Just mailed letters to cancel my extended warranty and add-ons.
 

So I picked up my 2015 FR-S a week ago, January 24, 2015 in one of my favorite colors, red. I have been thoroughly enjoying it.

I was unfortunately sold overpriced warranties IMO:

• 7 yr/100k, $0 deductible extended warranty, administered by Fidelity Warranty Services - $2613
• 6 year, Tire Roation/Oil Change at every 10k miles, administered by Consumer Program Administrators- $390
• Dent Protection, 5 years, administered by DZAF, Inc. - $439 after some research, paintless dent remover companies in my area charge $50-$100 for up to 5 dents on a panel.
• Road Hazard, covers rims, stock tires, and replacement tires, 5 year, administered by Safe-Guard Products International - $429
• Gap, administered by Safe-Guard Products International - $799, ....... My insurance actually has a gap like program, loan/lease payoff, covers 25% of the total of the vehicle in the event of a total loss. This is $11 on my monthly insurance.

Total = $4670

The finance person spun it like this, "How would you like to have your same monthly payment and have all these wonderful warranties?" He never mentioned how much each of these were. This is an error on my part in hindsight for not being diligent. Basically he lowered my APR, and extended my loan to make it the same price after including these add on warranties. Started at:

• it started at 72/mo at $414, 5.9% apr
• with gap he said it was 72/mo $463 at 5.9 apr..... after doing some number crunching during the week the jump from adding $799 bucks worth of Gap did not add up to what would be a $463 payment at 5.9%apr.
• with the extra warranties mentioned above, he finally mentioned 75/mo $463 at 4.9% apr!

I took it, and in turn added $4670 to my principal balance. He used some very unscrupulous tactics. I voiced my concern to him later in the week and he said (paraphrasing), "Alright, we can take them off, no problem. We just have to wait 45 days so your first payment can get to the bank." This made me scratch my head, because all of my contracts state I can cancel anytime, and before 30 days it's a full refund of the price. I was told by others this is so he doesn't lose his commission.

Furthermore, in hindsight, I probably should have gotten pre-approved at a credit union before hand. My apr would have been lower per the finance person if I decided to finance by myself instead of adding my spouse who didn't have a credit history, she pays everything in cash or debit, but we decided we wanted to build her credit for future purposes.

I'm currently shopping around for reasonably priced extended warranties, hoping to pick one up before the 36k/3yr warranty expires and/or simply deposit the money I would spend for a warranty into savings or a good interest bearing account.

I also mentioned to him that I've been doing research on different warranty prices at different Toyota/Scion dealers, and I said that many dealers offer comparable warranty coverage for less than half the price. The finance person also said (paraphrasing), "Don't listen to them. They are lying. All warranty prices are state regulated and are all the same price across dealers." This put up a red flag in my head.

After some research and help I found this - http://www.myfloridacfo.com/division...m#.VMvV_2h4reE In Florida, warranty prices are not state regulated.

I mailed my cancellation letters this weekend for all my warranties. I think two of the five I may be receiving further instructions, the GAP and the 7yr/100k warranty.

I was so stressed this entire week regarding these warranties, and I think I made the right call for myself.

Otherwise, I love the car. There have been some issues that have been bugging me, minor - hard to shift from 1st to 2nd after cold starts. I'm learning more on how to remedy this. Today, I'm getting this clicking noise while braking in neutral which is odd. I'm trying to do more research on that.

Cancel it, must delear will not cover warranties. The time you cross the door
and say "something wrong, its broken etc" the tech/manager will says you did it.
So why waste money on it?

Whoas! my extended warranty was only $1200.00. Hope everything works out for you.

I let the finance guy sweet talk me too... then I was like "I'm going to mod the hell out of this ride" so I'm not going to need this. If I cause an issue I'll fix it myself. I canceled mine within a week!

However, money was applied toward my loan...that's all the finance guy said he could do... I was okay with that though.

projekt zeal86 build

holy :confused0068: oil change every 10k.. they want you to blow your motor or what? 7500k under is what recommended to change oil.. i do mine under 7k..

omg someone correct me if im wrong :bonk:

The hard shift is due to today's performance oriented gearboxes having such tight tolerances. It's completely normal- don't worry. Here's a tip for when your gearbox is cold: when starting out, hold the gear in first a little longer to get some heat and oil though the synchros for second

You made the right call about canceling that warranty suite. What a bunch of garbage.
And this is an opinion, but extended warranties are near worthless if one doesn't factor in "peace of mind". Recent studies show that upwards of 90% of those types of extended auto warranties do not pay out more than the cost of the warranty.

Basically the same shit happened to me, same situation as yours. I went back the next day wanting to cancel my extended warranty and he then proceeded to tell me my APR % will go back up to what was originally discussed about the day before, I said fine, I don't care, take it off.

So he did, now my APR % was back at what it was originally at before he tried offering me stuffs to lower it down.... BUT guess what, within a few weeks later. I received an email from TD finance, the company I'm paying my monthly to said I'm automatically qualified for a lower APR % to exactly the same what the finance person offered me before, BUT only if I buy their add-ons.

So basically, the finance guy already knew in the first place my APR % would go down because I'm 100% sure he knew the workaround of this so then he would minipulate his sales tactic into thinking your APR % can only go down if you buy their add-ons shit.

Fuck you Toyota of Torrance !

That's awesome. Good for you! I think that's nice that the finance guy you dealt with let you do the cancellation right away. When I talked to him, it was over the phone and he said it's a no can do before your first monthly payment. The bank won't allow it. I'm like what in the world? That's also good that you got your original apr!

Anyways, I'm going to call the warranty administrators in a week to see if they all got my cancellation letters. If they did, I think I'm going to drop by the dealership to let the finance person know I'm going through the motions of the cancellation process before that 45 day mark he mentioned. He may get mad, I'm not sure. I am told that doing it early like this affects commissions.

Like I said in my original post, I think I have to go back to get some signatures for some of the contracts for cancellation, so I'm not trying to be too rude about it.

Begin rant....

I wish the finance person was just straight up with me and told me the truth or gave me all the facts, but I guess that was an error on me due to my ignorance and attention to detail. Anyways, as time goes on, I keep uncovering his lies, half truths, and truth omissions. It's ridiculous! I just wanted to buy a car for a fair price with no BS.

I wish it was, here is the price of the car, here is the price of optional warranties line by line, here is the price of accessories..., here is the math and tables for all these combinations, including a loan amortization table. I digress. Weirdly enough, when an ex-girlfriend bought her Lexus and shopped BMW's and luxury brands she got better treatment and all that information I mentioned up front.

I know finance people and salespeople of these dealerships have to make money and eat and all that jazz, but I feel like there is a lack of accountability, oversight, idk... and then unsuspecting customers get shirked. These things becomes a strain when I could have just been enjoying the new car.

Also, You know what also grinds my gears, I believe in a system where competition from other dealers should drive down prices. I asked over the phone for their maintenance prices to shop around. The scheduler said she doesn't give that information over the phone. I was like. You've got to be kidding me. I got this experience from a few local dealers over the phone. When I lived in my old city, that information was readily available over the phone.

Sorry, ...end rant.

Yeah, it's unfortunate that finance people at dealerships are sales people instead of trying to save their customers money.

I got the same sales pitch and basically just said I'm not interested in any of it, you're only wasting your time.

Best of luck. Yeah, fuck the finance guy, all he's doing is trying to make comission off you. When the finance guy was rewriting my contract, you can tell he had a mad frown while I told him to take that shit off.

Gap isn't offered by insurance companies like finance companies do. Whether you finance in-house or through a bank, they offer gap to you for a reason, and it's not to line their pockets. In the event of a total loss accident, insurance companies will cover 100% (some will cover even less) of the current worth of the car. If you happen to owe more than what the car's worth, gap will cover the rest.


Non-synthetic oil = 5k
Synthetic oil = 10k

It used to be every 3k back in the day, but now it's longer.

Check-ups are every 5k with the major ones being at 30k intervals.

Info from a service advisor.

I personally think the extended service is worth it. It has nothing to do with whether or not your car is modded and it's not a warranty.

Extended warranties in the other hand... Pointless when you're modding and more than likely will void them.

Isn't that exactly what GAP insurance sold by insurance companies is?

Sorry. Yes. The pizza and hotwings are making me really tired and therefore my brain is not running at 100%. What I was trying to point out is gap is actually really important. The difference is you either pay for it now in full or you pay it over time with whatever company you go with. Just make sure you find out exactly to what extent they cover.

These things will continue to happen as long as people out there still fall for what the salespeople tell them (sorry, but that is forever probably). Everyone in this thread is smart enough to see why these extended warranties and such are not good for the customer, even if it wasn't while in the dealership. A "good" salesperson makes people believe they are getting a deal whether they are or not. If they didn't they wouldn't make as many sales, and wouldn't be "good." It makes more money, so they wont be held accountable for it. Most people drive off the lot, start paying their payment, and don't think twice about the extras they were talked in to in the price.

I also got the idea that the people at the dealership I went to didn't actually know all of the details about what they were trying to sell me anyway. They told me that VSC sport would hold my car flatter in the corners. So, they may not be able to be upfront with you if they don't actually know what they are talking about in the first place. :bonk:

In my dealership, the warranties and "add-ons" are actually done by the finance side. The sales consultants have no stake on that area. We can only offer what we think will benefit the customer, such as extended maintenance, gap, rust proofing, etc. Whether or not the customer purchases them doesn't impact the sales consultants' income.

It may be different in some other dealerships. I know it's completely different with third party car sales establishments.


This is sad, but true. Again, at my dealership, they train us to be honest and tell the customer we don't know if we truly don't know. Unfortunately, I've learned that most of the sales consultants I work with either don't know the Scion process for sales or ignores it, possibly due to the fact that they don't believe in it, let alone the brand. (ie: "We don't have the specific one you're looking for, but here's an alternative." instead of "We don't have the specific one you're looking for, so let's order you exactly what you want.") They don't realize what they're doing is actually the majority of the reason Scion is a dying brand.

This is how you respond to Finance guys:

No
No,
Thank you, no
Don't need that
Don't want that
Why would anyone buy that..?
Not necessary
I said NO - can we wrap this up?

Buy the Toyota extended warranty if you must buy one. Factory extended warranties are negotiable on price and Toyota isn't going anywhere.

There is no such thing as a good interest bearing account at this time. Buy rubles and wait on them to go back up in a year.

Lesson learned. I learned this lesson too when I was younger.

Now I go into finance with an unannounced credit preapproval (dont let anyone know you have it until you walk into finance, surprise is the best approach as they dont have time to try and screw you another way) and immediately tell the finance guy I'm not buying shit and hes going to waste his breath then pull out my phone and start playing games on it until he shuts up.

I've found that there is no way to get a finance guy to completely shut the hell up but the quickest way to get his real attention is to slap down the pre approved credit letter from a bank.

He will immediately practically panic and do whatever it takes to beat the APR on that letter so you will finance with him. Otherwise he loses everything and makes no $$$.

I will stress and repeat this one last time PRE APPROVED FINANCE LETTER is the ultimate bargaining chip when dealing with finance guys.

They will do all kinds of crazy shit to get you to finance with them. My FR-S came with free maintenance but when I pulled this on my wifes Lexus I got them to give me free window tint, lug locks, cargo mats and nets, and to soundly beat the APR on my letter.

I have a similar situation. I got my BRZ this past friday. My original monthly rate was 433 per month for 72 months at 2.9%APR. When i was singing contracts, the financial manager ask me if i wanted to get a extended warranty. The warranty covered for 6 years, also cover rims and tires. The price he gave me was 477 per month for 72 month and being the BRZ my first new car i bought, i took it.

Now looking over at the contract, i'll be paying 47$ extras per month for 72 months, thats $3384!.. Im not sure if i did the right move with the warranty, subarus are pretty reliable.

Can i still remove the warrantly from my contract and go back to my initial $430 payment? would the dealer let me??

Thanks

How are you guys paying so much!? my payments are $289/mo @ 72mo (62 remaining) and 2.69% interest. I paid $800 for ALL of my add-ons (Gap, 7yr/100k warranty, dent & paint, ect) total and that's just what you guys are quoting for GAP.

Car is mine and total "out the door" cost was $21,151 at time of purchase.

Mine was about 31K with nj taxes/registration. Price for the car only was 28.5k

That made me cringe until I saw you have a series.blue.
I have a "base" no monogram, 10series, series blue, no RS1.0... Just me, the Asphalt car, and the Asphalt I driver her on.

Did you buy used? or are you saying that Toyota/Scion sold you a car @ 7k under msrp?

"used" with 2300 miles on the clock when I bought it. I bought begining of march (03/06/14) and bought a 2013. But I still haggled and talked them down from the 25,500 they wanted, and haggled down the cost of the GAP and extended warranty and services.

Well its kind of apples and oranges. Since with pure pricing and new vehicles is a totally different negotiation.

But thanks for your contribution.

The finance department can care less if you have a pre-approval or not. It takes a quick phone call to your bank to tell them you were also getting warranty and other add-ons. In my dealership, all you're doing is wasting everyone's time, including your own, not informing us you have a pre-approval. Why? Well, the front end (sales) has paperwork to fill out to submit to financing. One of those paperworks is a credit app and/or a pre-approval letter. Hiding the fact you're already pre-approved only gave you 15-45 minutes to twiddle your thumbs (play games on your phone in your case) and wait until finance is ready for you because they're busy calling banks to get you the best rate, then another 15 minutes wasted for them to redo the paperwork right in front of you. It doesn't prevent them to try and sell you warranty and other add-ons.

Guess every dealership is different then.

My last 3 sales have never forced me to get pre approval from front end sales.
Front end sales has jack to do with financing. Sure they want to get that info so they can try and work you over but they DO NOT HAVE TO HAVE IT.
I always tell front end I am here to negotiate the price of the vehicle and nothing else.

Also I've not experienced finance having to "call banks" in years. In fact they put my info in on their computer screen and have instant results.
How do I know?
Cause I've had them show me actual the screen with the rates and banks displayed.

But this is my experience, others mileage may vary. It also helps to know how a dealership really works and know when you are getting a line of bs.

Interesting. Based on what you've written, it sounds like your dealership just submits to TFS (Toyota Financial Services) and nowhere else, which is all digital. Mine works with local banks and out of state banks. They make calls (and I have sat there and watched our finance guys do it) to push the bank reps into giving our customers better rates if the rates the banks are giving are higher than what we had offered to shoot for at the front end.

The reason my dealership's front end delves a bit into that is because some of the customers are concerned about their monthly payments. For example, with a pre-approval of 3.49% and the price of an FR-S at $28k, payments would be around $500 a month with $0 down. To some people, that's shocking to know, but the banks will never really tell you that because they just say, "approved for 100% MSRP" or some other vague statement. We'd rather be transparent and show the customers what kind of payments they'd be looking at in the front end, whether or not they have a pre-approval, before wasting anyone's time to get them to the back end. I won't even delve into what the customer may think if, with the lack of transparency from them about the pre-approval, the interest rate we offer is either higher or lower than their pre-approval. So, at least for my dealership, hiding the fact you have a pre-approval just hinders the process we created to streamline your purchasing experience.

One page my dealership learned from Scion and implemented for all our customers' purchase experience is this. Scion trains us to make the purchasing experience as quick and easy as possible. That's what the Pure Pricing and Pure Process is all about. No games, no lack of transparency from our side, no hassle.

"This is the build you want? You like the price you see at time of build? Are you paying in full or financing? Financing? Okay. Are you comfortable with the payments? Please sign this build form, this form that I showed you about the cost with DMV fees and the payments you're looking at on this vehicle, accessories form, and extended warranty/maintenance form, saying you don't want any further things from these lists, and we'll get it ordered."

"Here's your build. Everything still good, numbers look good, etc? Awesome. We'll just fill out some forms real quick, then get you through financing. Just FYI, our finance guys will go over the availability of the extended warranty/maintenance with you to ensure you are satisfied with your choices."

You certainly wouldn't want your time wasted and we feel the same way. Not only do we test drive with you, go through the numbers with you (which may take a bit to problem solve our way into reaching the numbers you'd be comfortable with), but we also run around, setting your radio stations, gassing up (full tank) your newly purchased vehicle and having it detailed to near-showroom quality while you're in finance, but we spend another 15-45 minutes (depends on how quick of a learner you are and how familiar you already are with our vehicles) after you get out of finance to show you every little thing about your car, including connecting your phone to the head unit via bluetooth and helping you download Aha and setting that up if necessary. The faster we get you from start to finish, not only the sooner we get to be in front of another customer, but the less time you "waste." After all, we're paid in commission, but for those of us who do care about our customers and want to earn their repeat business, we ensure everything we do not only meets the Scion standards, but keeps the customer satisfied and happy when they leave our lot.

You folks know that story about getting a lower APR if you do this or that is a complete lie don't you?

You get approved at whatever rate based on your credit score, that's all. If the dealer offers 1.9% as a special and your credit is the highest it can be, there is no reason why you wouldn't qualify for it. If they offer 1.9% and you get pre-approved at 3.0% at your bank of choice, they'll offer to beat it and come back with 2.9% for example without telling you that you actually qualified for the lowest 1.9%. That's when the bullshit about buying extra garbage comes in.


Come on now, even if you rounded down to $40 and multiplied by 10 then again by 7, a child could do this and see the warranty was going to be over $3000. Or, why didn't you pull out your phone and use the calculator?

Yes, of course you can cancel it. That's what this entire thread has been talking about since the start of it.
.
.
.
Anytime someone buys anything expensive they should know exactly what it's going to cost them before they even set foot out the door of their home. You check insurance rates too, so you don't find out after you bought the car that the insurance is going to be equal to the monthly car note. You also research tire size and replacement costs. You plan ahead, not after.

I completely understand and see your side of the story and that approach does work for lots of customers shopping for cars especially the one who are really shopping for something they can't (or can barely afford).


But as someone who has had family members in dealerships I learned the sales man payment questions is the first and best trick in the book. Telling the sales man what you want your payment to be is often how they make their most money as they will find a way to get your payment to you.


I have been taught to know what you are buying is worth, know you can afford what you are buying, and negotiate price not payment as that is secondary.

Huntington Beach Toyota was dishonest with me, too, in various ways.

And when I told the finance guy I wasn't going to buy the extended warranty his friendly, talkative demeanor suddenly changed to the opposite.


Don't trust anything a dealer or finance person tells you. Unless it's in writing its meaningless.


According to Consumer Reports less than 10% of the money you pay for warranties is actually set aside for payouts / repairs. The rest is all profit for the various companies.

This has been a great discussion thread.

I wanted to give you all an update


1) Gap is cancelled - $800, getting it through my auto insurance.

2) Extended warranty, 7yr/100k - $2631 - cancellation is sitting in que per customer service rep, I sent my cancellation letter via email and snail mail to the administrator.

3) Dent Protection Warranty - $439 - cancellation is processing. The customer service rep told me to call back in a few hours to check on it.

4) Tire and Wheel Road Hazard - $429 - Cancellation sent to administrator who did their part then forwarded the paperwork to the dealer.... dealer said they lost the paperwork and said my handwritten letter didn't say 'I want to cancel.' I mean come on, really? Funny thing, I made copies of my letter for this warranty it says, "I would like to cancel my agreement" I'm faxing another handwritten copy to the administrator with 'I want to cancel...' three times. I think something screwy is going on here.

5) Tire/Oil Rotation Warranty - $390 - customer service rep I called states that I need to cancel this one at the dealership.

LOL :lol:

Sorry to raise this from the dead, but I am going through the same thing. Got my '13 BRZ last Monday. They hit me with all the warranties, GAP and other stuff. I had the maintenance and service warranty which was $4525 total, the GAP was $695, originally. They had to fix the loan and my payment went down, but I have less coverage and noticed the GAP went up to $995. I asked him to remove it because I didn't need it and he said "I have to leave it as is because it's the end of the month and this is what the bank wants to keep their assets safe." The guy told me to cancel the GAP in 90 days. I'm calling in to cancel next week.

Just as input into potential costs, my 2013 FR-S major cost incurred so far has been clutch throwout bearing. My dealership told me not under drivetrain warranty. There's been couple other known issues that were never taken care of by dealer, I wasn't a pain in butt enough to them, I hate dealing with that.
Tires finally changed, the stock tires are expensive! I replaced with pretty much the best performance summer tires out right now and they were almost same cost!
There's rust spots appearing, the roof one is the most worrisome. Need to get estimate on that. Other is in the fuel filler well, other is front crossbar in engine bay. That one I think is a seperate piece, not part of body.
So would some kind of protection plan been worth it? Prob not.
Man though, the past four weeks I've been almost T-boned three times! The Tacoma towing a boat that started running red light would have done a number on me. That would have made insurance payout. Although when I think about it, its been 30 years with only one payout for me.
So usually its not worth it to get these plans as long as you keep some money in reserve for handling such events.

I just had to comment about the dealership finance people real quick. Most of those guys are weasels and I have a pretty short fuse with them anymore.


I went to turn in my TDI last week and the dude tried to get me to re-fi the 2% rate on my used FR-S. I told him to get f***ed because of the last jerk there who hassled me about re-fi until I finally sat down. He ended up trying to add on warranties and stuff without telling me, I wasted my time and left with the same loan that I had, and they forgot to give back my license, and then took over a year to mail it back to me. Say no to every single extra that the dealership offers. The only thing worth it is line-x on trucks and 3m clear bras but even those can be had cheaper somewhere else.

Not sure how upside down you could be on a loan on a used car but if you are then the Gap insurance is a good investment. There are many guys on here that totaled their car and ended up taking a financial shit kicking because they owed way more than it's value but felt that Gap was a waste of money. They ended up paying five or six times what the Gap insurance would have been to replace their cars. I specifically asked for Gap since I traded in a 2 year old car that I hated beyond belief (long story) so was way out of car value vs loan amount. With the Gap insurance in place if I total my car I will not be out of pocket for a single cent. Look at things closly to make sure you are making the right call before cancelling it.

They are just doing their job which is to try to sell you more items. Many people actually want those items that is why they have them. Ya they should be up front about it so I will give you the anger over the hidden ones but if above board and honest they are not "weasels" any more that you are when you do your job (whatever that may be). To paint them all with the same brush is unrealistic.

Add to the raising of a dead thread - a few months ago I had Toyota cancel the extended maintenance plan I was sold when I got the car back in 2013 after being treated like shit by the only dealership within a reasonable distance. I normally work on my own vehicles, and after the experience I got, I said "fuck it" and went back to that policy of mine.

That said, GAP is a good investment, and back in 2013, an extended warranty on a relatively unknown vehicle with possible random problems (which, fortunately, mine did not have). The maintenance plan is pointless if you're gonna do it yourself anyways. Plus, you'll save yourself some time and money.

And as you sort of insinuated you need to watch exactly what the extended plan covers and if it is an actual Toyota/Subaru or third party plan. Some don't cover much once you start to dig through the fine print.

All this is really making me rethink my extended warranty as well.....