U nfortunately, there are a lot of warranty scams out there, and even those warranties offered by new and used car dealers can have a lot of strings attached. A quick web search of the name of the warranty you’re looking to buy can be a good start, but even then, you’ll likely want to read through the fine print.

One of the most common catches is a warranty that will only cover or reimburse for services performed at a particular chain or network of repair shops. Unless you are comfortable with having a particular shop work on your vehicle for the entirety of the warranty, this is likely a deal-breaker.

You’ll also want to look at just how broad the coverage is. An extended warranty generally will not provide the same level of coverage as the original warranty provided by the car manufacturer when the vehicle was new. Instead, the extended warranty may only look at powertrain components (engine, transmission, and axles), leaving you out of luck if, say, one of the power window switches fails or the infotainment display goes blank.

One rule to keep in mind is that quality used car extended warranty providers typically will not call you with a recorded message to warn you that your existing warranty is almost up.

By their very nature, extended warranties are something of a gamble. You can’t predict just how much your car is going to cost you in repairs down the road, of course, but you can get an idea of how frequently you may expect to encounter major repairs.

Today’s cars can rely on complicated and costly parts to ensure that all systems function. Even the failure of a small sensor can leave you stranded and take a qualified mechanic hours to replace.

You can, however, prepare to repair the items that commonly fail in your vehicle. From there, you can contact shops for an estimate of how much those items might cost to replace. If a sensor failure commonly occurs around 50,000 miles and it costs $500 to replace, then you know the warranty will at least cover that item.