Extended Warranty

[dwilson]

I have recently bought a January 2007 petrol RAV4 with 20000 miles only. My wife will be the main driver and it will only do 3000 miles at the most per annum.

I bought from Toyota dealer as a used vehicle and it has 12 months warranty.

Toyota have written offering an additional 12 months extended warranty for about £550.

I normally do not go for this type of thing but was caught out with an expensive Subaru that needed a new sat nav, fuel computer, cd player just out of 3 year warranty and needed £1300 spending for a replacement.

Has anyone decided to go for this?

Thanks

David

[Jan&tone]

I did it once, some years ago, I didn't need to use it, but it is a bit like insurance really, if you have it you don't need it and if you don't have it you could wish that you had done it...

If you do go for it though, make sure you have the Toyota one, and not some fly-by-night insurance company one, those aren't worth the paper they are printed on!

[Parts-King]

The Toyota extended warranty is an extension of the original warranty, so much more likely to cover anything should it go wrong. Off the peg warranties are generally useless and should be avoided at all costs

Kingo

[Davrav]

I have recently bought a January 2007 petrol RAV4 with 20000 miles only. My wife will be the main driver and it will only do 3000 miles at the most per annum.

I bought from Toyota dealer as a used vehicle and it has 12 months warranty.

Toyota have written offering an additional 12 months extended warranty for about £550.

I normally do not go for this type of thing but was caught out with an expensive Subaru that needed a new sat nav, fuel computer, cd player just out of 3 year warranty and needed £1300 spending for a replacement.

Has anyone decided to go for this?

Thanks

David

I've recently taken a two year extension after the original 3yr warranty expired as I intend to keep the vehicle for at least another two years. Having had some warranty work done in the first three years and seen the costs I personally consider the extended warranty a cost effective insurance should there be trouble ahead.

You can continue to extend the warranty up to seven years and about 120K I believe.

The two year warranty works out proportionally less than two single years but do be aware of exclusions such as interior, wheels etc

Have a look on the Toyota UK website for lates warranty costs and details.

As you have learnt yourself, to your cost, parts replacement on these cars is expensive

[firemac]

I have recently bought a January 2007 petrol RAV4 with 20000 miles only. My wife will be the main driver and it will only do 3000 miles at the most per annum.

I bought from Toyota dealer as a used vehicle and it has 12 months warranty.

Toyota have written offering an additional 12 months extended warranty for about £550.

I normally do not go for this type of thing but was caught out with an expensive Subaru that needed a new sat nav, fuel computer, cd player just out of 3 year warranty and needed £1300 spending for a replacement.

Has anyone decided to go for this?

Thanks

David

We had Toyota's extended warranty on our 02-reg VX VVT-i, which we bought new, and I reckon it more than paid for itself on the only things that failed during the 4 years following the normal Toyota warranty, i.e. EMS sensors. A month after taking out the extended warranty the first lot of these failed and they were replaced f.o.c. At the time, dealer told me the cost would have been approx. £250. Several more such failures occurred and were all covered by the warranty. Having said that, it won't protect against the stupidity or incompetence of a dealer. The last three sensor failures were in rapid succession just before the extended warranty ran out and although they were covered, the catalyst then failed a couple of weeks outside the warranty. Dealer & TGB said "tough luck" & wouldn't accept that the rapid sequential sensor failures may have indicated a dud cat. This, despite having been a customer of that particular dealer for several years, been a "Toyota family" for >10 years and having 3 Toyotas on the drive at the time! Morale of the tale is when you find a good TGB dealer, stick with them.

Currently have extended warranty on our other 54-reg RAV bought used in May this year and which came with 12 months' TGB warranty. About 2 months after we bought it, TGB wrote to ask if we wanted to extend it for a further 12 months, which we have done. On balance,despite Toyota's good reliability reputation, bearing in mind how much the failure of one key component can cost, I reckon the ext'd warranty is worthwhile.

I have to say as well that I don't agree with Kingo re after-market 3rd party warranties. I've had very good experiences with Warranty Direct.

[Parts-King]

I have to say as well that I don't agree with Kingo re after-market 3rd party warranties. I've had very good experiences with Warranty Direct.

I reckon we deal with these companies at least twice a day, the rejection rate of claims is around 75%, useless!

Kingo

[dwilson]

Many thanks for all the replies which have been very useful.

I have had a look on the Toyota site and it appears I don't need to decide just yet but had I chosen to do so when I bought the used car it would have been cheaper. Shame it wasn't mentioned although the guy probably gave up after me refusing finance, supaguard, gap insurance and service plans. I wanted to buy the car though!

The letter from Toyota sounded like I had to decide by 27th October but I will have another look later - I think that was only to take advantage of going beyond 100,000 miles ....that's not going to happen, more like 25k

Cheers

David

[firemac]

I have to say as well that I don't agree with Kingo re after-market 3rd party warranties. I've had very good experiences with Warranty Direct.

I reckon we deal with these companies at least twice a day, the rejection rate of claims is around 75%, useless!

Kingo

Obviously you see more of these than I ever would so statistically you're bound to see many negative outcomes. I agree that some of the traditional insurance based warranties (like the old Wagon warranty) are absolute nightmares and just a license for the insurers to make money. Nevertheless I have to say my personal experience of WD has been very good.

[DjRav]

My Toyota Dealer warranty expired last month. I too was offered the extension, but at £550+ it seemed very expensive. I know certain problems can cost a fortune but the way I saw it was that I bought a Toyota in the first place because it has a reputation of being very reliable. It seems daft then to presume it's going to break down "this year" and have to cover myself with (even more) insurance! I hope I don't live to regret it, but playing the odds it's far more likely to NOT breakdown this year than to need more than £550 worth of work required.

Otherwise how do they make money on these types of policies!

Dave