Used Camry - Extended Coverage ???

[cog4030]

I am picking up a used 2004 Camry on Monday. It is a SE with 12,000 miles. The dealer is pushing a Toyota Certified Platinum Plan that would cover everything ( except normal wear and tear items ) for a additional $1700. Good idea or bad..
TIA

[ToyotaToday]

I think it's a bad idea for a few reasons:

1. Your car already has warranty (should have some remaining)
2. Camry (Toyota's in general) is probably the most reliable car in the world
3. $1700 is a lot of money. I would save the extra money invest it. If things do go wrong, which is not likely anytime soon, then spend the $1700 to fix it. If things dont go wrong for many years, you would have saved $1700 and interest.

Extended warranties in general are a rip off. Think about it for a minute. These company's that offer extended warranties have done the math. If the frequency of breakdowns are high and repair cost are most likely above $1700, these companys wont be making money.
I'm not saying that a Camry won't every break down and cost repairs wont be above $1700, but the odds are in your favour. If not, theses extended warranty companys will be losing money. Again they have stats of these cars and have carefully calculated all this.

[marc780]

I wouldnt buy this extended warranty. The cars almost new and barely broken in, plus its a toyota. Even so, id still check out the car really well in case they are trying to push a bad car on you somehow - check the drive train and the body carefully (in California they have to tell you if it was a salvage vehicle, but i dont know the law on this where you live. But as you probably know, salvage cars are almost always a bad deal and bound to be many, many of them out there after Katrina).

[jimmyjim27us]

Wait a minute, isn't the car certified by Toyota? If it is, there is a warranty includfed, and it is a good one. Better check this out....assuming you are buying from Toyota.

[csaxon]

Hereis your current new car warranty http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/warra...nty.html#basic

TOYOTA CERTIFIED USED CAR WARRANTY adds about a year to your powertrain warranty..free

Each Toyota Certified Used Vehicle comes with a 3-month/3,000-mile comprehensive warranty from date of certified purchase. This warranty covers any repair or replacement of components which fail under normal use due to a defect in materials or workmanship.

Each Toyota Certified Used Vehicle is also backed by a 7-year/100,000-mile Limited Powertrain Warranty (from original date of first use when purchased as new).

http://www.toyota.com/html/tcuv/warranty.html

[cog4030]

Yes it is a certified used car. The certified sticker said something like the coverage ( power train ? ) was good until 2011. The used car sticker said it was covered by the mfr warranty until 2007 or 36K miles.
I may run it through car fax to see if anything interesting pops up.
I asked the saleman for any info, if is was a private party or a lease.
I'm waiting to hear back from him now..

[Cyorke]

oK as of right now you ahve full warranty coverage for 3yrs/36k miles of the original in service date. This covers the entire car except for normal wear and tear. You have powertrain coverag to 5yrs/60k miles. These are warranties provided by Toyota on every new car. The warranty does not expire when the car is traded or anything liek that. IF you were the 10th owner and was still in this time frame it would be covered. With the Toyota Certified warranty they extend the powertrain out to 7yrs/100k miles from original date of purchase. This warranty will coer only the powertrain items included in this link http://toyota.com/html/tcuv/warranty.html If you ahve any problems with electrical, A/C, door handles radios or anything like that it will not be covered after 3/36.

If you can get jsut a plan that covers the additional items up to 100k miles that is what you would want to do. I used to sell used cars and we offered what was called a wrap policy that covered everything teh powertrain did not. We offered those on cars that had high pwertrain warranties. SInce there is no reason for you to pay for coverage when the amnufacturer is already providing it. if you are worried aobut having problems or jsut want the peace of mind knowing that you will ont have to fork over large amounts of money for possible repairs you should ask if they work with any other warranty companies and can provide coverage through one of those companies. You want to make sure the coverage is waht is termed exclusionary coverag. Basically it willtell you what is not covered. If an item is not listed then it is covered. The company we used at the dealer I worked for was offered by The assurant Group.

I bought an extended warranty on a 94 Cmary for about 800 dollars and have had over 2000 dollars worth of work done to it. I have paid about 250 dollars out of pocket for those repairs. This included the deductible and some misc. items that were not covered but made sense to replace at the same time.

These are jsut some things to think about that I know of since I was inthe business of selling cars and warranties. I have had people come back and thank me for selling them the warranty and I have had others that never used it but if they needed it they had it.

[JMSinMD]

If you do decide to buy it remember the price is negotiable. The dealer doesn't pay anymore than $500 for that warranty if that much. Tell them you'll pay 10% over dealer cost. There is a price list btw. Check out edmunds.com and kbb.com to make sure you're getting a good deal on the car. Jon.