Lost my car to Subaru of America

Read below to hear how Subaru screwed me over.

Letter to Subaru of America, Inc.(to: customer@subaru.com)

Subaru Plaza

P.O. Box 6000

Cherry Hill, NJ 08034-6000

Attn: Customer/Dealer Services

To whom it may concern.

I have been a loyal Subaru customer for 6 years. It all started when my father purchased his first subaru, many years ago; the first of 6 Subaru cars. My father taught me to love the brand and I had the oportunity of enjoy every model in the line of subaru models. In the year 2005 I had the chance to get my own Subaru WRX. Previously, I had suffered many winters driving a Ford Mustang in the streets of Detroit. A Subaru with AWD was the ideal car for me. My 2005 WRX has been a great car from the day I purchased it until recent times.  

On Tuesday, September 20, 2011, after six years and 80,000 miles of driving my WRX started to act up. I got stranded in the middle ot I-75 coming back home to my daughter's birthday, which I missed due to this car problem. The car started to behave strangely and started to lose power while I was driving, some noise came up from the car and it shut off. I thought immediately that it was either a bad battery or an electrical problem. I had the car towed to the Subaru dealership, where I bought the car from, and left it there over night. The very next morning I went over there to talk to the service rep. He said that the car was going to be looked at and there was a $120 fee for looking at it. I thought it was expensive but accepted anyways.

On Wednesday afternoon I called the dealership for an update. Five minutes later, the Subaru service rep called me to tell me that they were going to need 6 hours to diagnose what was wrong with the car, with a cost of $700. I didn't really have any option but to accept. I wondered at the time, the quality of the Subaru mechanics, because I know the amount of work you can do in six hours. Another day went by and the Subaru service rep called me to tell me that they hadn't had time to look at the car extensively. Another day passed by and by Friday afternoon I received a call from the Subaru service rep. He left me a voice mail, so when I called back another service rep answered the phone and explained to me that my service rep had stepped out, so he proceeded to read the notes from the report. The root cause of the problem hadn't been identified yet, but they offered me two "fix" scenarios.

The "best" case scenario was $5,000 to replace "parts of the engine". The "worst" case scenario was $10,000, which is exactly the cost of my car. By this time I realized that according to Subaru, I had lost my car for not a really good reason. At this point I thought the whole thing was just ridiculous. Is this the way Subaru "fixes" a car?, $10,000 to fix a $10,000 car? I question the quality of the product that would need such extensive work to basically through the car to the garbage. I started to look at other brands for my future car. I called my insurance to find out if they can offer a solution to me since the dealership was rather useless. My only assumption at the time is that there is a manufacturer flaw that I am been penalized for. This would be the only logical explanation for such an extensive damage for "no reason". 

The insurance company is going to contact the Subaru dealership to find out more about the details they "haven't found" or they can't commmunicate. Subaru of America should step up and take car of its loyal customers. I am been played with. Is this the quality service for the products Subaru is trying so hard to market in the US?

I have lost faith in the brand and I don't think about a way to get it back. I feel sad to see my car go and with the "reasons" given to me. I believe Subaru owes me, an explanation, good service, honesty and accessible prices to FIX a car. Rebuilding a car with a new engine from Subaru is not FIXING a car but it seems that the people from Suburban Subaru of Troy are not really familiar with the concept.  It may be also be that the mechanics at the DEALERSHIP are not really trained to FIX subaru cars. In any case I was left high and dry with a monster bill and no car. I lost my car. I used to love my car.

Martin Chaparro

Case Number: 1-165-089-0465

Dealership Reps:  Jeff and Robert

Quick Update:

I contacted Subaru of America and opened a case with them.

Here are the names from the Subaru of America employees I talked to:

Customer Service: Robert

Customer Service: Deseree

Quick Update:

The dealership says that is poor maintenance on the vehicle the root cause for engine failure. Even after I completed all the oil changes every 3k miles.

Subaru of America's offer:

I would call this offer an insult:

1,000 dollars towards a NEW Subaru. They can't take any responsibility on the issue of my car because is out of warranty. This is how they manage the MANUFACTURER'S problems.

Quick update:

Here are the postings for the Technical Service Bulletines covering my car (Year and model):

Make : SUBARU	Model : IMPREZA	Year : 2005
Manufacturer : SUBARU OF AMERICA, INC.
Service Bulletin Number : 166806		Date of Bulletin : OCT 09, 2006
NHTSA Item Number : 10020531
Component : ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:ENGINE
Summary : VEHICLES EQUIPPED WITH 4 EAT DIAGNOSTIC PROCEDURES FOR P0851/P0852. *KB
Check to Request Research. Submit below.

Make : SUBARU	Model : IMPREZA	Year : 2005
Manufacturer : SUBARU OF AMERICA, INC.
Service Bulletin Number : 029304		Date of Bulletin : NOV 05, 2004
NHTSA Item Number : 10011775
Component : ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:ENGINE
Summary : MODIFICATION OF TIMING BELT TENSIONER BRACKET TO PREVENT KNOCKING NOISE. *NM

Here is the link for these reports, they are public and free: http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov