Good Sam ESP

[ArrrV]

We had a service contract on both of our Fleetwood's and we have one on our Thor ACE. Shop well by both price and coverage. Ours has paid for itself for each unit--replaced A/C's, water heaters, electric stair, and other items that break. BUT and that is a an all cap BUT, if your repair shop doesn't know the proper words to use to file a claim you may loose out. My RV shop tells me it always is in the presentation and that otherwise valid claims are turned down or have the price knocked down because the test results are not supplied or descriptions of the failure don't use the terminology the service contract guys seek. Check with your repair shop (hopefully not your dealer) and ask what their experience has been. It should be helpful. We did not use Good Sam for any of our contracts, and some insurers are much better than others. We used a private agency with multiple coverage and company options and selected the best one for our expected needs.
When we moved to a full slide coach we just considered the cost of an extended service contract as part of the sale price and budgeted accordingly. Slide and jack repairs can be expensive, especially when on vacation! Fortunately we haven't had our slide breakdown on a trip (yet) but we have had enough other repairs (and we have a $25 deductible per visit not per item so we group repairs together) to have covered the cost of our current service contract and it's still in force for another year. We have never have a covered repair denied, and our contract excludes less than most.
Thanks for asking specifically about experience with extended service contracts and not opening the Pandora's box about buying them in the first place.
Hope this helped.

[MLP]

We had Good Sam with our old Itaska Spirit. Never had to use it. When we sold it we purchased out Big Horn. We did purchase an extended warranty with the Big Horn through the dealer. I do not remember the company, but our independent RV repair facility did not have any problem with them. Used it twice and lost money. With our new to us 2013 SOB (some other brand) diesel pusher had a big slide problem. Which turned into a bigger slide problem. The company didn't flinch. Both times one after another the slide was fixed. Just under 9k. Since I purchased to cover everything including the engine and trans, I am not quite even, but close. Still have five more years of coverage. It buys peace of mind. Your betting you will use it more than the cost and they are betting you won't. They win most of the time, but when they don't and it is you....

[AJMike]

I had both the Good Sam Roadside Assistance and Extended Service Plans on our old Class B RV. We bought the RV used and it seemed prudent to keep a service plan on it because we had no idea of its history beyond what we could find about the vehicle VIN. We had 2 instances where we needed to use the ESP and perhaps a half-dozen uses of the RA Plan.

We broke down in Kanab, Utah. I had stopped for gas and the engine would not start, so I called RA and, as always, they were prompt and took care of us. In this case they towed us to a local RV park because it was too late to get into a shop, and since the problem was a bad spot on the starter we were able to get started the next morning and drive to the repair shop. RA: +1.

The local shop contacted the ESP people and did the repair, but they only paid a little over $19 for a $400+ repair. Their excuse was that the shop's labor charge was higher than what ESP will pay, and the replacement part (a new starter) was more expensive than the max that ESP would pay. Upshot - I had to pay the difference. I had $250 deductible so I had to pay that and the difference between the total bill and what ESP would pay, and that really left me quite upset. ESP should have paid about $175 toward the bill, but only actually paid $19 or so. ESP: -1.

The second ESP claim was for a replacement air conditioner. The one in the RV failed due to a short and we took it into our local repair shop at home. They contacted ESP, got the go-ahead and did the repair. ESP covered everything over the deductible. ESP: +1.

So the basic rule seems to be to understand that there are limits to the labor fee that GS ESP will pay, as well as for the price of replacement parts. If your repair is within those limits ESP will come through. If not, then you will have to pay the difference.

[Fordste]

We used GS to replace the entire 3trac Shwintek drive system when it stripped out on a 2019 Hurricane. They also paid for a new converter. $2200 total. They did not cover the shipping of the parts. So far so good...

[BC1]

I did a TON of research before getting GS ESP (also got their RA and got Tire & Wheel transferred from previous owner). I weeded through lots and lots of complaints on GS ESP and determined that so many people complaining didn't take the time to read beyond the basic of what is covered and what isn't and really understand it. I work with contracts every day so could see where they just didn't have a clue on so many things based on what they were complaining wasn't covered. Anyway, I went with ESP. Haven't used it yet but I feel confident that after looking into this one and diving deep into a few of the other top ones, asking them questions, looking at contract, etc. as far as coverage and cost is concerned - if any of the big companies were going to cover a repair and considering the price of the plan itself I don't think I'll regret my decision. Take care, Beth

[WarEagleDan]

I did negotiate when I bought my Windsport in 2017 and bought the Good Sam ESP for what I thought was a fair price. A lot of the worth of an ESP depends on who does the work. I am fortunate to have a really good RV repair service a couple of miles from my house. So far I have had the shower plumbing replaced, a slide motor replaced and the plumbing for the LP tank replaced. It was in the shop for the slide motor replacement and an employee smelled LP and found the LP plumbing cracked. Since it was already in the shop they fixed that under the same $100 deductible. I never talk to Good Sam - the RV repair shop does all that.

[PS Cruisign]

All I can say is get a lawyer to read the exclusions section. AND make the dealer get after any bugs under the manufactures warrantie, i.e. Ford, Thor, etc.
My experience with GS is... 10000 for an ESP, WTF? They dont want to pay if they can come up with a reason. How many AC replacements cost 10 grand?

I just had structural failure of the cabover where it connects to the F550 chassis roof. We were back east and had to make emergency repairs when the cabover separated and we were in heavy rain. We put tape on the seam to get home, mitigating water damage.
Got and estimate from repair shop, was sent to GS and it took them 10 seconds to deny paying for anything. Not even the repair for the damage to the gelcoat the tape caused when removing it after driving back to AZ.

The PO bought the ESP. Thank the maker.

I would never buy one of these. The manufacturer warranty is pretty good these days. Not so much in 2016. I even asked them to cancel my policy and prorate the proceeds as it expires in 1/22.

Pound sand young man. IMHO,..... yeah its a rip off.

Sincerely disgruntled 7 grand customer.

[chunker21]

I normally don't get an ESP for anything but in 2015 I did get a 2 year one house and chassis, GS version, for a 2007 Itasca Horizon DP. The coach was in great shape but I got no service records. The ESP was my insurance plan to cover an unknown issue. I did use it for some things but didn't spend in those 2 years what the ESP cost. Guess that's a good thing. At any rate after 2 years I had a track record for the coach and had serviced everything, so I "self-insured" from then on.