Just done a couple of test drives and I was not at all impressed by my local Subaru dealer.

I had a test drive of the Skoda Octavia RS (which incidentally was rather nice;)), and the dealer photocopied my licence, gave me the keys and told me to go off on my own in it for an hour to get the feel of it and see if I liked it. I got back and that was it - no hard sell, just a chat about my options etc.

Went on to the Subaru dealership and spent twenty five minutes being "sold" Subaru finance and the like, and then got to drive the car for about 3 minutes.

Not impressed at all. The big assumption as well was that if I did buy another scoob, I'd finance it through Subaru. The PCP (Equity) deal came to 3k deposit and 420 pounds a month for three years at something like 14% APR - compare this with an import through virgin.com which (although it costs about 3k less) is 280 pounds a month with a 3k deposit, at 9.9% APR.

Maybe if Subaru made their finance more competitive more people would consider using it, and their dealers instead of going for the imports.

try aliance & leicester there pretty good

dont forget the "Ooo looks like ur clutch is gone comment" :|

noooooooo get a scoob ;)

Take the spec you want to a few dealers and start to drive them down. They will negotiate on APR as well as options and price. When financing my MY00 I got £1k off list, A/C, 6CD, mats, headlamp protectors and some other stuff. Total worked out to be £20,500 and was shaped thus (i've rounded the numbers coz I can't remember them all!).

deposit £5k
£300 per month inc. premier insurance
baloon of £9.5k as the end.

The finance worked out at £3k over 3 years or just about free when you take in the options and deal.

Best to do it on the phone as well as it's easier to say 'no thanks' or 'well the other fellow says that he can do it for .....'

The dealer originally started at 13% APR & full list etc etc. Once they knew I was serious (I pulled up in a clapped out maza 323) they lent me a dem car a couple of times.

££ is very cheap at the moment and you can do better - I've just paid off IM (hurrah!) and consolidated the rest with a cahoot flexible loan - 8% which looks ike it will get paid in full by the middle of this year. If you can be bothered you can shift debts around for a while on credit cards as well - EGG were doing 0% APR for the fist 6 months and there are some others as well.

Happy hunting and remember that they need the business!

I've yet to meet a credible car salesman - IMHO the sit on their a***S all day waiting for someone to come through the door and hand over their hard earned dosh. They are an insult to the profession. If they took an interest in customers needs and preferences, without assuming what the customer wants, they would find the clients more open and positive rather than making them feel cornered and defensive.

BTW try Tesco - 7.8% APR on the price of a scooby.

I'd also try a different dealer...

You might find they are fine......

Although I am still a bit anti main dealer due to previous experiances with other manufactures...

I bought my current Scoob from a main dealer and the service was A1 and I knocked 1700 off the screen price just by haggling...

Their only fall back was they treated the 10K I was spending as small money... yeah okay it might be to them but it is a lot of money to me...

Happy hunting....

A agree, try different dealers as they do sometimes differ quite considerably ... also have a look at www.carpricecheck.com to see what deals they can muster, both from UK dealers and imports - last time I used it a new WRX from a UK dealer was c. £2k off list! :cool:

Cheers
Phil

OK... beat this...

got a cahoot flexible loan to buy my Scoob...
12.5k credit limit, and I borrowed 9k.

7.0% APR!!!

:D:D:D:D

oooops.... should've said....

had a £13k trade in too!!

Dunno if they'd lend £20k.
Great deal all the same.

Maybe the Subaru dealer was fed up with too many people pretending to be interested in buying just to be able to go out and thrash the ar$e out of a scooby? The salesman I bought my scooby off said he generally had about a dozen people a week trying it on.

Hi SWRTWannabe,

Be interested to hear which dealer it was.

As for "once they new I was serious" that's bl00dy terrible. There's no way they should be allowed to get away with that :(

I remember walking into a TVR garage once when I was looking at buying a Cerbera (god I love those things :D). I tipped up wearing an old rugby shirt and a pair of tracky bottoms. The sales guy came over and couldn't do enough for me. When I said that I was a little worried about them ignoring me because I was looking a mess he said that there was no way he/they would do that because you never know who your dealing with. He said he had one customer who arrived in his works van straight from the building site, walked up to him, pointed to a brand new Cerbera and said "I'll have one of those in purple". Cash ok?

I'd go find another dealer. If they can't be bothered, don't give them your custom.

Gazza

Don't want to name the dealer as I don't want to cause Scoobynet any trouble, but my "From" might be a big hint ;)

What was quite interesting was that during the finance sell, they were quite keen to get me to come out of my current PCP agreement early, and during the appraisal of my current scoob, claimed that the biting point on the clutch was high and hence the clutch was on it's way out. Sounded like a load of rubbish to get me to consider changing the car early.

I did actually go and see another dealer (the dealer I got the current scoob from) when I was staying with family at the new year, and even though they were short staffed, they were quite happy for me to go out on a test drive and I ended up having about 20 / 30 minutes behind the wheel - and they didn't even say anything about finance either.

Just goes to show that not all Subaru dealers are the same, and I have to say I would certainly go a little bit farther afield if it meant my business going to a dealer that actaully gave a good service.

ahh, that does give a clue to the dealer, might they have a sister branch down my way? sounds like they might/.

definitely a different dealer.

my local dealer was not brilliant - would not let me have the car for any length of time and they had to accompany every test drive !!! cos of insurance ???

went to one 20 miles away (Ashburton Motor Works)....never been in there b4 in my life.

was in a suit with a colleague cos it was lunchtime. gave me the keys no problem.....he didnt want to come with us. had the car for 30 mins.

then said i'd need a longer test drive sometime - half day minimum and again he said no problem.

bought it from them...cash no problem with finance.

steve

Hi again,

Location a dead givaway. I used them ONCE.

Cheers

Gazza

Recently I was in the market for a Terzo and had been looking at both this BBS and the official Subaru site. I travelled up and down the country looking at cars and eventually found one in Ayr at a company called S & S Services. Before I travelled up there I went on the Scottish site on Scoobynet and asked for people's views on the dealership as I didn't want a wasted trip. I only received positive replies, where as another dealership I had asked about a fortnight earlier was criticised for being expensive and who did not return calls. I spoke with John Spicer who could not have been more helpful, I flew up from Stansted, and was met at Prestwick by John who had arrived in the car. I had a good drive, we agreed a price, the following week I returned and collected the car and left TOTALLY satisfied with the experience.
The second flight to Scotland cost me £10.80 on Ryanair, so it's not even expensive to fly up if you book on line about a week before. The drive home was most interesting too :)
I have NO connections with the firm other than buying the car and would recommend them 100%. The next time I'm in the market for another Scoobie they will be my first port of call. The only pain is that its a 900 round trip if I want to get the car serviced there.
Hope this helps,
Ed.

I bought my 'Scoob' from "Bell & Colvill" (West/East Horsley, Nr Guildford)

The sales guy did come with me on the test drive (not that I'd expect anything different) and he let me go where I liked.

We were probably out for a good 30/40 mins. I drove on a Dual carriage-way (at a sensible speed), tight country roads and even found a small train station with an even smaller car park. Great for testing out the turning circle.

Once back at the dealers, I was left alone to check the car over with no interuptions.

The finance guy did come and speak with me once I'd decided the car was for me, but there was no hard sell at all.

I'd recommend Bell & Colvill for customer care, and while your there ... check out the Lotus's :-)

J.

Wannabe,

Try a trip down to Mill Lane in Basingstoke or Cheam Motors, definitely two of the best in our area :D

Try Adams in Aylesbury.

Very nice people in sales & service.

Never had a problem with them or the Terzo which I've had for a year and a day now :D.

The only criticism (Spoll chek please) is they might seem a bit pricey.

Ian
Terzo 33

got 9.3% apr from anthony betts in mk with a balloon

Give Ahmed at Lavender Hill Garage , Subaru Dealer in Enfield a call on 020 8363 3456 . Bought 2 cars off him , very friendly and never pushy and always very helpful.



AllanB

Or if you get up this way try Gavin @ beechdale in notts. Not even a hint of pressure once he knew I had the finace sorted and was more than happy for me to testdrive and let him know. I am sure he would also deal by phone. Let me know if you need a number.

Dave :)

Just to confirm something, when i was last in car sales (many moons ago now) we DID have to accompany on test drives for insurance purposes, we also had to be sitting in the front, not in the back.

dont ask me any questions, just know what was stated on the traders policy (this was circa late 80's when insurance went mad and a burnt xr3i was on every corner).

On a similar note to thecirsch on the last page, although probably a bit too far to travel!!

I got my Scoob from Aird Motors, Beauly (near Inverness)....
Tiny, tiny garage, but they gave me the best trade in for my old Golf (a grand more than the Audi garage would give me trading up to an S3.... :o ) and their servicing costs are the fairest you'll find at any UK franchise (my old dear got a Forester there 2 years ago, FSH over 40k; very fair prices).

Queasyjet flights direct from Luton to Inverness too!!
(just watch out you don't get the YTS pilot... :D:D:D:D )

There's a reasonable amount of leeway with the finance and chance of getting a better p/x deal. I called in to a Scottish dealer and got the finance down to 8.9% from approx 13% and an extra grand on my part ex (brought it up to an OK-ish figure rather than laughable ;)) - could have signed on the dotted line and driven one home from my hols but didn't. Monthly payments reasonable on pcp but didn't like the idea of effectively hiring the scoob for three years (for 16K) and then having 10K balloon to find :(

That's why I'm importing - I think the sales guy knew he couldn't get near the euro figures and wouldn't admit that they were losing trade due to it (IMHO)

After 2 trips to dealer in 2 days and approx 3 hrs of "grilling," managed to get a 10 min test drive on lanes full of roadworks for resurfacing :(

Apple

got my scoob from reading found them really cool got the deal i wanted no fuss maybe it was the individual u saw -1st name? i dealt with nick