Mazda Total Advantage Plan?

Hi,

Just got a new 2014 AWD GT CX5. Love the car! I was looking at the Mazda site for Mazda Total Advantage. This is NOT an extedned warranty,but simply a pre-paid maintenance plan. Assuming I would be taking my car to the Mazda dealer for routine maintenance while under warranty, I have a few questions:

1. Has anyone purchased the Mazda MTA plan?
2. What is the price?
3. How does the prepaid price compare to the post-paid price of maintenance service? In other words, does prepaying give you a good discount?
4. Anyone know of any online dealers who are selling the MTA at a discount?

Thanks in advance.
BM99

Im not sure how much it is but you can calculate it yourself to see if it is worth it. They should provide an oil change (synthetic oil) plus tire rotation every 5000k-7500k miles. This will cost on average $75-85 at the dealer. So youd be at about $1000 after 60k miles at this rate on your own.

nizzy1115 said:

Im not sure how much it is but you can calculate it yourself to see if it is worth it. They should provide an oil change (synthetic oil) plus tire rotation every 5000k-7500k miles. This will cost on average $75-85 at the dealer. So youd be at about $1000 after 60k miles at this rate on your own.

Click to expand...

Thanks, this was helpful. Somehow I dobt they are selling this policy for less than $1000(shrug)

They will not sell it for under 1K is my bet. I actually got 2 years worth of tire rotation and oil changes thrown in as part of my sale deal. Come to think of it; I really pounded the dealer and because of some issues on their end; I ended up with a much better deal than originally agreed upon.

My experience with prepaid maintenance is with a different manufacturer (2005 Prius) but the thinking should be about the same.

First you have to make sure the Plan is "transportable" and will be honored at all Mazda service locations in the USA (and maybe Canada).

Depending on your location the "Book Rate" for shop service can run from about $55/hr to $75/hr. Use this as a bracket to estimate what you would spend out of pocket for dealer service. Most of the routine service is very straight forward and until you get into the 15k miles there isn't a lot of time spent by the service tech on your car. If you Google a bit you can probably find some realistic numbers for the hours spent on the more complex service intervals. There may be some here in the mazda247 forums that have detailed service records that include hours.

IMPORTANT!! If you decide to buy the TA Plan do NOT fold it into your finance. Why pay interest on something that is suppose to save you money?

Okay, generally prepaid service plans are a major source of positive cash flow for the dealership. They take a fairly healthy cut and then send the rest to the Plan Administrator. (Almost no prepaid service plans are handled by the manufacturer so you are essentially buying an insurance policy.) Because the money you are paying for the prepaid plan is split between the dealer and administrator you can sometimes negotiate a discount if you are willing to work at it.

I bought the prepaid service plan for my Prius but since it was a factory administered plan i was assured it was the same for all of the USA. ANd, there was a dealer that was offering a discount to members of a forum. That made it worth it.

I'm getting ready to buy a CX-5 so I'm going through the same "decision tree" for the new car.