Maintenance Plan?
 

My dealership offered me the following Car Care Service Plans

7 year 100k miles $1241
6 year 75k miles $1016
5 year 60k miles $886
4 year 50k miles $806
3 year 45k miles $766
3 year 35k miles $661
2 year 30k miles $621

This is NOT AN EXTENDED WARRANTY, but a plan that is suppose to cover service every 5000 miles which also includes tire rotations and key replacement if lost, damaged, or stolen.


Is this a good deal? I'm thinking that $1241 to cover all of my maintenance for the next 7 years is a pretty good deal. I already purchased a 7yr/100k Acura extended warranty from Bernardi and plan to keep my 2011 TL for as long as it works. I also haven't negotiated the price but I was thinking i could negotiate it down $1,000 for 7yr/100K.

does this include leather care, oil change?

$1200 for roughly 20 service stops seems excessive, especially since most of those will just be oil changes and tire rotations. I wouldn't get it. Just my :2cents:

What does it include in detail?

I get free oil changes from my dealer, but they charge $60 with tax for tire rotation and balance. 20 of those would equal the $1200 right there. Really depends though if you don't buy the plan would you go elsewhere for service and how much would it cost there? Also would need to know what all is included in that plan.

I was wrong in my understanding of the plan. Actually i was more mislead. Apparently it is just a prepaid oil change plan with the extra benefit of a tire rotation and key replacement. In either case it is still only 5 miles from my office and my home so depending on how low I can negotiate the price, I may still get it.

Interesting how that plan ends right before the first major service interval (Timing Belt and Water Pump @ 105k for ~$1000) isn't it?


Edit: Nevermind. Just saw the last post.

Keep negotiating the price Anish! Try to get it down to $50 a service. May be worth it then. Sounds like you'll still need to pay for air filters and in-cabin filters.

Something about this "deal" smells, though I can't quite put my finger on it. I get free oil changes, but every other one (alternating) requires some additional required maintenance that I have to come out of pocket for and a few of those, at major mileage milestones, are a little expensive.

If you plan on keeping the car until the wheels fall off, then this plan might pay for itself over the long term, but since you have to pre-pay up front you also have to consider the time value of money. For one thing, I certainly would not finance it by rolling it into the final deal. What if you decide to get rid of the car before all of these mileage points are met? Do you get any (pro-rated) refund?

The cost of your 100,000-mile plan is almost exactly the dealer net (wholesale) cost of the 8-yr/100K Acura Care extended warranty (which you can buy on line for that amount). Also, assuming you do keep the car, what is the likelihood of you buying replacement tires from the dealer? Have you priced them at the dealership???? Most any tire retailer, i.e., Discount Tire can beat your Acura dealership's tire prices by several hundred bucks and provide free lifetime balance & rotation included in the price of the tires. This makes this maintenance plan you're looking at a ripoff.

So bottom-line advice (my opinion) is if you have $1200 burning a hole in your pocket AND if you're absolutely sure that you are going to keep the car, avoid this "deal" and go get the Acura Care Extended Service Plan instead.

Also, the convenience factor you noted (5 minutes away) only applies as long as that dealership remains at that location and/or you remain at your present job.

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My :2cents: is that dealerships offer this kind of thing because they are hedging their bets that if 100 people were to buy this service, you'd see something along the lines of:

50% of the people sell/trade in their cars by the 50,000 mile mark
20% of the people would forget or overextend their oil change intervals, and that would leave that money in the dealerships pockets
15% of the people would move too far away from the dealership to use this offer again (the average American moves 9 times in their life!)
10% of the people would have something happen to their cars that left irrepairable damage and have to junk it before the services were all completed
4% of the people would come to their senses and realize that synthetic oil is the only way to go (:thumbsup:) and the dealership would not cover this

...and the 1 person that remains and would/could hit every service on time for all those years and miles...probably won't be you :tongue:

In summary, don't do this! You'll have that $50 to $60 (honestly, Hoy Fox Acura in El Paso did an oil change for me for $45) every time an oil change interval comes around.

$60+ for a tire rotation and oil change is ridiculous. That's why I call them stealerships, because they're straight robbing people. Any Discount Tire Company/America's Tire Company will rotate your tires free of charge, whether you purchased your tires from them or not. And just like Cap'n said above, if you do purchase tires from them they also include the lifetime free balancing. So, if you're able to go through DTC/ATC for free rotations, and let's say you pay about $35 per oil change every 5,000 miles, then you'll save yourself over $500 by not getting this service plan. Again just my :2cents: