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Don't Do This: Extended Warranty

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by bluewhale, Mar 31, 2011.

  1. danielleinaz

    danielleinaz New Member

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    love it!!:d
     
  2. danielleinaz

    danielleinaz New Member

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    Does anyone have the latest link or contact info for the person or company that sells cheaper exyended warranties?
     
  3. jamesa53

    jamesa53 New Member

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    There are no current special financing offers on the Prius in Texas now (April 2011). So maybe you did not do as badly as you think.
     
  4. vinnie97

    vinnie97 Whatever Works

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    Doh, I meant 2010 (April was the month they started offering 0% APR on the Prius and other models, perhaps all). ;)
     
  5. slickrick

    slickrick New Member

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    Thanks... this post has been quite helpful.
    I just bought a 2011 Prius (LOVE IT) and had similar experience that ‘danielleinaz’ had. I SWORE to myself that I'd never buy a warranty, from a finance guy, in the back room, have to do it now-hurry-hurry-hurry pants on fire, for a high quality car that doesn't need it, etc. but... I did. The good news is that I'm cancelling it tomorrow - as others have mentioned... there is 30 cancellation policy – he didn’t tell me this (or I don’t remember). I fortunately spent most of today doing the bills and reading the fine print on the contract after feeling some buyers remorse on the warranty/maintenance plan. (very glad I did… just saved myself over $1,000!!! – I think I’ll blow it on an ipad 2 once they are back in stock:).

    More info if you want a laugh - ok, maybe just a chuckeJ
    I reluctantly bought an extended warranty for my 2003 Honda Civic... I realized in the first year of ownership that the extended warranty was a mistake for a ‘good’ car like this so when I bought a 2004 Honda Odyssey I extended the finger to the finance guy and said NO to everything but... the Odyssey (which I still have and is a great vehicle) had all engine mounts break (ok, probably my fault), back vent windows stopped working altogether, sliding door power locks stopped working, passenger door window fell down into the door (don't ask what I have done to fix this... :)
    I had the 2003 Civic for 113,000 miles and there was 'nothing' ever wrong with it. I’ve had the 2004 Odyssey for 150,000 miles (and counting). After analyzing this further today with my wife we are pretty confident that even if we did buy the extended warranty for the 2004 Odyssey a bunch of the stuff that went wrong happened after 75,000 miles anyway and the warranty probably wouldn’t have done much for us.


    So… when the finance guy for the 2011 Prius recently cornered me for the Extended warranty / Maintenance plan I gave it some thought... he actually had a box on his desk about the size of a small book which was a computer for a car and had a story about how many thousands of $ it was to replace this, etc. Told a story that this wasn’t just one of those ‘warranty’ programs of days gone by… this was a ‘new fangled’ thing called a ‘maintenance’ plan which included things like oil changes, car batteries (1), wiper blades (1), etc. so it was really worth it…. Only $30 more per month on the payment… I caved it… he had me with the cost of the computer… I was thinking OMG, the Prius has a lot of technology in it, must be expensive to fix, etc. and I even questioned this saying to my wife (who was sitting next to me and was equally as perplexed as I was and had now told me that it was ‘my’ decision, lucky me) “hang on, Toyota make some of the most reliable / high quality cars in the world…why on earth do I need to ‘pre-pay’ for this crap!!!!”… but, I took one more look at that ‘expensive’ car computer on his desk and caved in after mentally calculating that I would at least recoup some of the $ by getting the oil changes even if I didn’t need the ‘insurance’ that the warranty component was covering.

    Bottom line… IMHO… if something big and evil is going to break it will likely happen during the basic 3yr/36,000 mile mfr warranty (read the warranty book you get with the car – the mfr warranty is much better than I had thought – it includes a lot the basic I mentioned above plus 96 mo / 100k miles for Hybrid system, 60 mo / 60k miles for powertrain, etc.).
    Don’t buy the extended warranty and by no means don’t prepay for any sort of scheduled maintenance (I later found out that Toyota is paying for 2 years of oil changes anyway).
    Just pay as you go and the odds are in your favor since you are buying a Toyota… you may not have to pay for anything big and evil… if you do… pay for it in 3 or 4 years from now when you have to.
     
  6. Judgeless

    Judgeless Senior Member

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    You will find many people on this forum that will argue this to death. They belive you should spend/waste the money.

    I am still shocked on how many people belive this and fall for the "it is a high tech car that will break".
     
  7. casualvic

    casualvic Junior Member

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    OMG!!!!! Im glad I read this thread.....I paid $2,224. for my Platinum coverage. I purchased my vehicle 14 April so I'm still good to go! Im going back tommorrow!!!! What scared me to get it was the electronics and mostly the battery!!
     
  8. Judgeless

    Judgeless Senior Member

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    If you look at the list of items not covered by the Platinum Protection Plan you will find these three on the list.

    Toyota Financial Services

    - Hybrid System Main Relays
    - Hybrid Vehicle Battery
    - Hybrid Vehicle Battery Module/Pack

    I have said it many times in this thread. If a dealers lips are moving they are lying. They lie to people and tell them if the battery dies it will be covered by the extended warranty. This is not true at all.

    If your battery dies you are covered under the 96 mo / 100k miles for Hybrid system. This comes with the car for FREE!!!!!

    I would print out that list of excluded items and ask them why they lied to you. Ask them why you would trust anything they tell you.
     
  9. casualvic

    casualvic Junior Member

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    lol!!!!!!! very glad I found this.....this finance guy has that pushy personality...I know hes going to fight this...oh well!