We also bought our outback through carlos at Carter, who was fair and although we had to go through the standard new-car back-and-forth in the negotiation, he at least wasn't smarmy. However, my experiences with the service & repair shop have been less than impressive. I'm committed at this point to giving my future repair services to a local shop with subaru focus, rather than paying $88/hour in labor.
When my '02 outback proved to have a defective clutch, it took 3 trips out there + a letter to Subaru U.S. until they finally replaced it under warranty - a gigantic pain. A recent repair job invoice had $250 in parts and $800 in labor - and I got attitude from the Customer Service guy at the repairs desk who was all huffy about me asking a few questions to understand what was being done, why, and why labor was going to cost 3x the parts. They didn't bother to wash it even though i spent over a grand on repairs and they had it for a week -- which seems like a no-brainer of customer love given that i also bought it from them. To top it off, they tried to tack on an extra $10 at the end of the invoice for a miscellaneous shop tools fee that was explained by same huffy guy as a standard "wear and tear on shop tools recovery charge"??? What other customer business would have the presumption to charge the customer for regular wear of the tools that they use to deliver your wildy overpriced service to you? That's like the Rolling Stones charging everyone an extra dollar on their concert ticket for "instrument wear and guitar strings replacement".... Huffy guy took it off my bill when I asked for a better explanation, indicating that it's clearly just an effort to gouge unsuspecting customers for another ten bucks. When I asked whether other customers brought this issue up, his huffiness reached its apex and he replied that, Yes, other customers had asked about it but they had all acquiesced after they had "understood" -- implying that I was putting HIM out by not understanding a meaningless charge with zero value to me, the customer. All in all, a highly negative customer service experience. Yeah yeah, they give you a loan car to use -- but what dealer worth their salt doesn't, these days?
Buy your trusty subaru there if you can drive them down to beat Melody's prices, which popular opinion (at least among those i've asked) says has the lowest sub prices in Seattle, but don't line their pockets with ongoing repairs... there's gotta be a few good sub mechanics in a town like this.
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