I will start with what I learned about car dealerships, extended warranties and rental car services based on my awful experience and if you are looking for a slightly stressful, hopefully pleasurable read, I will be posting that in the next few days.

Here’s what to know:

1. Ask your service advisor if there is a discount with a certain rental car service in the area before you give it to them for repair.
2. Make sure your service advisor calls the rental car company on your behalf to get the discounted rate.
3. Dealerships and the rental car companies can set up a direct bill pay so you do not have be the liaison between the two.

In our case, the dealership (let’s just called them Yolkswagon) owed the rental car company money, so negotiation between the car owner (let’s just call that us) and the rental company was mandatory. This made more work for the owner/customer.

4. TO AVOID RENTAL CAR HASSLE ALL TOGETHER, you can get a loaner vehicle from your dealership. As long as you are not going out of a set area, i.e the tri-state area, they can accommodate you with a vehicle.

5. Call the extended warranty to make sure that what is included in your repair actually is. Ask the dealership for a print out of all the repairs needed before you decide to let them do the repair work.

Fidelity, who covered our extended warranty, thought they were doing us a favor by giving us all of the 10 days of car rental service. In reality, you must qualify for the 10 days, which the insurance company determines. There are also NO courtesy days. The dealership told us we would have no problem in regards to having to pay out of pocket for a rental car because on top of the 10 days we receive courtesy days. This is just not true. The insurance company thought we were crazy. Research the reviews on the relationship between your dealership and insurance companies.

6. The insurance companies will tell you the correct time a repair should take because prolonging it costs them money. Use the companies against each other to your advantage.

7. If you happen to get into another fender bender (hopefully this does not happen), you have to file a new claim. When you file a new claim with your extended warranty, you qualify for another 10 day rental at $35/day.

8. Dealerships will claim you need “Ware and Tare” repairs that will equal the amount of money they lost based on what the extended warranty insurance covers.

For instance, our extended warranty covered around $1,500 of the needed repairs. Additionally, in ware and tare costs, Yolkswagon claimed we needed $2,100 worth of work done. Ironically, in the next breath, the service representative added that there was no need to worry about the back brakes, which equaled exactly $1,500.

9. If someone rents a car or pays for a car on your behalf, just cross out their name on the bill and write yours. The extended warranty will accept it.

10. If your car is in the shop being serviced and you go out of town, make sure to stay on top of the dealership. You will be charged for the days your car is in the shop not being worked on.

11. Make sure the dealerships are not using your car parts for other vehicles.

You may have to go back to Yolkswagon, for example, to get a hatch cover because they took it out of your car to test it on another car they are servicing.

12. You can submit a repair order from any auto shop to your extended warranty company because all auto shops throughout the United States should work with your extended warranty. Therefore, it doesn’t matter where you bring your car to be serviced in order to be reimbursed for what is covered. Do not let a dealership bully you into getting your car serviced with someone specific.