safety, disconnect the traction battery

Sonjain, could you please post the exact details of what this "capped plan" cost and covers. I'd be interested to see the details, how much you paid upfront and how much (if any) extras you pay per service.

 

Sonjain,

Again, please take this with a grain of salt.

If I am understanding the definitions above concerning your "extended service plan", it really looks to me like they took major advantage of you.

I do not see any mention of major items such as engine, transmission/transaxle, as well as other rather expensive items that are normally covered on service plans and or extended warranties. The only things I see are basic services and nothing else.

A standard service would include all of the above with the exception of the service of the brakes and usually would cost a fee of approximately 50 to 75 dollars on a average depending on location. Brake cleaning and inspection usually runs about 75 per axle and is normally done only once every year or two depending on how the vehicle is used.

On a 39 month basis if you had the car serviced every 6 months that would work out to 6 services in 36 months for that $1000 amount. If you divide 1000 by 6 the amount comes out to 166.67 on a average per service. I believe those figures are excessive for the amount of service the plan provides. It seems to me that you would be better off simply following the manufacturers service recommendations rather than this plan that the dealer sold you. I have been maintaining our Prius since we bought it over three years ago. I have spent far less than 1000 dollars for the maintenance which mainly consists of oil changes and tire rotation which is done every six months or 5000 miles which ever comes first. I change the air filter and wiper blades once a year. I clean the cabin filter out monthly. All of the rest of the stuff is simple inspections and most of that can be done by yourself or any competent mechanic for a lot less than what you paid.

As I stated in my previous post to you, in my opinion you are being taken advantage of by the dealer you are doing business with. It is obvious that they have lied to you and that they are only interested in profit. I strongly suggest you find another mechanic to do business with and stop going to this dealer.

Ron (dorunron)

 

Hi Ron, let me clarify how that extended warranty works. That $1000 was an upfront cost for the warranty itself, it doesn't include the service costs.

The service costs ($290+ per 6 months/6k miles) must be payed separately, and the service plan is tied in with the warranty (in the sense that you must use their service plan or you void the warranty). It's very clever marketing. Servicing costs are quite high here in Australia so they actually use the $290 "fixed" price servicing as a selling point to get you to pay the additional $1000 upfront (for the warranty).

Now that list of things you referred to is not the list of things covered by the warranty, it's just the list of things covered by the basic $290 service. But if you look at that list you'll see it's basically just an oil change. It's pretty well known here that, apart from changing the oil, this level of service is just an extremely cursory look over and ticking some boxes. This is why Sonjain mentions that her services are actually costing more (some possibly significantly more) than $290, due to other items like coolant and other fluids, air and fuel filters etc.

So yes, this type of extended warranty on second hand cars in Australia is incredibly lucrative for the dealers. My dealer actually gave me (no $1000 upfront payment needed) a warranty similar to this (with "captive" service plan) when I bought my Prius in 2009. After the first $660 "oil change" I read the fine print and threw that warranty in the garbage bin (yes literally!). Luckily I then found these forums and have done my own maintenance ever since. No exaggeration, that has probably saved me at least $4000 over the last three and a half years.