[Efthreeoh]

An extended warranty doesn't equal a "trouble free" car, it just means you do not pay for the repairs directly. The car still breaks and you still have the hassle of taking it to a mechanic to get repaired.

Also, you are hedging your bets that the cost of repairs, over the time the warranty is in effect, are more than the price paid for the warranty, which through any logic review tells you otherwise. All warranty companies make a profit and are in business; if in every case the cost of repairs exceeded the price paid for the warranty, the warranty companies would soon be out of business. The extended warranty business is nothing different than the insurance business, where actuary tables are used to calculate the price of the policy biased in favor of the insurance company.

What you are saying is you want to only own a vehicle during the time it statistically has the least amount of breakdowns (it's called mean-time-between-failures), which is why I suggested leasing rather the buying and re-selling every two years. It would be financially better for you to make a minimum car payment (i.e. lease payment) every month rather than tie up $50,000 dollars in a vehicle purchase, where you could invest the capital not spent on the vehicle purchase.

My point about upstate New York is the roads are very well maintained in winter, and a SUV is not a necessary option to get around in. Actually a BMW 3-series with x-drive is a very good snow vehicle since it has a lower center of gravity and less weight than an SUV, which aids in its winter driving dynamics.

Good luck with the decision.