I recently bought an 04’ Civic from a Toyota dealership. The car seems to be in good shape and only has 71k miles, but I bought an extended warranty to be safe. The warranty covers “bumper to bumper,” and costs $1800 for 3 years. I can cancel it at any point and I’d like to know if it’s worth the money to keep. I had a mechanic look at it and it had no immediate concerns to be fixed.
These warranties are not worth the money and the fine print will no doubt show many exceptions to the “bumper to bumper” coverage. Since you have already paid for this warranty, I doubt you can cancel it and get your money back.
Please give us the exact details of the deal.
This would be a good warranty on a Yugo or an Aveo or a similar poorly built car, but not on a Toyota.
Extended warranties are almost always a losing gamble for the customer . . . unless you need a rebuilt engine or transmission
Considering that a Civic is pretty reliable, you probably won’t “break even”
Another thing . . . you bought a Honda at a Toyota dealership. The Civic is NOT what the Toyota dealership works on. If anything were to go wrong, they may use inferior parts, or farm out the work.
I know it’s too late, but next time you buy a car, you should ask somebody not affiliated with the dealership if an extended warranty is a good choice
Get your money back ASAP. Hope you can.
It’s an insurance policy. Sometimes you get the benefits and sometimes you don’t. Dealer isn’t going to offer a insurance/maintenance policy unless they make money on the policy… and feel confident that they will not be major issues with the vehicle.
You on the other hand should feel fortunate that dealer can offer this contract. And if there was a major issue, could you afford the repair?
We purchased a extended warranty on a 42"-LED tv. Good brand and retailer. We don’t expect to use the warranty, however our last flat screen TV had a failure just before the store warranty ran out and the repair failed in another 3 years which had no warranty beyond the 30 days.
Thanks for all the advice. The fine print does say the warrant is able to be cancelled at any time for $25.
I think the $25 to cancel the warranty will be well worth it
I doubt you will have $1800 worth of unforeseen repairs in that 3 year period
Set that money aside for a rainy day
How much do you get back if you cancel it? Lets say you have extended warranty for 20% of the 3 years. Will you get 80% back or do they keep more than just the $25 fee?
While I agree it is probably not worth it, it is an insurance policy not a service contract. Just like life insurance or hospital insurance, you don’t really want to use it. One main issue would be if it is issued by Toyota or a 3rd party. Third party plans are very questionable. Then you just have to read all the fine print to see what is required of you as far as service when and where, what is not covered and so on.
In addition to what others have noted, the fine print in your extended warranty are very carefully worded to enable the company to deny many claims you think they should pay.
These companies only make money when they “don’t pay you”, and they’re very good at it. If they start losing money, their track record is to simply declare bankruptcy, close, and reopen under another name.