Extended Warranty and Other Options - Worth It???

I just got home from purchasing a brand new Toyota Tacoma! I'm totally stoked! Everyone at the dealership was incredibly friendly and helpful, and the entire process, though lengthy, went like a dream.

My only moments of anguish occured with the finance guy who was finalizing everything. At that point, he broke out all the optional stuff, such as the extended 7-year warranty, the maintenance package, perma-plate paint and interior fabric protection, and an alarm system. This stuff came to an additional $3000 -- nothing to sneeze at. My gut said no, so I told the guy I'd pass. He told me to sleep on it, and if I wanted to change my mind, I could before the paperwork gets sent to the finance company tomorrow morning. Is this additional stuff worth the extra expense?

-Fleemo

Reply to
fleemo17
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IMO, no.

Reply to
Ray O

Nope.

Almost end of story.

However if you can negotiate a cheap price on a zero deductible high mileage Toyota service agreement (find cheap prices on internet and get dealer to match them, make sure they are Toyota warranties) when you sell the car privately, having a transferable extended warranty makes the car easy to sell.

Reply to
Art

THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS?!?!?!?!!

The Alarm they use is about the least expensive Audiovox you can find ($59.95 retail), the 7 Year Warranty can be found on-line for $750, $800 with a Zero-deductable, the Paint Protection and Fabric protection, even at GOUGING prices is $600, and is nothing more than Pure Profit (the amount of material applied to your car comes to about $30, and the rest is 'Insurance' and profit!). If you are REAL hard on your vehicles, and use them for WORK the'paint protection' and 'fabric protection' be worth about $400 or less, because within 5 years, if any chemicals, bird doo or tree sap or oxidation ruin the paint, the 'Perma-Plate' company will pay to paint the truck. I never heard of them, we used Simonize; I think they will be around for a while to come. Also, a woman spilled about a quart of Ammonia in her Rav4; totally her fault, and Simonize paid to have a NEW carpet and padding installed in her car. In her case, she made out somewhat since even aftermarket replacement carpeting and padding is at least $250, and this was Genuine Toyota.

Other than that, have someone handy with an Volt Meter install the alarm, get some Scotch guard for the upholstery, Meguire's or other excellent grade Wax, and knock them down on the warranty.

When I bought my Scion a few weeks ago, I told him I found a 7-year,

100,000 mile warranty for $800, Zero deductible; he was offering 6 years, 60,000, $50 deductible for $1200 and when I asked him to match the price he flatly refused.
Reply to
Hachiroku

Thank you all for your input. I feel much better about my decision now. :)

-Fleemo

Reply to
fleemo17

Flat out NO!! Those paint and upholstery "packs" and crappy alarms are not worth anywhere near what they want for them.

The dealer was trying to make about another $2K profit off you - and to top it off, if they were arranging the financing they get a bigger commission kickback for writing a bigger loan.

Listen to Hachi, he was just there.

Any extended warranty *other* *than* the Toyota Corporate backed "Toyota Extra Care" isn't worth the paper it's printed on, these companies specialize in "Take the money and Run."

Read the fine print on some of these third-party policies, there is ALWAYS a way for them to make it a non-covered breakdown. Like it was "electrical related" - most all systems on modern cars have a tie-in to the electrical system now, thanks to computerization there are sensors and solenoids and valves everywhere.

The crooks set up a company and sell warranties for a few years, and pocket most of the dough. Then when the claims start coming in faster than their claims adjusters can figure out ways to deny them, they simply go out of business...

At least they do under that exact corporation name. ;-)

They already had another name, corporate shell and identity all prepared and ready to go, they started doing the final preparations a few months ago when they saw the claims trending up.

They just declare BK as "Company 1" on Friday morning and lock the doors. Change the name on the office door, the website, the stationery and the phone numbers over the weekend, send out new printed materials to the dealers (if they didn't do it in advance) and start up fresh on Monday morning as "Company 2" like nothing happened.

The dealers that use these warranty companies are in on the scam (because they got the new paperwork a day or two in advance of the BK) but they don't care - it's pure profit for them when they pay $400 wholesale for the policy and charge you $1,200 or more.

P.T. Barnum was right - There IS a sucker born every minute. Don't be him (or her).

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

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