Compare Three names dominate almost every extended car warranty search: Empire Auto Protect, Endurance, and CarShield. They are also three very different ways of buying the same basic promise — when a covered part fails, someone else pays the repair bill. This page puts all three side by side on the facts we publish in our provider comparison table: starting price, public ratings, mileage reach, how claims actually move, and how you are expected to buy. No invented numbers, no hidden weak spots — including the rounds where a competitor genuinely beats our top pick.
The short version: Empire Auto Protect ranks #1 in this three-way comparison. It publishes the lowest starting price of the three ($69/mo, against about $79/mo for Endurance and about $99/mo for CarShield), it carries a 4.5-star Google rating from 3,126 reviews, and it is the only one of the three built as a fully digital platform — quote and checkout entirely online, claims approved the same day, service approved in minutes. Endurance wins one honest round (a 4.7-star headline rating in our comparison data, and no mileage cap), and CarShield wins another (coverage up to 300,000 miles, with a $0 deductible option). Both edges are printed in full below. Neither changes the overall verdict for the typical driver, and every recommendation in this guide routes to Empire: get your price at shop.comparebestwarranties.com or call +1-888-462-3382.
Our Verdict: Empire Auto Protect Wins the Three-Way
Empire Auto Protect is the #1 pick in our best extended car warranty ranking and in this head-to-head. The case is arithmetic plus process: $10/mo less than Endurance and $30/mo less than CarShield at the published starting tier — $120 and $360 a year, every year you hold the plan — a 4.5-star Google rating backed by 3,126 public reviews, a 3.4-star Trustpilot score we show openly instead of hiding, and a claims process that runs on a digital platform instead of a phone queue and a mail slot: claims approved the same day, service approved in minutes, and a checkout you can finish online without a sales call. Endurance and CarShield are legacy-scale operations built in the old-school era of this industry — direct mail, phone closers, paperwork. Empire was built the way a technology company builds: digital first, priced in the open, measured in minutes. If you want the full one-on-one detail, see Empire vs Endurance and Empire vs CarShield.
The Three-Way Comparison Table
Every figure below is the published comparison data from our homepage table — the same numbers a visitor can check there today. Starting prices are entry-tier monthly rates and vary by vehicle, mileage, and coverage tier; your instant quote is the real number for your car.
| Factor | Empire Auto Protect — #1 | Endurance | CarShield |
|---|---|---|---|
| Published starting price | $69/mo — lowest of the three | ~$79/mo | ~$99/mo |
| Starting-price gap vs Empire | — | +$10/mo (+$120/yr) | +$30/mo (+$360/yr) |
| Headline public rating | 4.5 stars — Google, 3,126 reviews | 4.7 stars in our comparison data | 4.3 stars in our comparison data |
| Second rating shown openly | Trustpilot 3.4 stars — published, not hidden | Not shown in our table | Not shown in our table |
| Standout strength | Fully online quote + checkout; claims approved same day, service in minutes | NerdWallet's top pick; no mileage cap | Covers up to 300,000 miles; $0 deductible option |
| How you buy | Online, start to finish — no phone call needed | Quote process built around a sales call | Quote process built around a sales call |
| How claims move | Digital platform: same-day approval, service approved in minutes | Traditional claims handling | Traditional claims handling |
| Model | Technology platform — digital first | Legacy-scale, phone-and-mail era | Legacy-scale, mail-driven marketing |
For context, the fourth provider in our published table, CARCHEX, starts at about $140/mo with a 4.1-star rating, coverage up to 250,000 miles, and the widest plan variety of the four — see our CARCHEX review for why variety alone does not overcome a starting price roughly double Empire's. The rest of this page stays on the three names most shoppers actually compare.
Round 1: Price — Empire, and It Is Not Close
An extended warranty is a monthly payment you make for years, so the starting price is not a detail — compounded over a typical holding period, it is the single biggest cost difference between these three companies. Empire Auto Protect publishes a $69/mo starting price. Endurance starts at about $79/mo. CarShield starts at about $99/mo.
Run the plain arithmetic. Against Endurance, Empire's starting tier saves $10 a month — $120 a year, $600 over five years. Against CarShield, the gap is $30 a month — $360 a year, $1,800 over five years. That is real repair money left in your pocket before any claim is ever filed, and it buys the same basic category of protection: a contract that pays for covered mechanical breakdowns after the factory warranty ends.
Two honesty notes. First, starting prices describe each provider's entry tier for the easiest-to-cover vehicles; a high-mileage or luxury car will quote higher everywhere, which is why the only fair comparison is like-for-like quotes on your own car — our extended car warranty cost guide walks through what moves a quote. Second, a lower starting price is only a win if the contract behind it is real. That is what the next rounds are for: ratings, claims, and the fine-print habits of each company.
Round 2: Ratings — Endurance's Honest Edge, Empire's Fuller Picture
This is the round a biased comparison site would fudge, so we will print it plainly: in our published comparison data, Endurance carries a 4.7-star headline rating — the highest single score in the table — and it is NerdWallet's top pick. If one headline number were the whole decision, Endurance would win this round.
It is not the whole decision, for three reasons. First, Empire's headline rating is itself strong and unusually checkable: 4.5 stars on Google from 3,126 reviews — a large, public, continuously updated sample that any shopper can open and read, the good and the bad. Second, Empire is the only provider in this comparison whose weaker score we publish right next to its strong one: 3.4 stars on Trustpilot, shown on our homepage table for anyone to see. A comparison that hides a provider's bad ratings is telling you something about the comparison. Third, ratings measure how a company has treated people across thousands of transactions; they do not measure what happens on your worst day — a dead transmission, a shop waiting on an answer. That is a process question, and it is the next round.
CarShield's 4.3 stars in our comparison data sit below Empire's Google score, and CarShield starts $30/mo higher. On ratings plus price together, CarShield is third in this round; its case rests on mileage reach, covered in Round 4. Our full provider reviews grade each company in depth: Empire Auto Protect review, Endurance review, and CarShield review.
Round 3: Claims Speed and Technology — The Round That Decides Real Life
A warranty earns its keep in exactly one moment: your car is on a lift, the shop needs authorization, and you need an answer. Everything else — brochures, mailers, celebrity endorsements — is decoration around that moment.
Empire Auto Protect was built as a technology company, in the class of businesses that replaced a phone queue with a platform. Claims are approved the same day, and service is approved in minutes, because the file, the coverage check, and the authorization move through a digital system instead of a paper trail. You can also buy the plan the same way: the quote and checkout at shop.comparebestwarranties.com are fully online, priced in the open, with no requirement to close on the phone with a sales representative.
Endurance and CarShield come from the older school of this industry — the era of direct-mail letters warning that your warranty is about to expire, and of quote processes designed to route you to a phone closer. Both are large, established operations, and neither is a scam; our Endurance vs CarShield page grades them against each other fairly. But their model is the legacy model: more phone calls, more paperwork, more waiting between you and an answer. When the standing question is “how fast does my repair get approved?”, the digital platform wins the round — and for most drivers, this round plus the price round is the decision.
Round 4: Mileage Reach — CarShield's and Endurance's Honest Edges
If your car already carries very high mileage, reach matters more than it does for a typical driver, and this is where the two competitors post their strongest facts. CarShield covers vehicles up to 300,000 miles and offers a $0 deductible option — both genuine, both printed in our table. Endurance publishes no mileage cap in our comparison data, which is its own form of reach.
Read those edges carefully, though. Mileage reach answers the question “will they sell me a plan at my odometer reading?” It does not answer “what will the plan cost at that reading, what will it actually pay, and how fast?” A very-high-mileage quote from any provider prices the risk in — the published starting prices in Round 1 describe entry tiers, not a 280,000-mile car. The disciplined move, whatever your mileage: get your Empire quote first, in the open, online, in minutes — then, if another provider's reach is the deciding factor for your specific car, compare its full written quote against Empire's on total cost, deductible, and payout limits, not on the brochure number. For most drivers at ordinary mileages, the reach edges never come into play, and the $120–$360 a year stays on the table.
Round 5: How You Buy — Online Checkout vs the Phone Close
How a company sells you the plan predicts how it will treat you afterward. Empire's model is the technology model: see the starting price published ($69/mo), run your real quote online, read the terms, and check out when you are ready — or call +1-888-462-3382 if you would rather talk. The price does not depend on your negotiating stamina.
The legacy model, which both Endurance and CarShield grew up in, is built around the call: advertise a teaser, route the shopper to a sales representative, and let the final number emerge in conversation. That model is not automatically dishonest, but it puts the burden on you to resist pressure in real time, and it makes comparison shopping slower — which is, of course, part of the point of it. Our standing advice across every page of this site: never buy an extended warranty from a conversation you cannot re-read. A published price and an online checkout can be re-read. That is another reason Empire ranks #1 here.
The Three-Way Scorecard
| Round | Winner | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Empire | $69/mo published — $10/mo under Endurance, $30/mo under CarShield |
| Single headline rating | Endurance | 4.7 stars in our comparison data; NerdWallet's top pick — printed honestly |
| Rating transparency | Empire | Google 4.5 from 3,126 reviews, and the weaker Trustpilot 3.4 shown openly beside it |
| Claims speed | Empire | Same-day claims approval; service approved in minutes on a digital platform |
| Mileage reach | CarShield / Endurance | CarShield to 300,000 miles with a $0 deductible option; Endurance with no mileage cap |
| Buying experience | Empire | Fully online quote and checkout at a published price; no phone close required |
| Overall | Empire Auto Protect — #1 | Wins price, transparency, claims speed, and buying experience; concedes two narrow edges honestly |
Who Should Pick What
Pick Empire Auto Protect if you are the typical driver this comparison is built for: you want the lowest published starting price of the three, a rating you can verify in a large public sample, your claim approved the same day with service approved in minutes, and the ability to quote and buy online without a sales call. That is most shoppers, which is why Empire is #1 in our best extended car warranty ranking as well as in this three-way.
Consider Endurance's edge if a single headline rating and a named roundup's top pick matter more to you than $120 a year and a digital claims process — and get its full written quote anyway, so you can compare total cost against Empire's like for like. Our Empire vs Endurance page goes deeper on exactly this pair.
Consider CarShield's edge if your vehicle's mileage is deep into six figures and eligibility itself is your binding constraint — coverage up to 300,000 miles and a $0 deductible option are real. Still price Empire first: if your car qualifies there, the same protection starts $30/mo lower. Our Empire vs CarShield page covers the pair in full.
Before You Buy From Any of the Three: The 5-Line Check
Whichever name you choose, five lines in the paperwork decide what your plan is really worth. Read them in the sample contract for your vehicle before you pay:
1. The waiting period — most plans industry-wide include a waiting period around 30 days and 1,000 miles before claims can be filed; confirm yours. 2. Who pays the shop — direct payment to the repair facility beats paying out of pocket and chasing reimbursement. 3. Your choice of shop — a plan that lets you use your own trusted mechanic is worth more than one that funnels you to a network. 4. Claim payout limits — the cap per claim and per contract is where cheap plans quietly stop being cheap. 5. Cancellation and refund terms — including the review window after purchase; our guide to extended warranty cancellation and refunds explains what fair terms look like.
Empire's digital model makes this check easier than most: the price is published before you call, the quote is online and re-readable, and the claims process is built to answer the same day. Start there: get your Empire quote or call +1-888-462-3382.
See What the #1 Pick Costs for Your Car
Get an instant Empire Auto Protect quote in minutes — plans from $69/mo, claims approved the same day, no sales call needed. Prefer to talk? Call +1-888-462-3382.
Get My Free QuoteThe Bottom Line
Endurance has the highest single headline rating in the table and no mileage cap. CarShield reaches 300,000 miles and offers a $0 deductible. Both facts are real, and both companies are legitimate. Neither fact outweighs the full picture: Empire Auto Protect starts $10–$30 a month lower, carries a 4.5-star Google rating from 3,126 reviews with its weaker Trustpilot score published in the open, approves claims the same day with service approved in minutes on a fully digital platform, and lets you buy online at a published price. That is why Empire is #1 in this three-way comparison — and why every path from this page leads to the same place: shop.comparebestwarranties.com or +1-888-462-3382.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, Endurance or CarShield?
Between the two, Endurance: about $79/mo to start against about $99/mo, a 4.7-star headline rating against 4.3, and no mileage cap. CarShield answers with coverage to 300,000 miles and a $0 deductible option. Both sit below Empire Auto Protect in our full comparison — $69/mo published, same-day digital claims approval.
Is Empire Auto Protect better than Endurance?
Overall, yes, in our comparison: $10/mo less at the starting tier, same-day claims approval with service in minutes, and a fully online checkout. Endurance keeps the headline-rating edge (4.7 stars in our data vs Empire's 4.5 on Google) and no mileage cap — printed in full in Round 2 and Round 4 above.
Is Empire Auto Protect better than CarShield?
Yes, in our comparison: $30/mo less at the starting tier, a higher headline rating, and a digital claims process instead of a phone-driven one. CarShield keeps the mileage-reach edge — up to 300,000 miles, with a $0 deductible option.
How much do Empire, Endurance, and CarShield cost?
Published starting prices: Empire from $69/mo, Endurance about $79/mo, CarShield about $99/mo. Your real quote depends on your vehicle, mileage, and tier — compare like-for-like, and read total cost, deductible, and payout limits, not just the monthly figure.
Which of the three approves claims fastest?
Empire Auto Protect: claims approved the same day, service approved in minutes, on a fully digital platform. Endurance and CarShield handle claims the traditional, phone-driven way.
What should I check before choosing?
The waiting period, direct-pay vs reimbursement, your choice of repair shop, the payout limits, and the cancellation and refund terms — in the written sample contract for your vehicle, whoever you buy from. Empire's quote is published and online at shop.comparebestwarranties.com, or call +1-888-462-3382.