I just put money down on a new 2017 Prius Prime Premium.. At the end of the deal they tried to sell me a 72 month/125k mile warranty... It's over 2000 dollars for the warranty... Is this really necessary . They tried to scare me about it having more bells and whistles than my 2007 Prius. My 2007 Prius had nothing break on it in 10 years 196k miles... Did brakes twice, and oil changes..etc Except the AC broke.. And that's the reason I went for a new car, not wanting to put 1000 dollars into a car close to end of life. My wife has a 2002 Solara... never needed a repair, except we replaced the stock alloy wheels because they corroded to much.... other than that Just brakes and oil changes...
nope. just a sales pitch for unneeded insurance. sure things happen, and you can find plenty of sad stories right here on prius chat. but with toyota, less likely than most manufacturers. plus, you get a pretty decent warranty for free, so to speak.
Extended warranties have only one purpose. That's to make money for the company selling it. They figure out how much it would cost them, on average, per car and charge that plus whatever profit they think they can get away with. It's much like lottery tickets -- a tax on the mathematically challenged.
Put that way... I guess I can afford to risk that my new car will be average and cost less than 2000 to repair in the first 175k miles.
Chances are well above 50-50 that it's cheaper to not get it, but you never know for sure. I got one one time on a used Intrepid back in the 90's before I had thought this through. The warranty was $1,300. Some time later (in that warranty period) the transmission ate itself. Guess what it would have cost to fix it. Yup. $1,300. I broke even. I call that a win. I never bought a warranty again and have come out way ahead that way. I think, in the past 20 years, I've had about $3,000 total in two major repairs -- both were air conditioners. That doesn't count the hybrid battery I ruined all by myself; that's a whole 'nuther thread.
If you want to pay two grand for windshield protection go ahead, it doesn't cover windshields, save the money
It is a catch 22. I regretted not getting it when I had to have my 5 speed 2003 toyota matrix replaced at 70k out of pocket (which there was a bunch of us with the same exact issue) (I did keep the car till 333k miles without any other major or minor issues). I decided against buying it on my new prius as I just drive too much to get my money out of a few years warranty, when most of it is covered to 100k anyway.
