Hyundai Certified Pre-Owned Warranty

Hyundai certified pre-owned program overview

Hyundai’s official certified pre-owned program is simply called Hyundai Certified.

CPO Hyundais come with the remainder of their five-year/60,000-mile factory bumper-to-bumper warranty and get their 10-year/100,000-mile factory powertrain warranty reinstated. Finally, they receive a wide range of benefits, including 10 years of roadside assistance with no mileage limit, as well as rental car and travel reimbursements.

What qualifies as a Hyundai CPO vehicle

To qualify for certification, a used Hyundai must be at most six model years old (e.g., a 2020 or newer in 2026) and have fewer than 80,000 miles on its odometer. It must also pass a thorough 173-point inspection performed by a certified dealer technician who checks the wheels, tires, engine, suspension, electronics, infotainment system and more.

Inspection process and standards

See your Hyundai dealer for specifics to your vehicle, but in general, Hyundai says that its CPO vehicles undergo a 173-point inspection that includes:

• 33 mechanical checks
• 11 maintenance checks
• Seven tire and wheel checks
• 34 exterior checks
• 58 interior checks
• 29 road test checks
• The vehicle’s CARFAX report

The inspection process may differ slightly for electric, hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, which have some different components than gas-powered cars.

» LEARN: Car warranty coverage

How good is Hyundai’s CPO warranty?

Hyundai’s CPO warranty is OK.

All brand-new Hyundais come with a five-year/60,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty and a 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty.

However, the factory powertrain warranty only applies to the original owner of the car. If the car is sold, the powertrain warranty is no longer active, although the parts it covered remain protected for five years/60,000 miles under the factory bumper-to-bumper warranty.

When you buy CPO, though, Hyundai will reinstate your vehicle’s 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty, albeit with a $50 deductible that isn’t present in the factory warranty.

Powertrain coverage applies to the parts of your car that create power and deliver it to the wheels, including the engine components, the transmission or transaxle, and other parts of the drivetrain. Wear-and-tear parts like filters and spark plugs are excluded.

Hyundai Certified Used vs. Hyundai Select Used

Hyundai offers a second program designed for older or higher-mileage cars. Called Hyundai Select Used, this program provides some assurance for carbuyers, but its scope and coverage are much more limited than the Certified Used program. 

Hyundai Select Used vehicles can be either seven to 10 years old with less than 120,000 miles or up to six years old with 80,000 to 120,000 miles. While these cars don’t get the 173-point inspection or 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty that the Certified Used program offers, they do receive a 117-point inspection and a powertrain warranty that lasts for 90 days/5,000 miles from the date of sale. 

Roadside assistance for Select Used vehicles is limited to 90 days, and rental car reimbursement is available for up to five days. Both benefits are only offered during the first 90 days of ownership.

Hyundai CPO warranty vs. competitors

The biggest drawback to Hyundai’s CPO warranty is that it doesn’t include extra bumper-to-bumper coverage. Even Kia — a company Hyundai technically owns — offers the standard one year of added bumper-to-bumper protection with its CPO cars.

The upside is that even though CPO Hyundais don’t come with any bonus bumper-to-bumper protection, they still come with more total protection (five years/40,000 miles beyond the new car warranty) than some competing CPO vehicles.

Ford, for example, offers a one-year/12,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty on some of its CPO vehicles, but that only brings each vehicle’s total bumper-to-bumper coverage to four years/48,000 miles.

» MORE: CPO warranty programs

CPO Hyundai benefits

Hyundai CPO vehicles come with above-average benefits for a nonluxury brand:

• 10 years of roadside assistance, including jump-starts, flat tire changes, lockout assistance, gas deliveries and towing to the nearest Hyundai service center

• Rental car reimbursements of up to $35 per day for up to 10 days while your Hyundai is in the shop for warranty-covered repairs

• Travel reimbursements of up to $100 per day ($300 maximum) to help cover meals, lodging and transportation if your Hyundai breaks down 150 miles from home or farther

A decade of roadside assistance is an especially nice touch and could save you at least $60 per year on AAA membership. Your travel and rental car benefits may also come in handy if your Hyundai is in the shop for a while.

“Hyundai took 4 months to get the wiring harness to the dealer. The dealer took 4 months more to repair,” wrote Lanny, a ConsumerAffairs reviewer from Texas. They weren't the only Hyundai reviewer to mention long waits for parts and repairs, either, with multiple other consumers on our site mentioning delays in getting their vehicles back on the road.

“Our daughter's Hyundai Tucson engine died at barely 50k miles and I had to have the car towed to one dealership who diagnosed the issue as a warranty/faulty engine issue, however, they couldn't get to it for 4-5 months due to their backlog of engine issues,” wrote Charles, a ConsumerAffairs reviewer from Alabama.

While the rental car and travel reimbursements from your CPO warranty won’t help much if your car is at the dealership for an extended period of time, like Lanny and Charles experienced, they can take some of the sting off of a shorter delay.

Do you need an extended warranty for your Hyundai?

If you’re looking for protection from car repair bills, an extended warranty might make sense in addition to, or instead of, buying certified pre-owned.

Hyundai offers its own extended warranties, dubbed Hyundai Protection Plan Vehicle Service Contracts. For around $1,800 to $3,500, a Platinum plan can extend your five-year/60,000-mile bumper-to-bumper protection to a full 10 years/100,000 miles.

Is it worth it? In our full breakdown of Hyundai’s extended warranties, we determined you probably don’t need to spend that much unless you want absolute peace of mind. Even though Hyundai’s extended warranties were cheaper than the third-party alternatives we looked at (a rarity in the auto warranty world), neither is really necessary given how reliable Hyundais are and how cheap they are to repair.

Still, if you want the peace of mind that comes with having your vehicle under warranty, it might be worth getting a few quotes from top extended car warranty companies to see what’s available.

Compare our extended warranty picks

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