skybubble

I recently bought the NX450H+ (in LA), and the salesperson sold me a $4000 extended warranty package (8 years/75k miles) and a 5-year maintenance package for $3255. I still have time to cancel it and would love to hear from you all to see if this is worth keeping.

I drove very little, and I bought Lexus because of its reliability. How likely is the extended warranty needed?

The dealer is avoiding answering my question about the servicing costs, which makes it hard to estimate the actual cost for each service.... How much is everyone paying when you bring your car in?

Thank you all! Loving the car and am very happy with the purchase!

nitrolada

doesn't the extended warranty come with maintenance included for first 3 years anyways? is the warranty lexus/toyota ecp?

anoop

I wouldn’t bother.

Buy an extended warranty only when you know you want to keep the car AND you are nearing the end of the factory warranty. Only buy a Lexus plan, not something from a 3rd party. Also check carefully for exclusions. My Acura one for example excludes the infotainment, which is actually quite glitchy.

As for maintenance, that too I refer pay as you go. I can’t imagine it’ll be bad for the first 4 years. In 4 years with Acura I have spent < $1000 on servicing.

lsft

I think that is in Canada, but may not be in the United States.

Lrlaz

Personally I would cancel all these extended warranties (over $7k..ouch). You already get a 4 year 48k mile warranty from Lexus, so in my opinion you don't need any extended warranties. Plus, it's a Lexus and they'll last forever! I have not bought an extended warranty since the early 80s, and so far I've not regretted! Again, this is just my opinion and experience.

Laz

midcow3

Yes, the new Lexus NX hybrid line is complicated, but Lexus has been in the hybrid business for a long time; the first Prius was built in 1997. However, the plug-in 450h+ is even more complicated with charging and special cooling even with Lexus quality could be an issue long term. Electronics are not so much of a worry; all new cars have hundreds of computers which are very reliable.

Lexus is a very reliable brand and has a 4-year 50,000-mile warranty ( USA). So any warranty payouts will not take place until after the factory warranty expires.

Newer cars require very little maintenance. There is no longer spark plug replacement ( well yes at 100,000) miles and the major service is an oil change every 10,000 miles. Maintenance pre-paid policies are all way overpriced and you are paying at the net present value of them ( meaning if you otherwise invested the money it would be worth more in the future).

Remember all maintenance policies and pre-paid service policies are designed to make a profit ( and usually a very big profit) for the seller; not the buyer. And as others have pointed out you do not have to buy an extended warranty package or a service plan when you buy the new car ... but the salesmen while pretending to be your friend and pretending to play it low key are really using the FUD ( Fear Uncertainty, Doubt) high-pressure reverse psychology technique. 'you just bought a new car don't you want to make sure it is maintained and protected down the road without you having to worry about it ?'

My advice: DO NOT BUY ANY EXTENDED WARRANTY PLANS OR PRE_PAID MAINTENANCE PLANS

Peace and goodwill to all. If it comforts you and helps you sleep better at night then by all means ......


YMMV,
MiIDCOW3

skybubble

this is with Lexus Finance directly, there is no maintenance included in the extended warranty contract. maybe different companies sell them differently?

lesz

When I was in the business of brokering new car sales years ago, it was a real eye opener for me to see just how big the mark-up is on extended warranties. There is typically a mark-up of several hundred percent on extended warranties, and, even if you can buy one at a deep discount, there will still likely be a mark-up of 200% or 300% on that extended warranty.

A car dealer can sell a customer a car for no profit at all or even sell it at what appears to be a loss for the dealer, but, if the dealer can convince the customer to buy an extended warranty and a couple of other high mark-up add-ons, such as pre-paid maintenance plans, wheel and tire protection plans, nitrogen tire fills, interior and exterior protection treatment, etc., that dealer can turn what started out as a minimal profit deal into one of the dealer's highest profit deals.

Yes, it sometimes happens that people are able to collect in extended warranty claims more than what they paid for the extended warranty, but those instances are quite rare. If, over the course of ownership of 4 or 5 or 6 vehicles, a car owner decides not to buy any extended warranties, he/she is almost guaranteed to save several thousand dollars even if he/she has to pay out-of-pocket for some repairs that an extended warranty would have covered,

As an alternative to buying an extended warranty, a wise decision would be to figure the cost of the extended warranty and put that money into a savings account or other investment that is designated for nothing other than car repairs.

All of the above is true for other add-ons, and it is also especially true for pre-paid maintenance plans.

SenorValas

@lesz I hear what you are saying about not putting your money into pre-paid maintenance plans however one plus point for doing this (in the UK at least) is that the price of each service throughout the length of the plan is "locked" at the current price when the plan is bought and entered into. Therefore you will be immune to any future increases in the price of each service down the road (i.e. increases in costs for labour or parts). This is the sole reason why I buy such a plan. Also with interest rates what they are at the moment (very low, at least in the UK), returns from a savings account; etc. are negligible IMHO.

Just my opinion.

lesz

I have no idea how pre-paid maintenance plans work in the UK, but, in the US, if you add up the costs of all of the individual maintenance items that Lexus specifies need to be/should be done on its various models, the total cost for all of those recommended maintenance items typically is between 1/4 and 1/3 of what Lexus dealers are charging for their pre-paid maintenance plans. Thus, even if there is significant inflation, buying the pre-paid maintenance plan is still going to cost a vehicle owner much more than it would cost to get all of the recommended maintenance done without the pre-paid plan. Plus, I have no interest in paying now for maintenance that I won't need until 2 or 3 years from now.

chiguy

I got the pitch for the pre-paid maintenance plan as well. I was sitting there pondering if it really had any value, when it suddenly occurred to me... "hey, this is based on and priced for an ICE car... when this car has 60k miles on it, the engine may only have 10-20k". I told my wife let's pass and she agreed with that logic. The salesperson didn't really have a counter argument to it either. They need to restructure these for plug-in hybrids somehow in my opinion for it to be at all worthwhile.

skybubble

That's a good point. But the maintenance schedule still requires us to do all the services base on the mileage in order to keep the warranty in place, am I right?

skybubble

@lesz thank you so much for the insight! This is the part I'm trying to figure out the actual maintenance cost, and having a hard time.

How much does the following maintenance usually cost? Looks like these are the comment items on the maintenance schedule

•  
  • Replace Engine Oil And Oil Filter
  • Replace Cabin Air Filter
  • Rotate tires
  • Replace Engine Air Filter
  • Replace Brake Fluid
  • Clean HV Battery Cooling Intake Filter

And how much do those "inspect" items on the maintenance schedule cost? The salesperson sold me that each service will rotate among the cost of $300, $600, and $900, but I can't make sense of that number.

anoop

Laws vary but my understanding is that they cannot deny coverage unless they can show there’s a connection between the failed part and lack of proper maintenance. But if you skimp on maintenance they could say something that failed in a big way would have been caught in a minor way by inspection during scheduled maintenance. So in general the safe thing to do is to do the recommended maintenance and keep records. If you’re doing it yourself I would take pictures of visual inspections.

weaver483

You can purchase the 8 yr 75K mi warranty for much less from Jerry Johnson at Midwest Toyota Tel: no. 620-664-8844. Its a Lexus Factory Platinum Warranty with zero deductible. Over the years I have purchased multible warranties for both Toyotoes and Lexus from Jerry. I don't know about the maintainance agreement since that may be dealer specific.