Going a little further, I believe the Platinum 0 deductible warranty that I found, and that has given some people reason to complain, is NOT a Toyota product.
In reading about the Toyota extended warranties, they appear to be very good. BUT, according to the site I used, they are not available except on brand new cars.
'Certified' cars may have a warranty, and it might be a good one, but is it underwritten by Toyota???
It is a shame that insurance/warranty terms have to be phrased in gobbledegook.
I can speak for Honda, and I suspect the situation is similar if not identical with Toyota.
Honda offers several levels of Hondacare factory extended warranty for new cars. No big deal. Then Lexus started the whole "certified pre-owned" thing, and that got Honda moving as well.
So what Honda does is this: if the car meets certain criteria (age and miles) and is traded in to a dealer, the dealer can offer it as "certified used" if they make any necessary repairs to bring it up to a certain spec. "Certified used" simply means that in those circumstances, Honda will allow the dealer to sell the factory Hondacare with the car.
If you see a Honda that's "certified used" and it has a price on it, that price includes the basic Hondacare extended warranty for such cars. The buyer then has options: he can decline the Hondacare, in which case the dealer drops that cost off the price. Or he can up the level of Hondacare, which will cost the buyer more.
This is how one gets a Honda "certified used" car. Please note that Honda will let you browse their web site to find certified used Hondas that meet your needs. Nice.
Also note that if you buy a Honda from your neighbor or from Joe's Used Cars, you can't walk into the Honda dealer and buy Hondacare for it. Only a Honda dealer can add Hondacare to a used car, and only under certain circumstances.
Does that mean that dealers, who are individual independent businesses, don't try to pull their own deals on the side? No. But it's easy to tell when you buy; simply ask. "Is this extended warranty underwritten by Honda/Toyota, or by a third party?"
I suspect that Toyota dealers have the same setup that Honda dealers have, and it's likely that a "certified used" Toyota is backed by a special form of the factory warranty unless the dealership is shady.
MOST of the 3rd party warranties are scams. They even go so far to name themselves such that you think you're getting the manufacturers warranty. I know first hand from a lawsuit that for certified cars the underwriter is TOYOTA. The lawyer tried to dismiss the case by claiming the wrong company was sued, I.E TOYOTA and not TOYOTA EC. that pissed the arbitator off :). Honda as explaied above works the same way in my area(Northern NJ/NY). They throw in the 6 yr/100k mile almost bumper to bumper warranty. I say amost because if the ashtray breaks or glovbox breaks that won't be covered. BUt almost everything from sensors to power antenaes are. From my experience and others I know that bought the warranty would never buy a car again without it. FYI. For TOYOTA you don'thave to buy from the dealer you purchased the car at. In fact you have 3 yrs/36000 miles to decide. I saw some dealer on tundra solutions selling them at around 850.00 for the platinum 0 ded.
6yr-100k mile warranty.. the piece of mind and resale value is worth the price IMHO.. If the price was 15-20 % of the car I would think diffferently. BUt 2-5 %, A good move IMHO. - Thanks to all for the input and well wishes.
WOW! Do you need any special warranty to replace transmission in a less than one year old car? I would expect a standard warranty would be enough for this.
It goes buy years/miles. He bought the car when it first came out. the original warranty ends @ 3yrs/36k miles whichever comes first. Well he hit the 45k first so the extended plan covered it.
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