[invisiblewave]

I have been in the market for a pre-owned 720s for a few months. I've been searching Cargurus, Cars.com, Autotrader, McLarenLife, eBay, etc. and I've narrowed my search down to two cars.

My first choice based on price, specs, and color combo is a 2019 720s Performance with less than 4,000 miles. It's a 3 owner car, so I would potentially be the third owner. It is being offered by a McLaren dealer in Texas and their advertisement didn't indicate that it would be a CPO car. They just took the car in on trade and it finally went through the service center. The salesman just informed me that due to some "missed maintenance" McLaren will not CPO this car. It's a McLaren Corporate decision, not the dealer's choice. I told the dealer I'm willing to pay more for the car to get the 1 year CPO warranty, and I would actually extend that to 2 years for more peace of mind.

Unfortunately, McLaren will not CPO this car despite the low mileage and the fact that the original factory warranty is still in effect....due to expire later this month. This means the car can never be covered under a McLaren warranty. I'm not sure if that also means it cannot be covered by a 3rd party warranty provider, but it may seem so.

The car has never been tuned and is a full OEM spec. No aftermarket parts whatsoever. I have requested the service records, as this decision by McLaren to blacklist this car is very strange.

This is an obvious red flag....I assume, or have any of you seen McLaren take this position before on other cars that may have simply missed a scheduled oil change, etc.?

Should I absolutely pass on this car? It has a clean Carfax, low mileage, and a great spec. Price isn't too low....at least not yet. The dealership may reprice it now knowing it cannot be covered under any McLaren warranty.

Appreciate your thoughts.

Mine fell into this category, despite the dealer selling it as a CPO car. There was an issue with the dealer that carried out the second service, they failed to upload the service record when they did it, then the dealership changed hands and the records were lost, so even though the service had been done (and was actually on the Car Fax!), McLaren were telling me that the warranty was invalid. Their corporate customer service department then spent some considerable time trying to track down any records, and eventually located some sort of workshop record that they were willing to accept as proof of the service being completed, and they sent me a hardcopy, signed letter to the effect that this was acceptable and the warranty was valid. I've had warranty work approved since then too.

 

[invisiblewave]

Fishy….. if inspected and brought up to Mac standards, no reason to not cpo. Unless , crashed, tuned,modded,etc…..

Doesn't matter. If there's no record of the oil change for one of the years when it was due, they won't warranty the car.

 

[invisiblewave]

There are plenty of low mileage cars around the country that qualify for CPO and extended warranty. If there is a problem with the records it will follow the car forever. These are expensive cars and it should meet all your requirements...especially the ability to have a warranty.

I agree. This is something you're going to have to explain whenever you sell it, so either buy it with the commensurate discount for it being a car with incomplete service records, or buy another car.

 

[invisiblewave]

Mod=no warranty. Taste the soup first before adding salt and pepper.

This is not actually the case. The earlier post was accurate, they may deny a claim for a specific area if they seem any particular mod may have caused the failure, but the warranty is still in effect. A cat back exhaust is unlikely to be a problem for most warranty claims.

 

[invisiblewave]

So I have a question as I get closer to pulling the trigger on a Mclaren - how do you validate the warranty that the dealer is providing? I've heard stories of Mclaren corporate not honoring cars when an ECU scan is performed and a past mod shows up. I'm currently looking at pre-owned cars at both Mclaren Boston and Philadelphia. Boston sells the cars as "Mclaren Qualified" meaning for a price you can warranty it while Philly includes a 1 year certified warranty in the price. Am I good just accepting the dealerships word and paperwork for the warranty or is there a process to confirm a vehicle is covered with the factory as part of the purchase process?

There's no way to tell for sure. Ask for something in writing from the dealer that the car is unmodified. The other thing to look at closely is the service paperwork, make sure it had all its annual oil changed done, and on time.

 

[invisiblewave]

I had read somewhere that if you provide McLaren Corporate with the VIN they can tell you if it has been flagged or not, but maybe that is only for certain customers?

I think they will do this for prospective customers, but it's not 100% accurate because it's possible the car was modified without them knowing about it. I think if it's not flagged, the dealer says it not modified, the service history is complete, and the dealer is willing to CPO it, the car is a pretty safe bet.