Free prepaid maintenance - do I HAVE to use my sales dealer?

It comes down to whether Toyota is going to reimburse them or not for doing the "free" maintenance. Maybe the dealer will be reimbursed by Toyota but at a reduced rate that they would rather not accept from another dealer's customer.

That is the only reason I could see the dealer being resistant to honoring it.

 

No mention of invalid, but

Regarding calling customer service for clarification.

Customer service might be able to help you get service from another dealer, but it's not in the contract and the "Customer Agreement" is clear to me. Wouldn't hurt to try though, they can do anything they want for you if they want to be nice guys.

Paper trumps verbal.

 

When we bought our Prius IV on 7-23-10 we bought the extended warranty 8 year 120,000 mile and 4 year prepaid maintenance, we were never offered the 2 year FREE maintenance deal Toyota is offering as good faith. RK Toyota in Hampton only cares about the money not the consumers. We bought the car from a friend, what BS...A senior manager at that, what a crook.

When did the FREE maintenance deal go into affect?

 

I'm buying a new prius 3+nav package. 2 years maint comes free with it. Dealer is offering 4year maint plan and 8 year extended warrantly.
How much were u charged for the 4 year maintenance plan? And the 8yr extended warranty.
Also are these amounts/prices negotiable?

 

The coupon says to go back to your selling dealer, but when i bought the car, the finance guy said that the maintenance plan could be used at ANY toyota dealer. So if they don't accept it anywhere else, i will call that guy and tell him he's full of BS.

The coupons are provided by Toyota Financial services, not the dealers. They are the ones paying the dealers, so it shouldn't matter who accepts the coupon, they will get reimbursed. Just call another dealer and ask them if they will accept the coupon. Chances are they can and will just to get your business. When i bought my car i was specifically told i could go to any other toyota dealer for the maintenance.

 

Tellng a car dealer finance guy he is full of BS is just telling him he is good at his job.

 

I tried using a coupon with another dealer's name stamped on it. Other dealers will do it, but they definitely don't like it, and make you pay by giving you a bunch of crap over it.

Pretty much what I expected to have to go through if I need any warranty work done from a non-selling dealership. Toyota's customer service is really going to hell.

 

Toyota has a network of distributors with different ones for geographical regions. This can affect which tires are supplied on the cars, for instance. The coupons I got arrived in two weeks despite the dealer's website advising 5-6 weeks for delivery. This may vary with distributor. They came from the distributor and show the dealer's name as an advertising relationship -- Toyota just pays the distributor. There are lots of mutual obligations and investments between Toyota, distributors, and dealers, the exact nature of which is not public, at least prominently, and is obviously subject to constant change.
These distributors are likely to be little financial empires including insurance companies and finance companies making car loans and selling extended warranties, and even liability insurance, as well as having investments in dealerships.

Looking at the limited maintenance required by a Prius I found the prepaid maintenance plans unreasonable, especially since the oil change interval (for expensive synthetic oil) was doubled to 10,000mi. The dealer said the 5,000 mi service of just rotating the tires was normally $20. Yet they were selling a third year of maintenance for over $700 (with Toyota providing two years of initial maintenance). Weird -- except for the famous quip by P.T. Barnum. There is so little maintenance on a Prius, especially the first two years when nothing is likely to break, that the promotional benefit is of no significant value on this car at least; it's more for their other models.

Maintenence is not required under the warranty without a clear connection to warranty conditions. If they start loading on all sorts of unnecessary work it is fairly safe to refuse it, as they would have to prove a connection to warranty failures to avoid coverage. The part which breaks may not be anything affected by the make-work jobs they invent. I once had a big expense replacing failing electric window motors in another car, obviously not affected by anything to do with the engine etc.
They have plenty of other Toyota models requiring more maintenance to occupy the service depts.
And a lot of gas pedals to replace.

And when I take "mechanical breakdown coverage" on my auto liability policy, it doesn't matter what the mfg's warranty is, everything is already covered a second time.

I never pay for services like cleaning the fuel injectors. Put some additives like Techron in the gas every few thousand miles, and not only will the injectors never require cleaning, there will be less carbon build up on the valves as well.

 

i was told they could be used at any toyota dealer, but since they're aren't many here, the selling dealer is where i'm going because it's the closest. next closest is 15 miles further and then it's really a haul to any other dealer.

 

I bought my Prius about a month ago and I received a package of coupons in the mail. There's nothing on the package that says Toyota. It's called Care Care Service Plan and Cross Country Motor Club. It has a coupon for every 5K( or 6 months) up to 25,000 miles. Is this what you guys are getting?

 

we got a package with a batch of coupons that have the selling dealer's name all over it. I'm going to see if I can get the local dealer to take them, expecting a batch of nonsense. We tried to get the local dealer to come close to the price we got, they were thousands higher. The prepaid maintenance not being valid for us would not be a deal-breaker, but it is an annoyance.

I have to say that Toyota could have handled this differently and reaped some more benefit. In fact, if it turns out that I can't use the prepaid maintenance, they really shot themselves in the foot because I would have been happy without it. Receiving a big stack of coupons that look like they are only valid at a dealer that is 4 hours away has already made the purchase a little disappointing.

 

I also purchased from a different dealer than my most local one due to the price difference, and got the coupon book with the selling dealer's name pre-printed. I went to my local dealer for the service though, and they were fine with all of it, no hassle at all.

I guess it depends on the individual dealers, as we've seen from people's responses on here.

Good luck with yours!

 

I live in S. Ca where there are a swarm of Toyota Dealers. I bought from one dealer, went to Power Irvine for a 5K intial oil change and just went to Tustin Toyota for the 10K oil change using the Toyota coupon book. My coupon book has the selling dealer's name all over the book, but the other dealers didn't seem to mind. They were probably just happy that I took the car to their dealer for service.

 

Some people say you should use the same dealer to develop a good relationship with them, but I think that's baloney. Sunnyvale Toyota can't remember my face for beans.

You definitely don't have to use the dealer you purchased the maintanance program from. Other dealerships LOVE your business. So never worry if you're out of the area or out of town. In fact it might be kind of fun to try out different dealerships.

 

reporting back, they didn't even care to see the coupon. One person said to bring it in next time, but when my wife went to pay they didn't want the coupon. Apparently they just charge against the vin.

 

I was told by the dealer that it makes it a little easier if you give them the coupon up front. Otherwise, they have to search for your VIN. The first way is probably just a scan of the coupon where otherwise they have to input the numbers.

I was also told that generally, they won't ask you for the coupon so as not to make you think that you had to bring the coupon. I thought that was rather nice of them, but I don't know if it's true. This is at Santa Monica Toyota. For whatever the reason, they've been really nice to me even though I didn't buy my car from them.

And I'm a little confused when you say "when my wife went to pay" because wasn't it free? They just handed me a receipt and said thank you.

Mike