Kansas City residents share warning about car warranty company
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Mary Lewis was driving on 39th Street when her car started making a dinging noise and warning signs flashed on her instrument panel. Then she saw smoke coming from her engine.
“I was terrified,” said Lewis, a widow in her late 70s.
But in that moment, she was also grateful that she had CarShield – a warranty company. She’d faithfully paid $100 a month to CarShield for more than two years. CarShield’s ads said it covers the repairs on 5,000 parts and policy holders can pick their mechanic. That wasn’t Lewis’ experience.
“I just think they’re a giant rip-off,” she said.
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The first mechanic she towed her car to, just a few miles from her Kansas City home, told her that a couple of her hoses were bad and repairs would cost her about $321. She pulled out her CarShield card.
“He said ‘no mam,’ I don’t take CarShield,” Lewis said she was told.
CarShield told her to have her car towed to an AAMCO shop in Lee’s Summit. That’s where the bill ballooned to $1,500. The shop claimed multiple other things were bad and needed to be fixed.
She said her car sat at the shop for more than a week, while AAMCO waited to hear from CarShield. When word finally arrived, it wasn’t good.
“They didn’t give me anything,” Lewis said. “They were so rude to me.”
She said a CarShield representative told her if she’d read her warranty book, she would have known she wasn’t covered for the type of repairs needed on her car.
Lewis acknowledged that she had never read the book, which arrived three weeks after she bought her warranty.
If she had read it, she would find page after page listing exclusions for what CarShield does not cover, including breakdowns caused by lack of maintenance and breakdowns due to gradual loss of performance resulting from normal operation or use.
Lewis’ car has more than 100,000 miles on it and she said she’s diligent about having regular maintenance checks.
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Plus there’s an arbitration clause, meaning policyholders can’t sue the company.
Although Lewis had had one successful CarShield claim last year for about $500, she now felt her coverage was not worth the money.
So does Robert Turner, who also lives in Kansas City and, like Lewis, is also retired.
“I was coming down the highway one night and the whole car had shut down,” Turner said.
He called CarShield, which referred him to a local mechanic. The mechanic diagnosed a bad throttle. CarShield said that part was not covered under Turner’s gold policy.
Turner decided to replace the throttle himself, only to discover the throttle was not the problem.
“It sounded worse than ever,” Turner said.
He called CarShield again. This time it recommended a dealership in Kansas. There, mechanics determined that another $3,000 in repairs were needed – none of which were covered by CarShield.
Turner could not afford the repair – so weeks later his car is still sitting in his driveway.
As for CarShield? Turner cancelled his $150 a month policy, believing that he had been misled.
“They are not telling the truth,” he said.
FOX4 Problem Solvers called CarShield, posing as a potential customer. A CarShield representative promised that our concerns about car repairs would be solved by buying a policy. But when we asked to see the terms of coverage before making a decision, he said that was not the way it worked. That information would only come after we signed up.
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The multiple complaints Problem Solvers has received from viewers about CarShield don’t surprise Greg Buckley, who owns two auto repair shops in Delaware and offers car tips on his You Tube channel.
“We will not work with CarShield,” said Buckley, adding that most warranty plans are not worth the money.
“Say the transmission failed because you didn’t change the transmission oil according to manufacturer’s guidelines,” Buckley said. “You are done. If you failed to change the oil or show that you changed the oil, you are done. Most people will say ‘I change my oil all the time.’ Well, can you prove it?”
A couple of years ago the greater St. Louis Better Business Bureau gave CarShield an “F” rating after it racked up more than a thousand complaints.
CarShield, which is based outside of St. Louis in St. Charles County, sued the BBB. The case was settled out of court. If you search Carshield now on the BBB’s website, it shows an “A” rating. Yet BBB customer reviews gave it only one out of five stars. It also has had more than 3,000 complaints in the last three years.
FOX4 Problem Solvers contacted CarShield on behalf of Lewis and Turner. We’re happy to say that CarShield returned all of the premiums both of them had paid. So what did CarShield have to say in its defense? The company had no comment.
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If you’re unhappy with CarShield, you could contact Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey who is supposed to be the state’s consumer watchdog. But here’s something to keep in mind, a campaign PAC to elect Bailey received a $10,000 donation from the parent company of CarShield, NRRM.
CarShield’s chief operating officer and general counsel Mike Carter, who is also a judge in Wentzville, had Bailey on his YouTube where they discussed, among other things, the importance of protecting the public from consumer fraud.
Carter is running for Missouri Secretary of State in the Republican primary.
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