Toyota Canada and the ECP

[pjberry]

Does anyone have any recommendations when it comes to the Toyota Canada Extended Care Plan (warranty)? My window of opportunity for purchasing it is closing. I can't see a good reason for purchacing one as the manufacturer's warranty seems sufficient.

Is this a waste of money?

Also, my mother-in-law works at the dealership and we've been offered their price on the warranty, which is ~30% less than the list price. But it is still a lot of money.

[JRMurray]

Consumer Reports has a good article about extended warranties: ConsumerReports.org - Extended warranties

Given that Consumer Reports reports that the Prius has an excellent reliability record (found here if you are a subscriber: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/c...s/overview.htm), this quotation from the article pretty sums things up: "The best course of action for most consumers is to buy a car that gets top reliability scores in our Vehicle Ratings (accessed by pulldown menus on major pages within the Cars area or through our interactive New Car Selector, available to subscribers), and you probably won't need an extended warranty."

By the way, I bought my Prius on April 8. I'm a Canadian and based on the above info, I elected not to purchase the extended warranty.

[Tideland Prius]

No idea. I have a 2005 registered in BC. It's past the basic warranty already.

[cybersurfer]

Hi there, I really hope I am not to late to give you some very good advice!

I recently was in a situation with cancellation of ECP with Toyota, and wanted to share with you, and the world for that matter how much of a rip off the ECP program is.

First and foremost, DO NOT cancel your ECP! It will be worth almost nothing, believe me! it would be worth more to leave it on your vehicle!!!!!

Here is my experience with the Toyota ECP Extended Warranty program, and why you should think twice about ever purchasing it.

I paid $1399.00 for my Toyota ECP Extended Warranty, for the 160,000 7 Year option. Now, Common sense would tell you that this is for an "extended period" after your normal factory warranty has lapsed right? well, sort of.

When it comes to cancelling your shiny Toyota ECP Warranty, due to something like a vehicle write off, you must keep in mind that the Toyota ECP Extended Warranty is PRO RATED. This means that even if you have NOT used your factory warranty yet, (in my case, the car was on the road 2 1/2 years, and had 89,000 KM's) which is a far cry from 5 yr/100,000 KM factory warranty!!) Your Cancelled Toyota ECP Extended Warranty refund will be based on how long your vehicle was on the road, and, how many KM's you put in the vehicle, EVEN IF THE FACTORY WARRANTY has not been used at this point.

Toyota ECP Extended Warranty has figured out a very clever way to rip you off, and give you NOTHING back in the event of a vehicle write off.

A call center representative from Toyota just called me this morning, to let me know my cancellation was processed, and, that I would be receiving $60.00!!! Wow - $60.00 thats a long ways from 1399.00 plus tax right?

Well, here is how they screw you:

Toyota ECP Extended Warranty offers the customer 4 free oil changes - "just for signing up" with the program. I suspect that the "pro rated" part starts ticking when you utilize even on of these free oil changes.

As well, the CSR that spoke to me this morning told me that I had used my warranty on the car, along time ago for the amount of $400.00. He was talking about the fact that the Brake booster in my shiny new 2006 Toyota Matrix had blew out, at 2000KM's on the vehicle, and, because it would take all weekend to fix this, my Toyota ECP Extended Warranty would provide me with a rent a car - FREE! YAY!

The CSR also stated that this factor alone - the fact that my brand new Toyota Matrix's brake booster had blown at 2000k, and that I was provided a rental vehicle for that weekend as such, was almost a deciding factor alone for the pro rated formula they protect as secretive - to start ticking back then!.

So, to sum things up, my investment with Toyota ECP Extended Warranty of 1399.00 Plus tax, resulted in costing me $1339.00 for 4 oil changes, and a rental car for a weekend.

Take my advice, the Toyota ECP Extended Warranty looks good initially, as its transferable to another person when you sell the car. Just keep in mind that if something happens to your car? like flooding, or accident? its going to make your Toyota ECP Extended Warranty worthless - so keep this in mind when thinking about buying it. I was warned by people that its not worth it, but did not listen - so I got screwed over by Toyota...

Something to consider as well, is that FORD does NOT use this crazy rip off pro rated thing when refunding a customer's extended Warranty - this means that if you did not use the factory warranty yet, you will get 100% of your extended warranties value back! So, if you really want to buy an extended warranty, I would really suggest you check out the fine print at Toyota ECP Extended Warranty before you buy, and also check out the fine print down at your local FORD dealership!

Pissed Off Ripped Off Never again a Toyota Customer