P.J

Firstly may I congratulate you on a brilliant and informative site. As a new to the fold ex boy racing Nova owner it feels great to be able to appreciate the true meaning of a driving experience in a real car. However I have to spoil my hello with a major issue that I feel must be discussed with like minded people.
Has anyone else had the same appaling experience as myself and my partner have had from a local subaru dealer in the Bristol area
We are the proud owners of a 98 sport, lovely drive superb handling but our dreams have been shattered by incompetent workmanship and false claims about work done on our car. So far apart from on incident involving an old man and a roundabout scenario the car has been into the servicing department 3 times with the same 3 problems all of which each time we have been told have been amended considering we have only owned the car for 4 weeks I feel appalled at the absolute bulls*/t level of service we have recieved. The car is now due to go in tommorow overnight to be rectified yet again. As on the second occasion we were told that the parts were all new replacements everything from here on WILL be in writing and WILL carry a guarentee of work.
For those in the Bristol area I'm sure that you know the dealer concerned!
Brilliant car, Brilliant Club, Crap dealer service
I welcome your thought, comments and experinces please.

Richard Askew

Welcome to Scoobynet

Tracey

I can only think of one dealer in Bristol.

When we got the car, the locking wheel key was missing so they had a special tool to get the locking wheel nuts off. Yes, you got it a bloody great big hammer and chizzel, which took a chunk out of the wheel. They did repair the wheel, naturally.

Then after about a week of one of it's services, we were travelling up to Milton Keynes, pulled over for a look at the map, got out the car and just sitting by the wipers was a pair of big pliers. Must have been left there by some mechanic. Good job these things didn't fly up and hit my windscreen. Would have frigtened me to death.

Sorry to hear about your bad luck, maybe you could stay and watch them do the car, people don't like being watched while working and they might do what they say there gonna do.

Cheers.

Tracey

Steve vRS

Hi,

Always remember, you can change your dealer. I have to travel over 60 miles to get to a dealer who doesn't treat me like ****.

As your car is over 3 years old, It is out of any warrenty and so I would get it serviced a t a good independant garage. They value your custom more and are cheaper to boot!

Don't let them put you off the car!

Steve

MY01 WRX

MARK MORRIS

same problem here, i took my car to my local dealer in swansea as they were £30 cheaper for the service plus saving £15 of petrol for travelling back and fore to cardiff where i bought the car, i sat waiting whilst they serviced my car, i could hear them revving it several times, they had another p1 in at the same time, didnt hear a thing from that one, just cos mines got a ss exhaust, when they had finished the service they had to test drive it, back to cardiff and pay the extra £45 this time
mark

Richard Curtis

P.J.

If you fancy a trip across the bridge i can also recommend the Cardiff dealer.

I actually have Marks old car which recently developed piston slap - they did a great job fitting a new short block on extended warranty and fitting a new clutch at same time (with no labour charge)

Had no hassles throughout.

Just like new again.

medders

Theres a top dealer in Cirencester and an ok one in Swindon.

Dizzy

Hi PJ,
welcome... v supprised to hear about that.. Dearly service is normaly top notch and most gripes comprise of getting charged for window cleaner
Hope you get your problems sorted. Welcome to the family.
Tim.

Jolly Green Monster 2

Welcome... hope you keep enjoying the car...

I had steered away from main dealers for years with other cars due to bad experiences.

I bought my current Scooby from a dealer and was impressed with the way I was treated and have taken it to a dealer for a servicing and have been impressed and will be continuing to do so.

It is a real shame that they think they can get away with this behaviour..

I think most people have mentioned the dealers that are in your surrounding areas but also try looking at :
subaru offical dealer website
to see if there are any other dealers. Also might be worth writing to Subaru and explaining what the dealer has been upto they might get inspected and have to pull there finger out..

Goodluck

JGM

NOZZER

PJ
Sorry to hear about your problems. I have a pretty good relationship with the said dealer, if you want to mail me personaly i can try to sort it out. Most of them there are customers of mine so i can give them grief! Not defending them, just would like to see your problems rectifyed as im sure you do.
As always, not what but who you know i guess. Welcome to the s/west clan and see ya at exmoor!
Hope this may help
Ian

melon

Hi,
Just to add my 2p worth, I have only ever used main dealer and have to say that I have never had any problems or complaints (apart from costs)
The service managers have always been most helpful and friendly and the work carried out on time. Sorry to hear you seem to be getting a hard time of it, don't let one crap garage spoil the good name of all Subaru dealers and as mentioned earlier perhaps a letter to IM may be worthwhile (or at least a threat to them) and have a look for other local ones.

Just to blow their trumpets...Beechdale at Nottingham are great!(used both Derby and Nottingham sites) pity you out of their area.
Anyone else had a bad time with dodgy main dealers?

P.J

Thanks for the welcomes and the advice. I have also been advised of other local dealers who are a lot better in service one being a Cardiff dealer who I can say seems a lot more freindly and more than willing to help so maybe a trip across the bridge into yonder valleys is in order for its next service. Just to keep you updated, the car is now presently at the dealer to be rectified and they have told me they will require the car for 48 not 24 hours as originally stated,so another day off work with no pay for me.

reaton

Hi

I also had a bad dealership experience in Leeds recently. I've only had the car a few months and as it has FSSH wanted to keep this up rather than use an independant so decided it was worth the extra cash.

As it turns out they didn't manage to fix a fault I reported, charged lots more than they quoted, and missed something really obvious. As I said, I haven't had the car long so told them this and asked them to give it a good once over. When I collected the car they said everything was fine and the car was in good order. BUT, just the day after my brakes started squealing and when I inspected them the pads were down to metal!!! As you can imagine, I wasn't impressed and now question just what checks they did do :-(

Even worse is that I sent a letter of complaint detailing all this about two weeks ago and am yet to get a reply. Methinks I'll be sending a copy to Subaru themselves next...

Richard