Pre Paid Maintenance and extended warranty

D

Deep Crystal

Member
:
Mazda CX-5
First time poster here, about to purchase a GT AWD CX-5 with the GT tech package.

The Mazda dealership we are buying from offers a pre paid maintenance plan which costs $1,800 for 5 years or 75,000 miles. That seemed quite pricey to me, but the guy at the sales desk told us that the 30,000 and 60,000 maintenance costs for the AWD can be $800-$1000, which I am finding hard to believe. If this is true, then the $1,800 PPM plan seems like a good deal.

What is the true cost of maintenance over five years, and do you think the PPM is a good deal?

Secondly, I believe that most websites and people's opinions say that the extended warranty is not worth the money. The sales desk offered to extend the 36/30000 to 72/75000 for $2,300. I did some searching and found a couple of credit unions that offer the same extension for about half of the price.

Did you get the extended warranty on your CX-5? Do you think it was a good deal? Are those credit union offers legitimate and just as good as the dealer extended warranty?

Thanks. Just for the record these seem like common questions so I tried to search the forums for similar topics, but the search function wasn't working well for me.
 
I didn't purchase either.

They are both tools to make money. That's fine.

This is the 8th or 9th car we have purchased without an extended warranty and we tend to keep cars for 10 years. So that's 12k - 13.5k we didn't spend. Of those cars one might have benefited from an extended warranty. So I have spent 1700 of my saved 12k over time. That's provided the warranty would have paid.

The maintenance is relatively new. I haven't checked the numbers but I really doubt it's much if any real life savings. But that's just a guess.
 
Deep Crystal said:
First time poster here, about to purchase a GT AWD CX-5 with the GT tech package.

The Mazda dealership we are buying from offers a pre paid maintenance plan which costs $1,800 for 5 years or 75,000 miles. That seemed quite pricey to me, but the guy at the sales desk told us that the 30,000 and 60,000 maintenance costs for the AWD can be $800-$1000, which I am finding hard to believe. If this is true, then the $1,800 PPM plan seems like a good deal.

What is the true cost of maintenance over five years, and do you think the PPM is a good deal?

Secondly, I believe that most websites and people's opinions say that the extended warranty is not worth the money. The sales desk offered to extend the 36/30000 to 72/75000 for $2,300. I did some searching and found a couple of credit unions that offer the same extension for about half of the price.

Did you get the extended warranty on your CX-5? Do you think it was a good deal? Are those credit union offers legitimate and just as good as the dealer extended warranty?

Thanks. Just for the record these seem like common questions so I tried to search the forums for similar topics, but the search function wasn't working well for me.
Click to expand...

The true maintenance cost over 5 years depends on how many miles you are driving. Let's assume that you are driving 15,000 miles a year. This amounts to either 2 or 3 oil changes a year depending on whether you follow schedule 1 or schedule 2 services.

OVER 5 years 75k miles
10-15 oil changes
3 air filters
3 cabin filters
10-15 tire rotations
2 AWD transfercase/rear diff Gear oil
there are some other maintained items I am forgetting...
Typically a shop around me charges around $75 for the SKYACTIV oil change and tire rotation. And the air and cabin filters are approx. $20
$75x15 changes + $20x6 filters + $60x2 AWD = $1365

Now this is just a very rough breakdown, but maybe gives you a better idea. I would ask your service dept what they charge for the oil change/ tire rotate so you get a closer estimate.

I like the fact of knowing that all my service is paid for, and if labor rates, oil and chemicals, or parts get more expensive, I am protected from inflation.
 
Last edited:
I did purchase the maintenance program, but not the warranty. Caveat is that my car is a 3 year lease, so I only purchased what was needed for the life of that lease. That being said, my maintenance program covers everything but tires, and lasts for 3 years/50K miles. That plan cost me $1,500, which I take as a good value. It does offer peace of mind when dropping off the car for service, the dealer has no need to "upsell" me on any services, because he will simply be costing himself money.
 
With so much car pricing info on the internet, dealers make little to nothing on car sales. So the only place to make a profit is in the parts and service department. Nearly everything they offer for service can be obtained for less money elsewhere.
 
Take a look at the maintenance schedule in your owners manual and price out what you need for the milage/timeframe.
 
It must be a great deal. After all, the car dealerships price it low enough that they lose money on every buyer, right? Oh, wait . . .

This is right up there with "scientists are faking global warming data to cash in on those huge research grants" while oil companies and other monied interests are only interested in the facts.

Seriously, the only people who "win" on extended warranties and prepaid maintenance are those whose actual maintenance and repair costs are among the highest of all owners. It's simply a "bet" that you'll be significantly less lucky than average (warranty) or that you'll put on far more miles and therefore require far more service than average.

Some people may not be able to pony up for a very expensive (and rare) repair cost, and perhaps for them the extended warranty is an OK idea. But for most of us, we're better off financially to skip it.
 
I declined the prepaid service but bought the extended warranty only because they came down in price low enough to where I think it was a safe bet. Got extended warranty for 10yr 100k miles for $1300ish (they applied a Mazda loyalty rebate of $200 or so). Now that I think back on it it may have been a waste of money but it at least buys me some peice of mind knowing that I will keep this car until it dies.
 
Thanks for all of the feedback.

If we decide to go with an extended warranty, we found a credit union that has a seemingly good plan to extend the warranty to 72 month/75,000 for around $1000. I may bring in the quote to see if the dealership can beat that offer, but I seriously doubt it. We probably won't bother with the extended warranty at all.

We're still trying to decide if the pre paid maintenance is a good deal for us. First we have to decide if we're going schedule 1 or schedule 2. I called the service center at our dealer and the technician suggested that living in San Francisco with all of the hills and stop and go traffic that we should stick with the schedule 2 maintenance. I got a breakdown of all the prices if we maintain at schedule 2, the total was around $2,700 for 5 years/75,000 miles at the Mazda dealership. The quote of $1,800 in the first post was for the schedule 1 PPM, I don't know if what they will quote us for the schedule 2 PPM, and how much wiggle room we have to negotiate.

I suppose the next step is deciding if driving around San Francisco warrants the schedule 2. Any thoughts?

We're buying tomorrow, so exciting :)
 
I went with the 7 year/100K mile (pretty much) bumper-to-bumper warranty offered by the dealer (3rd party, though) on my 2016 AWD GT CX-5, mainly because it does have quite a bit of (new to Mazda) technology; as such, it is largely untried/untested. Knowing that there is a PILE of electronic componentry on this rascal, I didn't want to be gob-smacked by a $2K repair bill if my "automatic back-scratcher" fails in 5 years, LOL...

I did this for another reason, too. I tend to NOT keep cars more than 5 years TOPS; even that the warranty is transferable, I figured that if I paid for a seven year warranty, it might MAKE me keep the vehicle seven years...
 
Mine want $1800 for 7/70K, I passed. In this day and age unless you are pretty unlucky your not going to have a massive bill in the first 70k.
 
Please log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

C
    • Wow
Dealer extended warranty. Worth it?
2
Replies
30
Views
1K
Tchman2016
T
N
  • Locked
Guidance on maintenance & extended warranty package
2
Replies
35
Views
8K
sm1ke
sm1ke
Z
Another CX-5 warranty thread!
Replies
5
Views
2K
HyFlyer
HyFlyer

Latest posts

Back