Toyota extends warranty to 10 years, if serviced with them

[samoht]

Until yesterday, all new Toyotas & Lexuses came with a five year manufacturer warranty.

This has now changed, they now come with a three year warranty which automatically extends by a year each time the car is serviced by a franchised Toyota dealership, up to a maximum of ten years and 100k miles.

Existing cars sold with a five year warranty can also get this extended for up to ten years when serviced by Toyota.

If a car has not been serviced on time or by a Toyota dealer, it can re-enter the scheme following a service at a franchised dealer, who will check it over and perform any required repairs, after which it will be covered again.

Models with two year service intervals will get a two year extension at each franchised service.

Services in year ten of the car's life will still get 12 months extension, so it's possible to cover a car up to the day before its 11th birthday.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry-news/t...
https://mag.toyota.co.uk/toyota-warranty-how-it-wo...


EU regulations require all car makers to provide a two year warranty on all new cars, even those serviced outside their franchised dealerships, as long as the service schedule is fulfilled correctly. However beyond month 24, it's up to the manufacturer to decide.

Most cars probably leave the dealer network for servicing between three and ten years of age, so there's potentially a significant amount of servicing work that the franchised dealer could recapture in exchange for this extended warranty cover.


For people who carry on returning their Toyota to the franchised dealership every year anyway, as my parents did, this is all upside. For others it may be a question of balancing the higher cost of official servicing against the benefits of any cover.

One issue is what a warranty does or does not cover - as a car gets older, a number of parts will wear out and need replacement - AFAIK the cost of replacing parts at the end of their expected life wouldn't be covered by a warranty, only premature failures. OTOH anyone concerned about e.g. possible hybrid battery failure may find this useful. Or any Supra owners concerned about their German mechanicals falling apart early.

If buying a secondhand Toyota/Lexus, maybe a GT86 or a run-out ISF, one with full Manufacturer service history may now be more worth seeking out.


Will be interesting to see how many more owners of 3-10 year old Toyotas go for franchised dealer servicing, and if any other manufacturers follow suit.

[samoht]

kambites said:

Surely that's illegal? As I understand it manufacturers aren't allowed to discriminate in terms of warranty against people who get their cars serviced at independent garages as long as the work is done to an appropriate standard with OEM quality parts.

I would imagine that legally, the first three years of unconditional cover are the "warranty", and the conditionally extended cover in years 4-10 is a "generosity scheme" from Toyota, which is outside the remit of the Block Exemption Regulations.

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/sectors/motor_vehi...