A car question!

[Peter 14.7]

Lemon Guide to Cars

Hi All

Again Somersoft is saving me money.

Owning an Alfa I had considered buying the extended warranty. Two years for $1500 plus a mandatory timing belt change at $1000. From the reports above it appears it is a waste of $.

BTW Not surprised that Toyota offers the best considering their cars hardly ever break down.

An Aussie (I think) had brought out a very plain but extremely comprehensive guide of every car, model and years avaible in Australia called the "Lemon Guide" or something like that. It is available at large newsagents and costs around $8.

You can look up your car or a car you are considering. It is very witty and appears to be totally unbiased. If anything a little overly critical.

For instance it describes there being only two types of satisfied Alfa owners “those with new cars under warranty and those with really old cars where all the problems have been fixed!”

His comments on an Alfa 147 was very correct to the faults I have experienced (sunvisor, selespeed dropouts to name a few) however I hope his summary rating of “avoid like the plague” does not come to pass.

FYI the best five cars included the Lexus Range and Toyota Hilux.

Regards Peter 147

 

[Mr Ed]

Chris,

I know the warranty you are looking at well. My advice is give it a miss. If you really want a warranty pop along to the local Toyota Dealer and see them about buying the warranty for "Non Toyotas" it will cost you about $1800 and will start when your 3 months 5000 km warranty from the dealer finishes but its a good warranty.

They arn't supposed to do it but if you be nice they will ablige, see the F&I guy there.

The question is will you spend $1800 on repairs in the 3 years or 60000 Km my guess not.

Hope this has been of help.

 

[ChrisOs]

Thanks Ed.
There is nothing quite as reliable as experience and inside knowledge

I will give the warranty a miss.

Regards,
Chris.

 

[Sunfish]

The question is will you spend $1800 on repairs in the 3 years or 60000 Km my guess not.

For most people that is likely to be a big NO.

I share Ed's respect for Toyotas but will expand that generally to Japanese cars. Not so keen on Korean, especially Kia, but Hyundi has improved to the point it matches Toyota and Honda in the US on warranty work (not?) needed.

My 6yr old car with 100K on it has not had one cent spent on repairs. I expect to be able to say the same of my van too.

Anyone want to start a poll to see if there are problem cars out there? I think the result would be for most to be very happy.

Thommo