000 miles. I almost wasn’t gonna purchase the warranty, but I wanted the lady to leave me alone and I ended up getting it. Getting approval was a very long process. And I didn’t think it would be that expensive. But then, I found out that was the standard procedure for it. The claim was initially denied and I was given a bogus reason for the denial, which concerned me. At one point, the person told me that my claim had been denied because I had used tires instead of brand-new tires and that they weren’t the same type of tires, which caused the imbalance.

One of my close friends was a mechanic and he said that the imbalance would have to be extreme, like having a tire for a Civic and a tire for an SUV. That kinda upset me and I thought that Protect My Car was really stretching to avoid the claim. I argued that down and said that I was with a mechanic and then, less than five minutes later, they approved the claim.

From the moment my car broke down and I contacted them, which was a Wednesday, I was in a rental car for about three weeks. My rental fee was over $500 and they only cover 210. I still had to cover $300, which was because it took them a week and a half to approve the claim. Once they approved the claim, I got my car back in a week and I was shocked. The cost was almost $4,000, but I just paid the deductible.

I’m so glad that I’ve always had records. I tell anybody that gets a warranty, "Make sure you have records of everything done to your car and make sure it’s all scheduled because I noticed that the first thing they ask is what your routine maintenance was.” I had to fax in all that documentation. Also, make sure you're going to a certifiable place. I got all the receipts from any place that I had gotten my car done.

My husband used to be a mechanic so we've done our own oil changes. But for the transmission, we would have to have it checked at the place to see if it needed fluid. For my motor, you have to have a special dipstick where you have to put it up on a rack to check it. Every time that my husband would change the oil, he would take it down to that little place that has that special dipstick. The guy would just come outside and check it. If the transmission fluid was fine, we went on. But they didn't have the paperwork for me to send Protect My Car because they didn't charge because they didn't have to put any fluid in it. It showed that we were there but it didn't show what we were there for so it got me aggravated.

They said I didn't have anything to show I changed my oil. I told them it's a transmission and all I got was receipts from Walmart. At first, I thought they weren't going to do anything. Luckily, they found in a computer where I was buying it. They took it through a transmission place and they had the transmission and the transmission fluid checked. That's what saved me. But I told them that they need to explain that to people. Now I know that if I take it anywhere, even if there was not a paper trail, I would write out something, no charge and that I was here. He also said we can continue to change the oil but we need to make sure that we keep the receipt of him showing them the month when we actually got the stuff and changed it.

I started dealing mostly with a rep who was supposed to get the claims adjuster and the paper and get all that rolling. But I felt like he kept putting it off and prolonging. He would tell me he filed the claim and he's waiting on it. And then he was telling the transmission place that had my vehicle something totally different. When I actually got ahold of Protect My Car, they told me that the form had not been filed yet. I was aggravated with him 'cause he was lying to both of us. He hadn't really done what he'd done and it took forever. But once they actually got a claims adjuster, it was good.

When I got ahold of somebody else and started dealing with them, they got somebody down there. We just had to wait on the transmission and they said it'd be five to seven business days, which it came in four days. The guy had it done for me the day after he got it. It was just miscommunication on my part. He thought that by explaining to me I needed to make sure I upkeep my vehicle, that I knew I needed to show proof. I even called back and asked them more questions 'cause I didn't take it right away. He was great as far as all that and explaining what I didn't understand.

It's policy that if a company determines that the issue is an electrical problem and not a moving metal part, they don't cover it. If my mechanic said it was a moving electrical part and it was a big expensive bill, they send out an adjuster who comes and does his own inspection and he might determine that it is an electrical part that was the original cause of the failure and then there's a disagreement, then it goes to arbitration and so forth. I had a rep on the phone once and he said if it's a big expensive repair or if the transmission needs rebuilding or the top half of the motor needs rebuilding, most times, they pay it. I said, "Well, what percentage of times?" He said, "75%." That's not good enough for me. It was more clear and more clean. Protect My Car has a cleaner, more realistic structure.

I did a claim with Protect My Car a couple of months after I switched to them. It was a camshaft actuator solenoid that was the problem. That was the reason my check engine light was going off and there were a couple of other problems too. And the fact that I was with Protect My Car brought my bill from around 1,100 down to 650. So, I was quite happy with that and I just had my free oil change, which was the first of three this year. I like that too. That's another thing that CarShield doesn't have.

The mechanic did the filing of the claim for me. That was what Protect My Car told me to do. Before the mechanic does any work, they have to give them a call. He was a little bit skeptical about the oil change. He said, "You know, I don't really make much on the oil change and I hope it's not a big time commitment like it was with the repair." It was a complex repair. There were lots of moving parts involved in that repair. So, I take his griping with a little grain of salt. It wasn't like it was just three little things.

Overall, I'm happy to be with Protect My Car. I like that they have a rapport with AAMCO. I'm an Uber driver, so the health of my car is more important to me than the average person. The salesman was awfully helpful on the phone when he pitched me on switching. And if I hadn't switched, my feeling is that CarShield would have left me out in the cold because it was a solenoid that was the major problem there. It was not a moving metal part that cracked in there. It was an electrical thing. So, that's the main difference and that's why I like Protect My Car better.

I was told the electrical door mechanism was covered and then it wasn't. They paid for the fuel pump to get done and I had to pay for all the rubber pieces that wasn't included in the package. So I wound up paying more money towards the rubber package pieces that had to go with those parts. That was hardware that they paid for to be repaired. Protect My Car didn't wanna pay to repair the car and I didn't want it back not repaired. So, I had to come out of pocket. They covered 40% and I paid 60. It was a disaster. While my car was getting fixed, I was in a car accident. I got rear-ended and I had to pay for their loaner car and my car. It was terrible. It took them a month to do the work because they couldn't fix it at first at BMW. It took them so long and when I finally went to go pick it up, it was another $1,000 bill.