Featured Conversations at a Toyota dealership

DCT? There might be an extended warranty on it; 7yr/100k mile.

 

To be truthful, of the three, my good friends (married couple) who had bought their used Escape three months before the transmission stopped working had also purchased a dealer warranty, and surprisingly the warranty company honored it and they only had to pay $1,000 for it. I doubt that the others had some sort of extended warranty.

The guy I work with whose transmission went out at just past 60k was furious as he said it was just past the warranty and as such he couldn't get the dealer to help at all with the fix. He said that it was going to cost more than what the car was worth, so he traded it in for a brand new Dodge.

 

I wasn't clear. Ford had extended the warranty on some of the Powershift DCTs. The dry clutch ones, but I didn't see anything stating what the Escape had.

 

I'm pretty sure they are the ones with the CVT option.

 

yes, it's called; 'i'm buying a hybrid to save money' syndrome

 

The gen3 Escape was the one that dropped the hybrid. Had a DCT or standard automatic.
Ford Escape - Wikipedia

 

Ya, I'm not sure which transmission they had to be honest. All I know is that there was no mention of an extended warranty that I know of.

 

My first dad was very good at evaluating and buying used cars, but passed away when I was too young to learn it from him. Second dad had many very good attributes, but used car buying skill was not among them. Spouse came with a problem-ridden used car. When we suddenly had two older cars simultaneously out of service or seriously limping, and lack of sufficient public transit commute coverage causing severe household stress, I chose to buy new vehicles, keeping the best old one as a spare. We have maintained 3 on a somewhat rotating plan ever since, and have never had a repeat of that stressful period.

I kept one for 23 years, replacing it while still very serviceable and low cost primarily from a desire to upgrade to modern safety standards, e.g. airbags and ABS and side-impact beams. Kept another for 17 years, replaced when accumulated repair needs greatly exceeded its value. And the one bought specifically for the spouse is now 35 years old, and still her 'daily driver', despite my pleadings to upgrade to the airbag & ABS era. Though finally beginning to ease out of that role the past few months.

Against that history, my Prius ownership was an anomaly: just 3 years for the first, then upgraded to another for 'just' 12 years, then early this year upgraded to a plug-in, despite no mechanical need for replacement.

I was raised in an agricultural setting, where 'income' was very infrequent and erratic, with no 'paycheck' expected for months on end, so savings discipline was an essential life skill. Mother, having once been a widowed housewife with three small kids and no paying job, just a couple life insurance settlements, passed along the skills she learned.

Whereas most household budget articles focus on weekly or monthly budgeting, I consider only two budget periods: annual, and remaining lifetime.