Dealer Review: North Reading Subaru

[Fossil2k2]

I dropped my car off this morning to get it checked out. I've been hearing a annoying rattle coming from the passenger side. I wasn't sure if it was clutch or transmission related, or it just a loose heat shield. I called up late last night, spoke to someone in the service department, said they would look at it first thing in the morning and call me with the diagnosis.

 

Here's how the conversation went:

 

Steve: We checked out your car, you were right, it was some loose heat shields, its nothing transmission or clutch related, so thats good news.

Me: Ok, great, how much labor would you say goes in to getting them tightened up?

Steve: Well... its hard to say, we have to drop the whole exhaust, it takes a while, 6-8 hours probably.

Me: Hmmmm. You know what Steve, I think I'm going to pass.

Steve: Ok, no problem, I also noticed that your belts were dried out and you need new spark plugs.

Me: Don't worry about the belts and plugs, I can tackle those myself. I doubt the plugs are terribly difficult to install.

Steve: You'd be surprised, the cars with turbos have 2 extra plugs that are really hard to get at, you have to remove a lot of stuff.

Me: Really, 2 extra plugs?

Steve: Yeah, these 6 cylinder engines are hard to work on.

Me: Forget the plugs Steve. Just write me up, I'll be down during my lunch break to pick up the car.

 

 

Needless to say I won't be bringing any business back to their service department if they don't even know how many spark plugs go in the damn engine.

[toreadorranger]

Dont be so hard on them, these new fangled 4cyl Turbo 6cyl engines are hard to work on.

[__raj]

My experience with dealers is they fish for lots of extra work and hope you bite to one item. Nothing different than I have experienced.

[Fossil2k2]

I pretty much expect most car repair places to fish for extra work, but to try and tell me that a 4 cylinder car has 6 spark plugs is silly.

[Verwilderd]

I all fairness, many service writers don't know the inside and out of a car so they can only guess....with that being said, it's obvious this guy doesn't know what he's talking about and would be better off shutting up rather than lying.

 

FYI, taking the whole exhaust off is easy...the hardest part is the up (imo). Chances are your loose heatshield is over the dp.

[Fossil2k2]

FYI, taking the whole exhaust off is easy...the hardest part is the up (imo). Chances are your loose heatshield is over the dp.

 

Yea, I've done some exhaust work on other cars before and I couldn't imagine it taking that long to pull down the exhaust and tighten a couple bolts, especially if the car was on a lift.

 

Thanks for the advice

[LongHiway]

They also play bait & switch. In September, they advertised on the web, an '08 Legacy for $10K. They may have 10 used cars on their lot. When I got there, no one could find the car, in fact there were only used 2 Legacy's - both purchased from a wholesaler.

[Verwilderd]

technically bait and switch is illegal by us law. Check and see if the have a stock number on said cars. then if there is a similar car, they have to sell the car at the advertised price.....at least that was the way we had to do it in texas.