I would be very wary of buying an extended warranty after I previously bought one for my Trans Am, through the Pontiac dealership. The company address was some "Suite" number (always suspicious to me) somewhere in Florida (I'm in CA). When I called one day to inquire about having some work done after the extended warranty came in to effect, I was told I had to get the work done, pay for it myself, and then claim for reimbursement. I couldn't really afford it, but I had the work done and paid for it, but when I made a claim, they found every reason under the sun not to pay it. One reason was that I didn't have all my records of the scheduled maintenance, which included being stamped by the service department. In the end I just gave up on my claim; it was almost impossible to get them to pay out.

I've since been told by a person who worked for a dealer that most companies that offer extended warranties are a scam, working out of cheap offices, no capital, and likely to declare themselves insolvent, and then vanish. They have no intention of honoring these contracts because they know they do not come into effect until after the normal dealer warranty expires. By then, they hope you've forgotten all about them.

 

My experience with extended warranties

 

It seems like extended warranties vary quite a bit. My father-in-law bought an extended warranty for his Blazer (a 95), and it paid for itself quickly, when the car needed a new fuel pump and a few other doohickeys (<-technical term) before the car hit 40K.

From what I've seen, warrantygold seems to be pretty good. Edmund's links directly to them as well, and they keep emailing me coupons for money off their packages.