Buying Platinum Now or Wait?

I decided to wait because:

1. I don't think the price will go up signficantly, if at all. I believe that during the past 4 years, the 7yr/100k, $0 deductibe, Platinum Care warranty went up once: From $1650 to $1850 MSRP, and from $985 to $990 through PriusChat/Troy/WarrantyShack.com/Toyota of Greenfield. See link below for Toyota Financial Services website - current pricing plans:

https://www.toyotafinancial.com/con...ue&_pageLabel=pg_VSAPricing&carSelected=Prius

2. By waiting until the 3yr mark, I would have a better sense of the car's reliability and more importantly, how many miles I would be driving it. By having a better sense of my milege, this could affect what terms I choose to get the Platinum Care warranty, e.g., choosing fewer years and/or lower miles will significantly reduce the cost of the warranty ... could easily save another 2 or 3 hundred dollars.

3. As far as I know, the only or primary extra benefit of getting the extended warranty now or before the initial 3yrs/36k runs out is the roadside assistance that comes with the Platinum Care warranty. To me, this is not signficant enough incentive for me to get it now because (a) it's extremely unlikely that I will need roadside assistance during the first 3yrs/36k, and (b) I already have roadside assitance through my credit card and my auto insurance policy.

Anyways, good luck and congrats on your new Prius.

 

When you have the money burning a hole in your pocket buy the extended warranty.

 

I didn't buy it at all. For my reason, see Pat's signature above.

 

I'm with you there Daniel and I didn't buy the warranty either. I now have a faulty MFD but replacing or repairing it will cost me less than the warranty would have and the warranty I was offered wasn't a Toyota warranty.

I think if a person wants the additional peace of mind of extended warranty get it when ever you're ready.

PS, very dangerous to refer to a persons signiture, I could change it to something like
"Biggest piece of junk on the road" but you know I wont.

 

Extended warranties are heavily stacked in favor of the company -- and represents a dead loss to the consumer in the vast majority of cases. It is generally a bad idea to buy an extended warranty for anything. By the way, check your telephone bill and see if you are paying optional insurance for your inside telephone wiring. A total ripoff.

 

Yes and Car, Life, Health, and Homeowners Insurance is a ripoff and sucks, but when you don't have it and something happens guess what Sucks even more.

 

Very bad analogy -- car insurance is principally for the protection of other people -- not you. The same is true for life insurance. Car accidents cause costs that often cannot be afforded without insurance. Similarly, life insurance is for the protection of someone else who may not have the means to live without it. Those same principles apply to homeowner's insurance and health insurance. This is very different from an extended warranty that is highly unlikely to cost less than the expense of future repairs to one of the most reliable cars in the world. And take a look at the fine print to see what is excluded.

So the bottom line is --- buy insurance only when necessary to protect yourself from a catastrophe -- don't buy it as a gamble that it may pay off because the odds of it paying off are heavily stacked against you. There is often more profit in extended warranties than in the original product.

 

You miss the point with my post, I don't buy extended warranties at all for anything not even my flat panel TV because the chances of it paying anything for me is less then 10 % period, let alone covering the full price I paid. My point is that your same philosophy of it being stacked heavily for the warranty company also applies to insurance companies. I work for one and I can tell you they are very profitable and love to brag about it to the shareholders. They don't make record profits year over year without it being stacked in their favor. And you are wrong the primary reason to get any insurance is for your benefit including car insurance the last thing you want to do is get sued for $100,000 because you knocked some guys Beemer into the ditch and gave him a sore neck and you didn't have insurance.

 

Normally I wouln't go into the debate of whether or not to get the Toyota extended warranty as it has been covered repeatedly ad nauseum in this forum. But since the issue was raised in this thread ... :

1. Of course the insurance company and car dealerships generally make money on their entire portfolio of insurance/warranty policies. Or else they wouldn't sell them. But that's what insurance is. It spreads and manages catestrophic or significant downside risk for the individual policyholder.

2. Most extended warranties are not worth it, especially extended warranties for electronics and appliances. The cost/risk/benefit analysis for the individual policyholder rarely makes sense.

3. Extended warranties for cars are different. The cost/risk/benefit analysis for the individual policyholder frequently makes sense. The cost of getting repairs at a dealership without a warranty is HUGE -- parts and labor cost a lot more. One minor repair out of warranty can and oftentimes does cost more than the premium for an extended warranty.

4. Yes Toyotas in general, and the Prius in particular, are practically bulletproof. But I submit that the achilles heel of any car is the car's electrical system and corresponding electronics. Check out Consumer Reports for the historical frequency of repair of Toyotas and Prius. You'll see lots and lots of full and half-full green circles indicating that the car's reliability is good or excellent for those categories. But if you see black full or half-full circles anywhere, it will usually be for the car's electrical system indicating that the frequency of repair is below or worse than average for the car. The Prius is no exception. In fact, the only time you see black full or half-full circles for the Prius is for its electrical system. Not that it's terrible or much worse than average. But it's generally at best average, which indicates its vulnerability. With the amount of electronics in the Prius, and the high cost of repairing electronics, the electrical system is a real area of concern for the Prius.

5. As I said, generally insurance policies and extended warranties make money for the car manufacturer and dealership, or else they wouldn't sell them. But here's a theory of mine:

At $1850 MSRP, Toyota and dealerships generally make money on the Platinum Care 7yr/100k/$0 deductible extended warranty. At $1850, I as the individual buyer, will have to think about getting the extended warranty. But I submit that at $990, Toyota and dealerships generally would make very little, if any, money on the extended warranty. If I were to buy the extended warranty at $990, my bet is that it will instantly be the insurance policy that is most likely to return its premium cost. And at $990, the extended warranty is at minimum an excellent insurance policy/hedge for the consumer to buy.

 

This is in response to an email that I sent to Neil Hull regarding this issue. I got his name and contact information from another web site.

Thanks for the email and I want to earn your business.
All of our plans come from Toyota Financial Services. (TFS)
They are Platinum plans with no taxes or hidden fees.

We are a Toyota dealership in Kansas City , MO. Molle Toyota.
Molle Toyota is one of the top twelve Toyota dealerships in the U.S.
www.molletoyota.com

I also have a website called www.toyotawarranty.com

The plans are good at any Toyota dealership in the U.S. or Canada .

The flavors for your Toyota are as listed.
7 years, 100K, 0 deductible (7/100/0) $975.00
7/75/0 $645.00
6/100/0 $825.00
6/75/0 $540.00

Our Prepaid maintenance plans are $875.00 unless you have the Tundra. The plan for the Tundra is $975.00.

To move forward I will need the following information:

Name

Address

Phone and Fax # is available

Name Car is titled under

Year, Make, Model of vehicle

VIN #

Mileage

In service date (Date vehicle was purchased)


Once I have this information I can submit the plan to Toyota Financial Services (TFS). Once I have the agreement from them, I can call you and get payment to make the plan effective that day.

I will then mail you the original agreement from TFS and receipt of the payment. The extended care package would then arrive from TFS within a couple weeks with all the plan info and paperwork.

In rare cases it can take 30 days to get the paperwork, but there is a 1 800 number you can contact if you should need the service before you got your package from TFS.

Thanks and have a great day.

Neil Hull CIO
Molle Automotive Group
816 942 5200 Ext 139
785 217 3212 Cell
[email protected]
DAV USMC

 

I don't think any of us disagree all that much. All insurance is stacked against the consumer and it's never a wise financial move in terms of odds of winning. I completely agree that liability protection is wise because you can get wiped out if you get sued -- it's also required by law. But extended warranties have nothing to do with socializing the cost as liability and health insurance does. It is also very different from averting a catastrophic loss as in the case of collision insurance on a new car. Rather, an extended warranty is nothing but a gamble that the cost will be less than an avoided repair expense. That gamble is one you will probably lose -- so why do it?

 

At this point I'm in the wait mode, and may consider an extended "warranty" depending on performance in the initial three year factory warranty period.

The latest Consumers Report mag has a good article on extended service plans. Althought their remarks are general, only a small percentage of people actually come out financially ahead on a contract. In short, they say an extended warranty will only pay off if you have to buy a car with a poor reliability rating.