Toyota Safety Connect: Is It Worth It? (Here Is Why)

Toyota Safety Connect: What It Is And Why You Need It? Whether you’re buying a new Toyota or you’ve had one for a while you will have been given the hard sell on their Connected Services but do you need all of them? For example, Toyota Safety Connect: is it worth it?

Toyota Safety Connect offers some great safety features that you would be very happy to have if you need them. It is like an additional insurance measure that many people find to be worth it for peace of mind alone, while others feel it is not essential.

Read on to find out more!

Table of Contents

What Is Toyota Safety Connect?

To get an idea of whether or not you will want to be paying for Safety Connect, you first need to understand what you are getting for your money.

It can be tricky to differentiate between all of the “Connected Services” that Toyota offers (from Remote Connect to WiFi Connect, Drive Connect, and more) so what exactly is Safety Connect?

Safety Connect is a subscription service that is part of Toyota’s Connected Services. It gives you access to a range of safety and security features for your vehicle. It is designed to be used in emergency and urgent situations, with the main goal being to get you the assistance you need as soon as possible.

With this service, you will be connected to the Toyota Response Center 24/7 using the vehicle’s built-in cellular technology and its GPS system, which offers a lot of reassuring benefits.

Safety Connect Features

There are four main features that you get access to with Safety Connect:

An Emergency Assistance (SOS) Button
Automatic Collision Notification
Enhanced Roadside Assistance
Stolen Vehicle Locator

Emergency Assistance (SOS) Button

The Emergency Assistance (SOS) Button is an easy-to-use and immediate way to notify the Toyota Response team that you are experiencing an emergency.

When you press the button, it will connect you to a response agent straight away, and they will be able to see where you are and speak to you through the audio system in your car.

This means that they can help you to determine what assistance you need and dispatch emergency services to you if required.

Automatic Collision Notification

The Automatic Collision Notification system automatically alerts the Toyota Response Center as soon as your airbags are deployed.

This means that, if you are in a serious collision, then a response agent will be notified of your location and connect to you through the vehicle’s audio system.

They will assess the severity of your situation (which might include receiving no response from the driver) and contact the appropriate emergency or roadside assistance services.

Enhanced Roadside Assistance

The Enhanced Roadside Assistance feature gives you access to a roadside assistance agent and it works in a similar way to the Emergency Assistance Button. Rather than dispatching emergency services to your location, though, they will send out assistance to help you with common vehicle issues.

This is great for when you need to be towed, you need a dead battery jump-started, you have a flat tire, or you’ve run out of fuel and are far from the nearest gas station.

Stolen Vehicle Locator

The Stolen Vehicle Locator is relatively self-explanatory. This service uses the cellular and GPS technology in your Toyota to help the authorities track down your vehicle if it is ever stolen. This makes it significantly more likely that you will be able to recover your vehicle if the worst were to happen.

Over 40% of stolen vehicles never make it back to their owners, in large part because they have no way of finding where they have been taken. Safety Connect can certainly make a big difference in that regard.

How Much Does Toyota Safety Connect Cost?

While all of these features certainly sound great, there is obviously the question of how much you are going to need to pay. Unfortunately, they aren’t completely free.

As with many of the other Connected Services that you can sign up for, Toyota Safety Connect is a paid subscription service. That means that you will need to pay a monthly or yearly fee to have access to these features.

Although the price can vary depending on your location and the subscription model that you choose, Safety Connect usually costs around $80 per year, or $8 a month.

It can also cost less to get Safety Connect as an optional add-on to one of the other Connected Services subscriptions which may include features like Remote Connect, Drive Connect, and Integrated Streaming.

While $80 a year is small fry in comparison to the car payments you are likely spending – or other expenses like insurance, maintenance, and gas – it is a decent chunk of change and you do need to consider whether the cost is right for you.

Can You Get A Trial For Safety Connect?

One of the best ways to test out a service to see whether it is worth the price is to use a free trial, and almost all modern Toyota models offer a trial period of Safety Connect as standard with your purchase.

Most Toyotas come with a three-year free trial of Safety Connect but this can range from 1 year all the way up to 10 years, depending on the vehicle that you purchase and the contract you sign.

The major flaw with a free trial for this kind of service, though, is that it’s not something you hope to ever use. If you’re lucky, you won’t take advantage of any of the options that Safety Connect gives you during your trial period, so it’s easy to think that it’s a service that you don’t really need.

Is Safety Connect Worth The Money?

The ultimate question here is whether or not you want to be paying around $80 a year for Safety Connect, or whether you can just skip this subscription entirely.

At the end of the day, it does depend on your personal situation. It might be the case that you already have access to similar roadside and emergency assistance through your insurance company or another service you subscribe to, or you might be comfortable relying on AAA and 911 when you are in need.

On the other hand, knowing that assistance is always there at the push of a button could give you a lot of peace of mind – and the cost of the whole package is actually pretty competitive compared to other roadside assistance options. For comparison, the cost of a AAA roadside assistance plan typically ranges from $64 to $124 per year.

It’s also worth noting that a lot of insurance plans offer some kind of discount if you pay for an anti-theft subscription of some kind, which can significantly offset the cost of Safety Connect. It’s worth looking at the fine print to see whether this is the case for you.

Summary

So, is Toyota’s Safety Connect service worth the money? It’s hard to say definitively, but it is certainly a reasonable value subscription that offers some very helpful safety and emergency features.

You will basically be paying to have easy and direct contact with the Toyota Response team, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

They will be notified automatically if you get into an accident, you can alert them to an emergency or tell them you need roadside assistance at the push of a button, and they can help you locate your vehicle if it gets stolen.