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Interesting that they also mention that you need to get your vehicle serviced at a Toyota dealership to extend your warranty up by a year each time (up to the 1

Interesting that they also mention that you need to get your vehicle serviced at a Toyota dealership to extend your warranty up by a year each time (up to the 10yr). I didn’t see it in the article, but I wonder if that includes getting all of the dealerships “suggested maintenance” if you want the warranty extension to apply. I’ve had lots of sketchy dealership overcharging experiences, and if you need 5 dealership service visits to get up to the full 10 years, I can see this “warranty” costing thousands of dollars in unnecessary/fake maintenance. I’m sure that there are good actors out there, at dealerships too, but it is easy to be abused. This seems like a tactic to bring in more money, not one that Toyota is just doing for the sake of standing behind their products. Most cars can last beyond 10yr / 100k miles, so I don’t think this costs them much. But to get the dealerships to charge you $300 for a cabin air filter a few times will probably make them more than they lose.

ilamont 5y ago
Dealers must love this. Also: as long as they are under 10 years old and have covered fewer than 100,000 miles In North America it's very common for cars to have this many miles long before the 10 year mark.
- ghaff 5y ago
  It's a bit under the average (13,500) but not outrageously so.
- bydo 5y ago
  This "Toyota Relax" warranty appears to only apply in the UK, where average mileage is significantly lower than in the US. Somewhere between ~8k and ~9k, according to a random BBC article I found: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-28546589 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-28546589
- astura 5y ago
  Probably for a large percentage of the population. FHA says the average is 14,300 miles a year, but 12,524 miles per year in our most populous state (California) I guess that means the average American will hit 100,000 miles in 7 years. https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/average-miles-driven-per-year/ https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/average-miles-dri...
mtnGoat 5y ago
as an owner of multiple toyota's and a member of the related forums... i can say that toyota dealers' service departments can be hit or miss, but toyota does listen to customer complaints and takes them very seriously(personal experience). additionally toyota has a lot of dealerships, so if the one closest to you is acting poorly you can go to another. they are aware of this and it tends to keep them mostly honest. plus with a large and vocal community around almost every model they make, its pretty easy to avoid the bad dealers. my current 4runner warranty/service plan covers all scheduled maintenance, filters, lubricants, etc. for the first 100k miles. However, I do have to bring it in yearly, even if the next oil change isn't due based on milage alone. its certainly a money play, but also keeping their vehicles in good working order helps with a lot of metrics like resell value, longevity, etc that car buyers look at. i think toyota is the largest buyer of used toyotas.
- radicaldreamer 5y ago
  This ^^ I've found Toyota Marin to be fantastic for the Bay Area but when we were in Albuquerque for a while last year, the local dealership's service dept was much worse, doing only the basics and with a low attention to detail.
  - actualanswer 5y ago
    I should check out the Marin shop. Toyota SF was really good service but their prices/charges are outrageous. I ended up going to ToyShop which isn't too far from the dealership and they are solid (they work primarily on Toyotas hence ToyShop)
  - failwhaleshark 5y ago
    TBH, Albuquerque is a hole in the ground adjacent to Atlantic City, Detroit, and east LA. I think anywhere else would be better. If you're going to the dealer for anything other than warranty or free repairs, then you have too much money and need to be relieved of it. - My late grandfather who was a master mechanic retired from a dealership who once sold horses and buggies in the SF Bay Area.
- sharkweek 5y ago
alkonaut 5y ago
I only service my car at the brand dealership and I’m sure it’s both overpriced and often unnecessary. It means several hundred dollars per year (25% sales tax etc). I wouldn’t want to buy a new-ish car with third party service stamps though, so the expensive service does retain some value. So long as this doesn’t make service even more expensive, at least I’d get something for it that I don’t today. At the moment I tend to instead trade for a newer car once the 2-5 year warranty runs out. This would be cheaper than that at least.
giarc 5y ago
The trick to look out for is dealership recommended service vs manufacturers recommended service. I owned a Chevy Equinox and took it to a dealership for work around 80,000km (my numbers might be off, this was 5 or so years ago). They told me the transmission fluid had met it's suggested replacement. I wanted to keep warranty valid so I approved the work. Somehow I then found out that the manufacturers recommended interval was like 200,000km. I was only required to follow the manufacturers schedule not the made up dealers recommended schedule. If you ask, they give you some BS about the "local climate and amount of construction dust so we recommend different intervals etc etc". Either way, you aren't required to follow those schedules.
- rasz 5y ago
  They actually did you a favor. Modern transmission fluid management is a joke, with some even claiming lifetime oil. They just mean the lifetime of the car transmission, which is exactly the warranty period.
- ok123456 5y ago
  Those transmissions are garbage. They shed a lot of clutch material. It will fail before it gets to 200,000km. By the time it gets up there, if it's still working, the dirty fluid is the only thing giving it enough friction to shift. If you tried changing it at that point, it would just start slipping. A drain and fill ever 50k is the thing to do with those.
- calvinmorrison 5y ago
  Yeah, then again dealers have service bullitens regularly and lots of experience with common failures across a model. Hard to know hence why some dealers can rip people off. Happens in any scenario where trust is high and information low
  - giarc 5y ago
    I generally agree with your point, but no one has more information then the manufacturer. The local dealership (franchisee) only has their own information. So what's more likely, the manufacturer grossly over estimating the lifespan of their product, or the local dealership squeezing out more money from their customers? Unfortunately I feel like it's the latter.
mulmen 5y ago
I was in the waiting room of a Toyota dealer and heard a service writer tell a woman that she would have to pay for a new oil pan because the drain plug was stripped out and service related damage was not covered under warranty. She said the car was always serviced at that dealer and the service writer said there is no way to prove that.
- gambiting 5y ago
  I mean.....surely she would have been given an invoice every time so she can prove the vehicle was serviced there?
  - bitshiftfaced 5y ago
    How would that prove no one else ever worked on it?
    - gambiting 5y ago
      You're right, it doesn't prove no one else hasn't worked on it- however there is absolutely 0 chance the dealership would win this in court, and I speak from experience of having to gone to court for similar issues. If she testified in front of the court that she only had the car serviced there AND had the documents documenting those services, the onus would be on the dealership to prove they haven't done the damage. They could defend themselves maybe by saying they use a special wrench that is physically incapable of stripping the screw(and having an expert's testimony to prove that), or any other physical or electronic signs of someone else having worked on the car - but if they can't demonstrate that then there's no way they would win such a case. Zero.
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        Think about who buys new Toyotas these days. It's a pretty well off crowd. Imagine this was a german luxury car dealership and it makes a lot more sense. The dealer is making a calculated (at scale, not in any particular case) business decision that these people have enough money that they'll just bend over and take it rather than create a hassle for themselves by fighting. If the dealer hadn't made business decision the service writer would be apologetic and offered a steep discount or whatever. But they did so the service writer is playing hardball. Not the business decision I'd make but I completely understand the incentive.
gnicholas 5y ago
Yeah, my family member was told that she needed to bring her Camry in for a 5-month service at the dealer during the lockdowns, lest she void her warranty. Ultimately when she pressed them on it, they agreed that the warranty would only be voided as to issues that would have been caught during such service call, but which were not caught and then got worse.
iab 5y ago
Your post resonates with me so deeply. The Toyota dealership near me wanted close to 1k for a 90k service, and the add-ons and labor charges. Almost fainted.
- jnwatson 5y ago
  That is entirely normal for a 90k service depending on what the service is. A Honda service can easily be double that due to replacing the timing belt.
  - iab 5y ago
    This was between 2x-3x the price of other Toyota dealerships, not in the area.
deeblering4 5y ago
Ugh yeah after having a dealer try to diagnose my failed struts as “these old Toyotas just drive like that”, bill me a $150 diagnostic fee and then try to sell me a new car... An independent mechanic found and fixed the issue with no hassle. Never again will I waste my time with dealerships, or any mechanic with a diagnostic fee. Far too easy for them to say “sorry couldn’t reproduce the problem, that’ll be $150”
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ska 5y ago
I seem to remember somewhere Toyota offering (shorter than 10 yr) warrantees optionally priced with basic services included - e.g. pay $X, you are covered for 5 year with 7 standard services in that time. If $X is reasonable, that's not a bad way to manage it.
Narkov 5y ago
> This seems like a tactic to bring in more money This is every business decision! It's great that Toyota has measured the improvement in customer trust or loyalty being more valuable to them in the long run than shirking on quality. I only wish more companies would do this!
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >It's great that Toyota has measured the improvement in customer trust or loyalty being more valuable to them in the long run than shirking on quality. That's a funny way of framing "feeling the heat from the Koreans and Mitsubishi and offering their own comparable warranty"
NoPicklez 5y ago
It's tough because I don't think you can excuse the fact that some dealer's try to overcharge. However on the same token I can see that in order to provide a 10 year warranty, you need to expect that your drivers are regularly servicing their cars at the appropriate intervals by the right people. At the end of the day, you don't actually need to abide by the warranty and you can still have your standard warranty period if you don't follow the rules.
wodenokoto 5y ago
I bought a bicycle like that. It had 10 year full warranty given that I would get a service check each year at the bike shop. It came with a service card where the price of each service check was listed. And while the price didn’t exactly double each year, they grew exponentially and would have ended up more than doubling the price of the bicycle. I ended up forgoing the warranty and decide that a new bike was a better option.
fomine3 5y ago
I see much "car dealer is BS" arguments here but most of them are seems to from US. I'm curious what's happened in US.

ilamont 5y ago

Dealers must love this. Also: as long as they are under 10 years old and have covered fewer than 100,000 miles In North America it's very common for cars to have this many miles long before the 10 year mark.

ghaff 5y ago
It's a bit under the average (13,500) but not outrageously so.
bydo 5y ago
This "Toyota Relax" warranty appears to only apply in the UK, where average mileage is significantly lower than in the US. Somewhere between ~8k and ~9k, according to a random BBC article I found: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-28546589 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-28546589
astura 5y ago
Probably for a large percentage of the population. FHA says the average is 14,300 miles a year, but 12,524 miles per year in our most populous state (California) I guess that means the average American will hit 100,000 miles in 7 years. https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/average-miles-driven-per-year/ https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/average-miles-dri...

mtnGoat 5y ago

as an owner of multiple toyota's and a member of the related forums... i can say that toyota dealers' service departments can be hit or miss, but toyota does listen to customer complaints and takes them very seriously(personal experience). additionally toyota has a lot of dealerships, so if the one closest to you is acting poorly you can go to another. they are aware of this and it tends to keep them mostly honest. plus with a large and vocal community around almost every model they make, its pretty easy to avoid the bad dealers. my current 4runner warranty/service plan covers all scheduled maintenance, filters, lubricants, etc. for the first 100k miles. However, I do have to bring it in yearly, even if the next oil change isn't due based on milage alone. its certainly a money play, but also keeping their vehicles in good working order helps with a lot of metrics like resell value, longevity, etc that car buyers look at. i think toyota is the largest buyer of used toyotas.

radicaldreamer 5y ago
This ^^ I've found Toyota Marin to be fantastic for the Bay Area but when we were in Albuquerque for a while last year, the local dealership's service dept was much worse, doing only the basics and with a low attention to detail.
- actualanswer 5y ago
  I should check out the Marin shop. Toyota SF was really good service but their prices/charges are outrageous. I ended up going to ToyShop which isn't too far from the dealership and they are solid (they work primarily on Toyotas hence ToyShop)
- failwhaleshark 5y ago
  TBH, Albuquerque is a hole in the ground adjacent to Atlantic City, Detroit, and east LA. I think anywhere else would be better. If you're going to the dealer for anything other than warranty or free repairs, then you have too much money and need to be relieved of it. - My late grandfather who was a master mechanic retired from a dealership who once sold horses and buggies in the SF Bay Area.
sharkweek 5y ago

alkonaut 5y ago

I only service my car at the brand dealership and I’m sure it’s both overpriced and often unnecessary. It means several hundred dollars per year (25% sales tax etc). I wouldn’t want to buy a new-ish car with third party service stamps though, so the expensive service does retain some value. So long as this doesn’t make service even more expensive, at least I’d get something for it that I don’t today. At the moment I tend to instead trade for a newer car once the 2-5 year warranty runs out. This would be cheaper than that at least.

giarc 5y ago

The trick to look out for is dealership recommended service vs manufacturers recommended service. I owned a Chevy Equinox and took it to a dealership for work around 80,000km (my numbers might be off, this was 5 or so years ago). They told me the transmission fluid had met it's suggested replacement. I wanted to keep warranty valid so I approved the work. Somehow I then found out that the manufacturers recommended interval was like 200,000km. I was only required to follow the manufacturers schedule not the made up dealers recommended schedule. If you ask, they give you some BS about the "local climate and amount of construction dust so we recommend different intervals etc etc". Either way, you aren't required to follow those schedules.

rasz 5y ago
They actually did you a favor. Modern transmission fluid management is a joke, with some even claiming lifetime oil. They just mean the lifetime of the car transmission, which is exactly the warranty period.
ok123456 5y ago
Those transmissions are garbage. They shed a lot of clutch material. It will fail before it gets to 200,000km. By the time it gets up there, if it's still working, the dirty fluid is the only thing giving it enough friction to shift. If you tried changing it at that point, it would just start slipping. A drain and fill ever 50k is the thing to do with those.
calvinmorrison 5y ago
Yeah, then again dealers have service bullitens regularly and lots of experience with common failures across a model. Hard to know hence why some dealers can rip people off. Happens in any scenario where trust is high and information low
- giarc 5y ago
  I generally agree with your point, but no one has more information then the manufacturer. The local dealership (franchisee) only has their own information. So what's more likely, the manufacturer grossly over estimating the lifespan of their product, or the local dealership squeezing out more money from their customers? Unfortunately I feel like it's the latter.

mulmen 5y ago

I was in the waiting room of a Toyota dealer and heard a service writer tell a woman that she would have to pay for a new oil pan because the drain plug was stripped out and service related damage was not covered under warranty. She said the car was always serviced at that dealer and the service writer said there is no way to prove that.

gambiting 5y ago
I mean.....surely she would have been given an invoice every time so she can prove the vehicle was serviced there?
- bitshiftfaced 5y ago
  How would that prove no one else ever worked on it?
  - gambiting 5y ago
    You're right, it doesn't prove no one else hasn't worked on it- however there is absolutely 0 chance the dealership would win this in court, and I speak from experience of having to gone to court for similar issues. If she testified in front of the court that she only had the car serviced there AND had the documents documenting those services, the onus would be on the dealership to prove they haven't done the damage. They could defend themselves maybe by saying they use a special wrench that is physically incapable of stripping the screw(and having an expert's testimony to prove that), or any other physical or electronic signs of someone else having worked on the car - but if they can't demonstrate that then there's no way they would win such a case. Zero.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      Think about who buys new Toyotas these days. It's a pretty well off crowd. Imagine this was a german luxury car dealership and it makes a lot more sense. The dealer is making a calculated (at scale, not in any particular case) business decision that these people have enough money that they'll just bend over and take it rather than create a hassle for themselves by fighting. If the dealer hadn't made business decision the service writer would be apologetic and offered a steep discount or whatever. But they did so the service writer is playing hardball. Not the business decision I'd make but I completely understand the incentive.

gnicholas 5y ago

Yeah, my family member was told that she needed to bring her Camry in for a 5-month service at the dealer during the lockdowns, lest she void her warranty. Ultimately when she pressed them on it, they agreed that the warranty would only be voided as to issues that would have been caught during such service call, but which were not caught and then got worse.

iab 5y ago

Your post resonates with me so deeply. The Toyota dealership near me wanted close to 1k for a 90k service, and the add-ons and labor charges. Almost fainted.

jnwatson 5y ago
That is entirely normal for a 90k service depending on what the service is. A Honda service can easily be double that due to replacing the timing belt.
- iab 5y ago
  This was between 2x-3x the price of other Toyota dealerships, not in the area.

deeblering4 5y ago

Ugh yeah after having a dealer try to diagnose my failed struts as “these old Toyotas just drive like that”, bill me a $150 diagnostic fee and then try to sell me a new car... An independent mechanic found and fixed the issue with no hassle. Never again will I waste my time with dealerships, or any mechanic with a diagnostic fee. Far too easy for them to say “sorry couldn’t reproduce the problem, that’ll be $150”

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ska 5y ago

I seem to remember somewhere Toyota offering (shorter than 10 yr) warrantees optionally priced with basic services included - e.g. pay $X, you are covered for 5 year with 7 standard services in that time. If $X is reasonable, that's not a bad way to manage it.

Narkov 5y ago

> This seems like a tactic to bring in more money This is every business decision! It's great that Toyota has measured the improvement in customer trust or loyalty being more valuable to them in the long run than shirking on quality. I only wish more companies would do this!

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>It's great that Toyota has measured the improvement in customer trust or loyalty being more valuable to them in the long run than shirking on quality. That's a funny way of framing "feeling the heat from the Koreans and Mitsubishi and offering their own comparable warranty"

NoPicklez 5y ago

It's tough because I don't think you can excuse the fact that some dealer's try to overcharge. However on the same token I can see that in order to provide a 10 year warranty, you need to expect that your drivers are regularly servicing their cars at the appropriate intervals by the right people. At the end of the day, you don't actually need to abide by the warranty and you can still have your standard warranty period if you don't follow the rules.

wodenokoto 5y ago

I bought a bicycle like that. It had 10 year full warranty given that I would get a service check each year at the bike shop. It came with a service card where the price of each service check was listed. And while the price didn’t exactly double each year, they grew exponentially and would have ended up more than doubling the price of the bicycle. I ended up forgoing the warranty and decide that a new bike was a better option.

fomine3 5y ago

I see much "car dealer is BS" arguments here but most of them are seems to from US. I'm curious what's happened in US.