Buying a Prius in CA for the warranty?

I don't think you'll have an easy time finding a car still under warranty for $7k. If you are lucky enough to find one in good condition, then it would be possible to register in CA to retain the warranty. However in AZ, you might get ticketed for not registering your car as a AZ car. In CA, you have only 10 days (I think) to register your car once you live in CA. You will get ticketed for driving an out of state registered car while living in CA

 

Well Toyota's rules today are:
The car must be purchased, registered and normally driven in a CARB state, and at time of repair, ditto.

But I do not think we have heard a case where someone was registered in CARB but lived in non-CARB and was refused, so that is uncharted territory.

Also if you go back to 2006 and I do not know when else, Toyota did not have those special rules stipulated like they do today. So I don't know if there is legal wiggle room. In fact Toyota even refuses to tell us exactly how their rules work, specifically because it may be different for different model years and other complexities. You are to some extent dealing with Toyota internal policy whereas Toyota is the judge on how it works in specific cases. So you could call and ask if the "normally driven" rule applies to the VIN number you purchase, or just take a chance.

See my review post: CARB Warranty Ins-and-Outs and In-Out-Ins

What seems to be clear is if you live, register, drive, purchase in full CARB state you are covered.
You are also covered if you move to another full CARB state. After that it gets fun.

 

Many of the examples on craigslist are salvage cars, which all warranty is voided. If you get one with 130k miles, your warranty would only be for another 20k miles....about 1 year left.

 

one thing to look at is the demand in cali keeps the prices high. can't you find something locally much cheaper, that would more than make up for the loss of warranty?

 

I guess both CA and AZ both have some of the highest car taxes, in fact AZ may be worse annual tax, whereas CA is probably higher sales tax at time of purchase. So registering in CA may be cheaper annual car tax.

 

To put it in perspective, FORD and GM simply say if your CARB-certified car is registered in CARB state, you are covered. Toyota has all the special rules because all Prii are CARB-certified, so Toyota wants to define which subset of Prii are qualified.

 

Toyota told me its OK if there is non-CARB ownership in the middle. This is the In-Out-In case.
But the first ownership must have been be CARB: purchased, registered and operated.
And the ownership at time of repair must be CARB registered and operated.

 

Well AZ is non-CARB so if you are registered in AZ you will pay for the repair.
If you are registered in CA and go to AZ dealership for CARB repair, that would be interesting phone call from dealer to Toyota HQ for ruling.

There is a recent legal case (we did not hear final outcome) CA guy moved to PA (semi-CARB no batt extension) and I think CA small claims court agreed with the car owner that Toyota should pay for the HV batt repair, but that was not agreed to by Toyota. It was a 2006 and if you look at the 2006 warranty guide it basically says California cars are covered without mention of the current disqualification verbiage (internal policy) Toyota has. So you will note each model year tends to change wording the warranty guide a little bit.

Note that Toyota likes to handle these cases one-on-one with the owner, so we do not always hear their logic, and often times Toyota helps a lot (eg; pays 50%).

 

For the Model Year 2011, Arizona was a CARB state with the 10 year/150,000 mile warranty, so a 2011 that either was origonally bought in CA or had always been in AZ would have the warranty. No other year, as the AZ legislature repealed the law.

The 2014 list of CARB States in the US | PriusChat

 

My interpretation would be a 2011 purchased in CARB AZ would probably only qualify in a CARB state.
Since AZ is no longer CARB, I am thinking not CARB covered in AZ, but if moved to CA then the CARB claim would be covered.

Note that virtually no 2011 batts have failed to date, so I suspect we have no real world cases to test how it works in this case.

This is exactly one of the "special case" questions I had for Toyota, but they told me they do not like to say how it works in these special cases.

 

Too much work and too complicated.

Almost better if you change your drivers license to the in-laws in CA as well, so the car could be registered in your name w/ a CA address. Also, insurance would have to be CA based too in in-laws name w/ you added as an additional driver or just you solo.

If your register the car in in-laws name, but still have an AZ drivers license, that will make an interesting warranty inquiry from the dealer to Toyota HQ.

Also, should you get in an accident, the police may have the car impounded b/c you are not the registered owner. Depending of course how you decide on registration.

 

The drivers license, registration, and insurance have to be in the state of residence. Holders of out of state licenses violate the law and there is a remote chance the car can be impounded and the license revoked. File an insurance claim and if the company discovers it they'll deny the claim and can prosecute for fraud. How much is all that worth?