Extended warranty dilemna
 

I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this but I just want the affirmation I am correct in what I want to do.
I bought a 15' certified from Toyota in April of last year. It had almost 4k miles on it. Since then I have put another 3k on it. I will probably not hit 4k total for the year I've had it.
The car came with the 3 year bumper to bumper. The powertrain is 7 year/1000,000 miles. I bought an extended warranty that covered in bumper to bumper for the 7 years.
Now reading about the warranty afterwards in detail, I understand that 7 applies to when the car was from the first use as sold new so I have probably still like 5.5 years of powertrain
and the extended warranty would push the bumper to bumper out to the same 7 years.
So I am driving this car about 4k a year and the end of the next 5.5 years til that warranty ends I will have only put about 30k miles on the car total. Even being optimistic and saying I put 50k on it, that still is nothing.
So it doesn't really seem to make sense on having to pay $1k for adding on a couple years of a bumper to bumper when the powertrain is where the big money would be in repairs anyway.
I asked my dealer if I starting modding and they kind of gave the ambiguous answer that they just cross that road when they get there and if a repair is related to the modification then it's not covered.
Now I am sure I'm not going FI and a header/oft and the final drive would be the most I'd be doing. A guy at Toyota said to just flash it back to stock if anything arises but the header would be a little pain
to swap out if anything did happen that I know is unrelated but wanted them to keep their nose on what the problem really is and not blame any mods for any reason they could come up with.
It seems like doing the final drive is sleeper enough that even the dealer wouldn't know it was done and most likely even if they knew they probably couldn't attribute any major engine or transmission problems for changing the gears.
So in keeping the car stock, it doesn't seem to make sense to even have that bumper to bumper as $1k can do a lot of repairs that I could do myself that weren't covered by the powertrain warranty.
The modding of the car makes the extended totally useless since it's a gamble that they'll just play games later if something happens and I'd be out the extra $1k.
Does all that compute to just cancelling the extended 7 yr bumper to bumper either way?

"So it doesn't really seem to make sense on having to pay $1k for adding on a couple years of a bumper to bumper when the powertrain is where the big money would be in repairs anyway."

Nope, doesn't make any sense,does it?

Extended warranties are a ripoff.

The power train warranty only covers things like engine and transmission. It won't cover things like your ABS Actuator (which failed on my car and is a $5000 dollar part). ABS Actuator isn't a power train part or a wear and tear part like tires.

If you have it keep it and mod to your little heart out. If your Ac stops working you got warranty, if your windows stop working warranty for 7 years. Honestly headers flash and FD won't give you any issues if you do it right. I had a full exhaust and intake and tune on my car before I broke it in.

This is what I needed, more input because this isn't so simple. I always see people say extended warranties are a waste like billwot said there. A salesman on the Toyota lot I was talking to even said
to cancel the extended warranty when I went in there yesterday. I do have a while(1.5 yrs before the original bumper to bumper is gone) to decide to cancel the extra warranty.
Of course in 1.5 years at the rate I'm going, the car would only have about 14k miles and that's not giving it much driving time for something to go bad.

That one had me scared. Found them all the way down under $200 used up to $3500 new. Hopefully yours was fully covered under warranty if they said it was $5000.

It probably wouldn't take much like N1rve said there to quickly make up for that $1k.

My car wasn't even 2 years old, like 1 year and 11 months,and my ABS actuator died so it was covered under the 36k/36 months. Threw a whole bunch of codes and couldn't start the car. Luckily I extended my Toyota Care with that Toyota Care plus and got free towing so my extra 300 dollars basically covered a majority of it and a lower cost brake fluid flush.

Well now, my life experiences have been, with extended warranties, that if you take them, they will cost money, but nothing will break.

If you don't take them, something will break and it will cost you money.


Your call ..........:popcorn:


humfrz

Word... It's like some magical thing when you buy the warranty lol.

If it's your first car, your first time with boxer engines, you lack basic mechanic skills or you bought used, then yes it makes sense to buy insurance.

If you know about the engine, it's not the first year model..etc then no, it doesn't make sense. It's my first boxer, so I got it. $1k is a lot of money to me, but it's also a learning experience.

Just as yourself these basic questions:

What am I doing with a warranty? And how will a warranty benefit me?

If you don't know the answer to that, then there is no point in having an extended warranty that you are paying extra for.

-alex

OK, I have the fear in me now. I really don't want to work on the car unless it's for fun. I'm so over doing repairs on vehicles at this point as I've
swapped enough engines, transmissions and countless parts for necessity. I think with the simple mods I'm planning, I should be pretty safe.
All it would take is something simple like that ABS actuator mentioned up there and the extra warranty paid for itself. Even with getting that particular part used
and my time involved, it comes out as a wash. All it would take is a few more simple parts(and labor) to go bad after that bumper to bumper is up and I
would have made the wrong choice in cancelling it. I thank everybody for the input to figure this out. :thanks:

I had a extended warranty on my old 91' honda civic h/b. I got my $$'s worth when my A/C broke twice, first time condenser broke and then the compressor. :)

I recently found out that I am paying $13/mo to GEICO for a bumper-to-bumper, 7-year, 100,000 mile warranty for my BRZ. Apparently this is a "Subaru only" thing they offer on vehicles purchased with less than 15,000 miles, and you have to sign up for it within a few months or something. I must have said yes back when I bought the car, but I had no idea, lol.

It does have a $250 deductible, though, so it's not perfect, but for $13/mo I think it's worth it because that means my engine and tranny could grenade at 95,000 miles and as long as it isn't because I did something dumb, it'll only cost me $250 for new ones! ($250 total or separately, who cares. Still worth it.)

Normally not a huge fan of extended warranties since they tend to exclude just about anything that will actually break.
But, for $13 a month (about 50% of what I spend a week on coffee) it may very well be worth it.