wayman28

I purchased a used 2009 LS 460 a few days ago. Does anyone have any recommendations on a good source for a third party bumper-to-bumper warranty I could purchase? Thanks.

roadfrog

Probably the second highest thread topic here on CL. Do a search.

My opinion though, ( and that of many others), is to not bother with a warranty.

wayman28

Thanks roadfrog. I did some searches but a lot of the existing threads seem a little outdated. Still I made some phone calls and the bottom line is that it seems I can't get a Lexus Platinum/Gold warranty because my car is no longer covered under the original warranty. That's the answer I got after talking to one of the Toyota warranty sales guys who came highly recommended in a related thread.

Seems like I'm out of luck unless someone else has other info.

To your last point of not getting a warranty I originally declined the warranty but my recent visit to the Lexus dealership who quoted me over $4000 for control arm and ball joints has me rethinking it.

roadfrog

I had the same situation when I declined a 3rd party warranty and asked about Lexus warranty.

Yes you could pay 4k for new arms, but you do not need to replace entire assemblies and arms. Bushings are cheap and only require a few hours of labour to install. Also, keep in mind that wearable items (such as bushings) are often NOT covered by third party extended warranty companies.

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

Call a couple of local Lexus dealership Finance Managers, They should sell you a Lexus Platinum warranty on your car.

robert1408

I totally agree with you. To me, warranties beyond the original one are more like insurance. Insurance mainly is to cover catastrophic loss and not ordinary expenses. I have never bought additional warranty on any car and have never had a repair that would have been covered anyway. Short of highly unlikely engine or trans failure on an LS 460, there's nothing horribly expensive likely to fail. I knew this wasn't going to be a cheap car to maintain when I bought it. I am willing to roll the dice to drive a car like this for Accord money. Plus my work experience was not great when dealing with most aftermarket warranty companies.

wayman28

So far I've called two Lexus dealerships and a Toyota dealership and all of them said they couldn't help me either because I didn't buy the car from their dealership or because the original warranty expired.

I am doing research on this but I am torn on whether to actually pull the trigger for all the reasons the other posters have mentioned. I figure I'd better have the warranty information in front of me before making a final decision.

Thanks guys.

DJWLDW

wayman28

Give Jason Fredricks a call at Lexus of Omaha and see if he can help you out. 888-632-5398.

Dennis

dlbuckls10

I purchased a 3 year/36,000 warranty on my LS 460 through the dealership for $1600. I've had over $4500 in repairs and I have a year left. The warranty is a good investment. Finding a 3rd party bumper to bumper warranty on a five year old vehicle will almost be impossible. Good Luck.

Lavrishevo

iTrader: (1)

Stay away from 3rd party warranties. Consumer advisers in general tell you to stay away from extended warranties all together. Often the "savings" people quote that their warranty saved them is totally unrealistic. They base this on ridiculous walk up pricing that some random rip off dealer quoted you.

As an example, someone will say or it saved me $4000 to have this or that replaced. Well, if you the consumer actually sourced the part themselves, whether oem or not, and payed for labor either through a dealer or through a Lexus shop you almost always come out better vs paying for an extended warranty. More often then not you loose money by purchasing an extended warranty vs doing it yourself. Now with the 460 it is probably worth getting the Lexus warranty because of the cost of parts and issues with reliability and maybe convenience. Kind of depends on how you approach things.

wayman28

Thanks I gave him a call and left him a message I'll let you know what he says.

gooshster

what year and how many miles, if you come to maryland and get your car inspected my guy should be able to sell you the platinum vsa. he told me as long as i have a valid md inspection he will sell me a vsa.

wayman28

Thanks gooshster. I spoke to Jason and he said something similar. Luckily I already had an inspection done at a Lexus dealership as part of my used car buying due diligence so I sent him the report and I'm waiting to hear back from him on pricing. I don't think I'm eligible for the Platinum since my car has 73k miles. I thought I remember reading somewhere that the Platinum VSA was for cars with 50k and less miles.

wayman28

Just wanted to update a relatively old thread, since I wasn't having any luck getting a Lexus warranty I ended up getting a third party warranty through a company called Carchex. There are a lot of third party car warranty companies out there but these guys were the only ones I found with an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. That said, they had their fair share of negative reviews online as well. I debated it for a while but the thing that tipped me over the edge was that I could cancel the policy at any time and get a prorated refund.

This week I had to have the front wheel hub bearing assemblies replaced on my LS460 to the tune of $1400. I was going to use this as a test of the warranty and see how painful the process would be to get a claim approved. If they were going to make it hard or deny me I was prepared to cancel the policy right away. To mine and the Lexus tech's suprise they approved the claim in about 15 minutes at 100% minus my $100 deductible. So the policy has paid for about 60% of itself and I've only had it for about a month with almost 3 more years to go. Looks like I'll be keeping the policy after all.

Wandl

Hey that is great news I am in the same boat (with a 2010 ls460 with similar diagnosis) boiled it down to Carchex and Warranty Direct, both highly reviewed among 3rd party providers...good to hear you are having good luck with yours