Hi Gang, Just got back from viewing and driving my new Prius, which will be ready for pickup tomorrow. We started the paperwork for the car this afternoon, and of course, that meant meeting with the business manager who tried his best to sell all those expensive extras they offer at signing. My hubby and I had no problem politely declining the extended warranty (we'll get this from Troy). We also declined prepaid maintenance (if we get it, Troy would be our man). The last thing they threw at us was a three-way package of "protective" add ons, which included DuPont paint protection, undercoating, and interior fabric protection. All three are from a vendor called "Auto Armor." My first instinct is to toss the flyer in the garbage, but I thought I'd ask the gurus here at Prius chat which of these protections -- if any -- might be worth the extra cost. The paint protection is $500, the undercoating is $600, and the fabric protection is $500. All three can be had together for the low, low price B) of $899. Thoughts? Comments? Thanks for your help! --Bonny G.
That's $1 of cost to the dealer and $898 pure profit. Politely decline. If you are inclined to spend $600-900 on your Prius, get a "clear bra" (3M paint protection film) installed. It will do far more to protect the finish of your car than the package the dealer is offering.
eh, don't bother with the prepaid maintenance. maintenance on the prius is basically oil change and tire rotations every 5k, some bigger issues at larger intervals but overall prepaid will cost you more. paint protection? use zaino. there are a bunch of zaino users here, myself included. from the look of my paint job, it does a fantastic job protecting the paint. undercoating? don't bother. what are their selling points? quieter ride? rust protection? not too useful for either. interior fabric protection is also pretty useless. the fabric in the prius does clean up pretty easily on its own, and for that much money you can get a really nice set of seat covers and just be done with the whole thing. congrats on getting ready to pick up the new car
Actually my dealer tried the same thing with me when I picked up my Prius. Rather than being pressured into purchasing his additional "add-ons", I showed up well informed with pricing information on the things I really wanted such as the Simonizing System 5 and the Toyota extended warranty. He tried selling me an API (or something like that) extended warranty for $1350 which was 6 years/100,000 miles/$100 deductable, instead I pushed for the Toyota warranty (7 years/100,000 miles/$0 deductable) and set my pricing by showing up with the online pricing. Reluctantly, he said he'd match the price (according to him, he said $985 was $100 over cost.) Additionally, they wanted $595 for the Simonizing System 5 (ext. & int.) which I knew was $200 higher than I could get it else where. So I provided pricing from 3 other local dealers for $395, and said I'll just go to another dealer if he doesn't want to change his price. He decided it wasn't worth losing the money since he was making a good profit anyway and gave me the Toyota Extended Warranty and the Simonizing for $1280 combined. It was less for both options than I could get it anywhere else. It wasn't as low I as I paid ($1100) for both things for my 2005 Prius, but it was really close that it wasn't worth arguing about. Good luck.
Which is $595 higher than you should have paid for that stuff. Its pretty much useless, just a can of scotch guard and a cheap polymer sealant that wont last 2 months. Total cost to do something like that? Probably $10-15. Nobody get suckered into that crap. Pay a professional detailer to care for the car with that $595. If you paid a detailer $150 to fully detail the car twice a year, you could have the car cared for, properly, for two full years for the cost of that.
What galaxee said. Undercoating? Where do you live? Doesn't really matter. Where I lived in the Rust Belt, and before sheet metal was sprayed and protected by manufacturers the way it is now, undercoating seemed like a more reasonable way to waste money. Now it's not.
It can also plug up the various weep holes and the air conditioner drain. Those can be $600 worth of fun, easy. (In other words, don't get it.)
Yeah, that is some annoying BS. Now they try to push Charger cable packages for 75 bucks, overpriced floor mats along with the other absurd add ons, and they try to tell you that it's already on the car and can't be removed. With my 2016 2 Eco, I told them to take the floor mats and charger kit out, they said it's impossible, so I walked. Ofcourse 1 hour latter they said that they will take them out. It's all a charade, and I don't know how they get away with it.
