I know a number of contributors to this group have run the gamut of choice on extended warranties.
Which ones have been found to be most reliable and honest with their warranty honoring ?
We have a new 4 runner. The dealership offered $1200 for the full coverage to 7 years 90K miles, if the warranty is purchased concurrently, or shortly thereafter the purchase of the new car. ($1600 if not acquired relatively immediately) - for an extension to 7 years and 90K miles.
Is there any reason to assume that the dealership offer of an warranty that is more accepted or workable than an independent warranty provider ? (I assume that an extended warranty with one legitimate dealership would be honored at all dealerships.)
As of this point I have not found an actual better rate than the dealer's extended warranty, this subject I consider worth a revisit.
One seat motor for the driver's seat, dealer cost = $469 installation $130
Looks to me if a seat motor goes, the warranty has just about paid for itself...
You're rolling the dice. Twenty years ago, I would have said No, (that was before the dealer banged me $400 to replace a head gasket on a 1.6L 4A-GE engine with 13,000 miles on it!!!)
These days, with what I have seen from the cars coming from the US and Canada...$685 might be pretty cheap...
Look around. I found a dealer on-line offering a warranty for $750, 72,000 miles and 6 years, with NO deductible. Find it through Google, punch in your model, get a price and print it out. I bet your dealer will match it... For $100 more you can get 6 years and 100,000 miles, but these days even I don't need that.
Also, Toyota of Greenfield in Greenfield MA has been listed in the Web as being the least expensive source of Toyota genuine warranties.
Everything else I have found is much more expensive and/or covers less.
Read the fine print on EVERYTHING! There is one warranty, nationally available from Nissan, Ford or AC Delco (can't remember which) that covers a LOT! But it is pretty expensive.
All extended warranties are actually insurance policies, and are referred to as service contracts. The likelihood that your vehicle will need a repair that is more expensive than the cost of the service contract is not very high, otherwise, those companies would go out of business.
If you feel more comfortable with a service contract, your safest bet is always the manufacturer's branded service contract. In the case of Toyota, it is Toyota Extra Care. Toyota Extra Care is pretty good about paying claims. Some aftermarket ones exclude electronics, seals, gaskets, and failures caused by seal and gasket failure so read the fine print.
Only buy a manufacturers' service agreement. DOn't buy a 3rd party agreement. They will be gone when you need them. Check on line for prices. For a Honda Odessey zero deductible, 8 year 120k miles I paid around $1250. Dealer wanted more but matched the on line price I found. By the way, if you sell the car before service agreement is over you will probably get your money out of it.
Far better to simply bank YOUR OWN emergency fund. The ODDS are in favour of the insurer. That is how insurance works. People pay MORE in premiums than they collect in payouts. Period. End of Economics 101.
Bargain on that rate if it's the Toyota ExtraCare warranty (there's still a lot of profit for the dealership at that price), and run if it isn't.
You have to read the fine print - which they often won't give you until after you sign. I can guarantee that the aftermarket insurers are going to play games with you in the event of filing a claim, to reduce or eliminate the payout.
Imagine being in the middle of a two week vacation and your car dies three states from home. You tow it to the closest dealer and call the aftermarket warranty company, and are told that the insurer can't get an adjuster out to your location to inspect the car for two weeks or more, and it will take another week for them to make a decision and authorize the repairs...
And if anyone so much as touches the car to start diagnosing the problem and/or "disturbs the conditions at the time of the failure" by fixing it now, the insurer will deny the claim automatically.
What do you do? You give up on the claim, fix the car, pay the bill and drive it home. And that's EXACTLY what they're counting on.
And the companies that either set their rates too low, wrote too permissive a policy or didn't have aggressive enough claims adjusters figuring out ways to deny the claims DO go out of business, and fairly regularly. They write the policies, then go away while they still have the money in the bank.
Witness someone here moaning about how 'First Choice Warranty Services' and their "independent" reinsurer went bust at the same time a few months ago to skip out on claims that were eating into profits.
Toyota isn't running their own extended warranty program to make big bucks as much as to make sure you are happy with their products so you will buy them again, and again, and again... They aren't going to dissolve their extended warranty operations on a whim, or deny a valid claim.
And the aftermarket crooks are good at splitting hairs - they can "trace the origin" of almost any failure you can mention back to a non-covered part like the electronics, seals and gaskets, or fluid levels/loss, which allows them to deny many legit claims.
Well, loss of a house could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars down the tube. Even a transmission failure won't run over several thousand.dollars. Wealthy people tend to be their own insurers, to a point. They take THEIR money, invest it, keep the proceeds and use THAT money for any repairs. Rest assured, warranty companies work by paying out LESS money than they receive in premiums. Period.
Well, thanks, all. It is clear that only the Toyota dealer extended warranty should be acquired.
I see that there are statements that the extended warranty - to 7 years, etc. can be purchased anytime prior to the expiration of the 3 year original warranty.
The dealer, just yesterday, said that the good price would have to be purchased near the point of the purchase, and that the price would go up if purchased later.
Is it clear and broadly understood that the extended warranty can be purchased any time until the 3 year 36K mile point is reached, even if one has to pay more or go with a different dealer who won't raise the price, at least at much ?
Except that if you sell your car privately when it still has an extended warranty on it, the car will be easy to sell and you will probably make most of your money back on the service agreement in my experience.
My manufacturers raise the price if the car is over a certain mileage or more than 1 year old. Honda gives you a lousier agreement if the car is over a year old. Also prices go up once per year usually.
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