Congratulations I don't think I have heard of someone getting a Clarity for half of MSRP! Was it new when you purchased it, not a demo or a loaner? If so then the Honda factory warranty started the day you purchased it, meaning that you are only one year into the 3yr/36,000 mile warranty, although with the amount of driving that you are doing I suppose you will exceed 36,000 miles within a few months. But then you get 5yr/60,000 miles on powertrain and 8yr/100,000 miles on the HV battery. Sounds like you may have also purchased an extended warranty from the dealer? If so do you know if it was Hondacare warranty or a third party warranty?
1-year owner near Little Rock
I'm Thomas. I went looking for cars to get a handle on the prices this time last year. Because I drive quite a bit, I looked at the hybrids and plug-in hybrids. While at one dealer they told me another dealer had a couple Clarities they wanted to get rid of from 2018 model that didn't sell well in Arkansas. I found out the manufacturer had a good rebate and they also still were under federal rebates.
When I went to the dealer to take a look, it really was no hassle. They had two of them. One was the Touring with extras and one was the base package. I drove the base one. The dealer wanted to get the Touring off the lot first. Ended up getting it for 1/2 the original MSRP with a great warranty.
Since then, I drive roughly 2,400 miles per month. During the summer months, I usually do about 80% of that on electric and 20% on gas. The farthest I've gone on electric was 60 miles. During the winter months, it hasn't gotten below freezing much and I get about 25-30 miles on electric. I consistently read over 100 mpg if I'm driving the 120 miles daily and charging at work and at home.
I'm told Arkansas just increased fees for plug-ins to $200 registration increase per year. They did that to make up for lost tax revenue. They more than made up for it with that increase, but after fees for electric and gas, I'm saving about $200 per month on gas savings over my old car.
I've gotten in 3 scrapes with the car so far.
Plywood came off a trailer going the other way and took off my driver's side mirror (I barely had time to react). The other driver covered it.
I swerved around a deer on the road only to have it charge and hit my passenger side rear door. I couldn't find a dent or a scrape afterwards, so it must have had a soft head.
I hit a black edge of my wife's car while backing up (so used to it being in a different place) before I was used to the cameras when it was pitch black scraped it a bit. Wasn't too bad of a fix, but I still notice it.
I mostly do my own oil changes, but did have a local shop do it recently. They overtightened the drain plug (not good but didn't strip it) and didn't insert the aluminum cover (don't know the correct name for it) into the slots, so that almost came off during one of my drives. Lost a few screws that I need to reorder when I find the part number and scraped up the aluminum a bit, but it still works.
So far, pretty happy with the Clarity. I have some questions so I'm going to be reading through these forums.
- Thomas
When I went to the dealer to take a look, it really was no hassle. They had two of them. One was the Touring with extras and one was the base package. I drove the base one. The dealer wanted to get the Touring off the lot first. Ended up getting it for 1/2 the original MSRP with a great warranty.
Since then, I drive roughly 2,400 miles per month. During the summer months, I usually do about 80% of that on electric and 20% on gas. The farthest I've gone on electric was 60 miles. During the winter months, it hasn't gotten below freezing much and I get about 25-30 miles on electric. I consistently read over 100 mpg if I'm driving the 120 miles daily and charging at work and at home.
I'm told Arkansas just increased fees for plug-ins to $200 registration increase per year. They did that to make up for lost tax revenue. They more than made up for it with that increase, but after fees for electric and gas, I'm saving about $200 per month on gas savings over my old car.
I've gotten in 3 scrapes with the car so far.
Plywood came off a trailer going the other way and took off my driver's side mirror (I barely had time to react). The other driver covered it.
I swerved around a deer on the road only to have it charge and hit my passenger side rear door. I couldn't find a dent or a scrape afterwards, so it must have had a soft head.
I hit a black edge of my wife's car while backing up (so used to it being in a different place) before I was used to the cameras when it was pitch black scraped it a bit. Wasn't too bad of a fix, but I still notice it.
I mostly do my own oil changes, but did have a local shop do it recently. They overtightened the drain plug (not good but didn't strip it) and didn't insert the aluminum cover (don't know the correct name for it) into the slots, so that almost came off during one of my drives. Lost a few screws that I need to reorder when I find the part number and scraped up the aluminum a bit, but it still works.
So far, pretty happy with the Clarity. I have some questions so I'm going to be reading through these forums.
- Thomas
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I believe it was the Honda Care for the highest level, I'll have to look at the paperwork tomorrow. It's always good to refresh my memory on all that and have the mechanics give it a good once-over prior to the warranties expiring.
It was at least 5 year 100,000 miles. I only remember clearly at this point that it was with a 1 million mile interior. I was concerned at the time of the battery life, especially with buying a car that had been sitting on the lot for 2 years.
The car may have been used for demos, but not much. It had less than 500 miles on it when I bought it.
It was at least 5 year 100,000 miles. I only remember clearly at this point that it was with a 1 million mile interior. I was concerned at the time of the battery life, especially with buying a car that had been sitting on the lot for 2 years.
The car may have been used for demos, but not much. It had less than 500 miles on it when I bought it.
If the car had nearly 500 miles on it when you purchased it, either it was driven that far from another dealership or more likely it was used as a demo, i.e. some sales manager drove it for a while as his personal car. If so then the factory warranty probably started when they first put it into service. You can have any Honda dealer run your VIN number and they can tell you how much time is left on the warranty. Although in your case it's probably a moot point for the 3yr warranty since it sounds like you will drive out the 36,000 miles before the time part of the warranty expires. But for the power train and HV battery warranties you should find out when the expiration dates are.I believe it was the Honda Care for the highest level, I'll have to look at the paperwork tomorrow. It's always good to refresh my memory on all that and have the mechanics give it a good once-over prior to the warranties expiring.
It was at least 5 year 100,000 miles. I only remember clearly at this point that it was with a 1 million mile interior. I was concerned at the time of the battery life, especially with buying a car that had been sitting on the lot for 2 years.
The car may have been used for demos, but not much. It had less than 500 miles on it when I bought it.
If the extended warranty that you purchased is HondaCare that is good because that is really the only one that should be purchased, it is administered through Honda and from what I have heard it's very easy to use as any Honda dealer's computer system will recognize that the car is under HondaCare warranty when they enter the VIN. If the repair is determined to be under warranty (i.e. not caused by damage) then you don't pay anything out of pocket. Compared to 3rd party warranties where people often have to fight with the warranty company to get reimbursed.
Even if it is HondaCare the dealer likely overcharged you for it, because dealers almost always overcharge for it. Which is understandable in your case since they probably lost money on the sale itself. There are a couple of Honda dealers that sell HondaCare online, Hyannis Honda being the most popular, you can go to their website and enter your VIN and get a free quote, the warranty extends the general and power train warranty to 8 years, and various amounts of miles depending on the price level that you choose. However you have to purchase it within I think 6,000 miles to get the New Car warranty extension, after that you can buy five years of warranty, but most people who miss the 6,000 mile window wait until the end of the 3yr 36,000 mile factory warranty to purchase the five year warranty otherwise there would be an overlap with the still in force factory warranty. The guy at Hyannis who administers the program is very helpful and will answer any questions that you have.
Many people cancel the extended warranty that they purchased from the dealer once they find out they can get it cheaper elsewhere, although in your case the time limit for cancelling may have expired, but you should check anyway.
So to recap I would suggest:
1. Find out from any Honda dealer when your factory warranties expire (the 3yr, 5yr and 8yr warranties)
2. Find out whether the extended warranty that you purchased is HondaCare or a 3rd party warranty
3. If it's a 3rd party warranty read it from top to bottom, every sentence, all ten pages or whatever, to find out what the exclusions are, of which there will likely be many. For HondaCare it doesn't hurt to read it also but for the most part it is pretty close to the factory warranty.
4. Find out if there is still time to cancel the warranty that you purchased, in case you decide you want to
5. Go to Hyannis Honda and get a free quote for HondaCare. If nothing else you will find out whether you overpaid or not and by how much. Again probably not much to worry about since you got such a good price on the car.
1 - 4 of 4 Posts
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