New RAV4 owner

[tigerblood]

Hello all,

My wife and I bought a new to us 2008 limited today with 59K miles. We bought it from a toyota dealer in our town. It was a "certified pre-owned". Not sure if that was a marketing scheme or if they do actually only "certify" the ones in tip top shape. Anyone know?

Anyways, I'm a Jeep wrangler driver and am very active on the wrangler forum and help out others and get alot of help on there. The toyota is my wifes new vehicle and hopefully I can do the same here.

Thanks!

[crayb]

Welcome to the group tigerblood. Lots of great folks and helpful info here.

Ray

[Dr. Dyno]

Originally Posted by tigerblood

My wife and I bought a new to us 2008 limited today with 59K miles. We bought it from a toyota dealer in our town. It was a "certified pre-owned". Not sure if that was a marketing scheme or if they do actually only "certify" the ones in tip top shape. Anyone know?

Anyways, I'm a Jeep Wrangler driver and am very active on the Wrangler forum and help out others and get a lot of help on there. The Toyota is my wife's new vehicle and hopefully I can do the same here.

Welcome and congrats. I'm not too much on "certified" cars. Supposedly they go thru a thorough inspection and you should have some kind of an "extra" warranty, but when they first started it years ago I figured it was mainly a gimmick to sell easier and at higher prices. Maybe others here will have a kinder gentler take. You will find a wealth of expert info here.

And my condolences on the Wrangler, unless of course you use it for its intent and keep it muddy most of the time.

Anyway I'd suggest adding them both to a signature block so you don't have to list the specs every question.

[tigerblood]

Originally Posted by Dr. Dyno

Welcome and congrats. I'm not too much on "certified" cars. Supposedly they go thru a thorough inspection and you should have some kind of an "extra" warranty, but when they first started it years ago I figured it was mainly a gimmick to sell easier and at higher prices. Maybe others here will have a kinder gentler take. You will find a wealth of expert info here.

And my condolences on the Wrangler, unless of course you use it for its intent and keep it muddy most of the time.

Anyway I'd suggest adding them both to a signature block so you don't have to list the specs every question.

Haha...no condolences needed here, its a 95-it gets dirty, its been rolled and driven home, i have done lots of work to it. Def not a yuppie jeep lol. Ill get my profile/signature filled out asap

[SuperT]

Congrats on the new Rav! My wife is a pretty new Rav owner, too.

As far as the Certified Pre-Owned thing goes. I asked the dealership we bought our Rav from why ours wasn't Certified and our sales guy said they (being the dealership) don't certify any of their cars because Toyota charges X-amount to call it certified, which is just a marketing tool, and since they're a smaller dealership instead of paying the premium for certification they just price their cars lower to pass along the savings to the customer. Don't know if that's BS or not but it sounded logical to me.

Good luck with the new Rav and welcome!

[Dr. Dyno]

Originally Posted by SuperT

As far as the Certified Pre-Owned thing goes. I asked the dealership we bought our Rav from why ours wasn't Certified and our sales guy said they (being the dealership) don't certify any of their cars because Toyota charges X-amount to call it certified, which is just a marketing tool, and since they're a smaller dealership instead of paying the premium for certification they just price their cars lower to pass along the savings to the customer. Don't know if that's BS or not but it sounded logical to me.

Sounds reasonable. My Accord was from a Honda dealer and was certified. The sales lady said it cost them $1,000 (I believe it was) to do that. It did have brand new tires and a list of things they supposedly checked. And it came with an additional warranty. I waited for them to drop their online price $1,000 before I bought.

[mrodgers]

The one thing I noticed in regards to Certified is looking at the free Carfax reports from the ads, it is always listed oil change, transmission fluid change, diff fluid change, air filter and cabin filter change, 4 wheel alignment, and brake inspection and some changed. These are listed on Carfax at the dealer of sale on every Certified car for sale before they are listed up for sale. I haven't seen all that listed on any non-certified cars.

Whether $35 of oil (Mobil1 prices at that), $15 of transmission fluid, $30 worth of filters, and $80 for a 4 wheel alignment is worth the $1000 I see in difference between Certified and non-Certified is worth it depends on you. I do all my own work myself anyways.

Certified does get you 1.9% financing on any used, which I could get anyways from my Credit Union. It also gets you 7 years/100,000 mile powertrain warranty (I think,) though I don't know if that is from the time of sale on used or based on original new sale.

[Shep426]

7/100 starts fronm the original delivery when new, in theory the trucks are hand picked for condition and quality before being eligible for certification and they are spot checked by secret buyers for Toyota, or they were when the program first started. As a former SM for a dealer on LI, NY we got burned with poor prep and had to clean up our act or loose the authority to sell certified, if anyone has a legimate complaint about the worthiness or prep contact Toyota. Heavy underchassis rust would disqualify a car.

[SuperT]

Originally Posted by mrodgers

The one thing I noticed in regards to Certified is looking at the free Carfax reports from the ads, it is always listed oil change, transmission fluid change, diff fluid change, air filter and cabin filter change, 4 wheel alignment, and brake inspection and some changed. These are listed on Carfax at the dealer of sale on every Certified car for sale before they are listed up for sale. I haven't seen all that listed on any non-certified cars.

Whether $35 of oil (Mobil1 prices at that), $15 of transmission fluid, $30 worth of filters, and $80 for a 4 wheel alignment is worth the $1000 I see in difference between Certified and non-Certified is worth it depends on you. I do all my own work myself anyways.

Certified does get you 1.9% financing on any used, which I could get anyways from my Credit Union. It also gets you 7 years/100,000 mile powertrain warranty (I think,) though I don't know if that is from the time of sale on used or based on original new sale.

Well ours was not certified but had a free Carfax report and had new tires and a 30k mile service done, so it does happen even if it's not certified, but we of course do not have the 100k mile powertrain warranty.

I bought my Honda Accord and it was Honda Certified. I was back the next day to have the rotors cut down since they were warped and pulsing as well as the A/C wasn't working. So it just goes to show you certified doesn't always mean better, it really comes down to the dealership and their attention to details in prepping their pre-owned cars IMO.

[tigerblood]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, and yes, we have what's left of the 7/100 warranty from when it was new.

The reason I was suspicious about the "certified" was because of a few small issues the vehicle had. the light is out for the shifter letters, the gas door is a little tweeked, and the hood and some light rash on it, and a couple dings on the body. All of these issues are supposed to be fixed (minus the dings) because we bought the warranty that extends the power train to a bumper to bumper warranty.