LandQuail
05-05-2007, 12:04 AM
OK.
This is a 30-minute story I'm going to boil down for everybody.
I've got a 2004 Subaru WRX STi (look on UCA Official Ownership Thread, or whatever the **** it's called.) and I've had nothing but grief for 56,000 miles of ownership from my dealer.
I got the extended, 100,000 mile warranty, because I was sure it would be buying me all sorts of engine/drivetrain parts eventually. Approaching 60,000 miles, the STi is proving to be bulletproof, but my dealer has been a constant pain in the ass.
First of all, I had the shop manager of Riverside Acura/Subaru, a scrawny, Barney Rubble-looking cocksucker named James, test-drive my car because it was making an odd sound I thought was coming from the rear differential. I hopped in the passenger seat and he took off from the dealership at full throttle and proceeded to accellerate to 70 mph in traffic. I got pissed and asked him to slow down, calling him a mother****er in the process.
Whoops. Did I say that?
Anyway, he did slow down, for a while, then he ****-shifted from third to second gear at about 55mph, overrevving my engine by a thousand RPM or so. I was ****ing Irate.
However, the shift pattern in an STi is pretty tight, especially if you spend most of your time test-driving Acuras. I was pissed and screaming, but he wasn't saying anything.
I asked for an apology — something along the lines of "sorry, man. It's an exciting car and I guess I got carried away."
James would not apologize. Instead, he got angry too, saying he hadn't done anything wrong.
So, of course, I went and told his manager what a shitheel I thought James was.
Two years pass, and he tells me I owe $1,800 for two STi struts the dealership replaced under warranty.
I'd broken one rear strut when I hit a pothole going sideways. I just told them I hit a pothole and started hearing a funny sound afterwards... why do they have to know I was in the middle of a gorgeous 4-wheel drift when the rain-filled, invisible pothole reached out and snapped my car towards the opposite curb?
James himself told me he'd replace all four, since I had about 45,000 miles on the struts and 50,000 is their life expectancy anyway.
This all happened about a year ago, and I haven't heard from Riverside Acura/Subaru since.
But I took my car in for a quick once-over before taking a long honeymoon trip, and this James cocksucker walks in while I'm talking to the shop foreman and tells me I owe him for the pair of struts... at $1,800.
I told him what he told me, which he flatly denied, saying the dealership had contacted me an I had refused to pay.
I made what I thought was a valid point: I would never have bought struts for them at $1,800 when I could get the exact same struts for $450 each from my local speed shop. Then I called him a mother****er again for insulting my character accusing me of cheating the dealership.
I challenged him to produce any documentation showing how I owed anybody there a ****ing dime for anything, and he said "I don't need to pull your file, I know it's there."
The shop foreman reached into his desk and said "I'm not going to get into the middle of this, but here's his file." There were a dozen forms showing where I'd signed to purchase parts and pay for them, and other forms showing where I'd signed off on them — after paying for them — before they were installed and other forms showing where I'd signed off after paying for the labor of installing them.
James, the cocksucker, leafed through it halfheartedly and said "As I understood it, you agreed to pay for these, then we never heard from you again," which is utter bullshit, since there were three purchase orders dated past the day the shocks were intalled showing that I'd been in there to buy Subaru oil filters. I grabbed on of them and said "then what the **** is this thing? Why didn't the cashier let me know about owing you ****ers anything?"
He told me if I wasn't going to pay for my parts, he'd rather not have my business, and refused to check my car before my road-trip.
After really, really losing my cool (and my usual mastery of profanity) and calling James a "****ing little shithead" (I really, really could have done better), I walked across the building and explained the situation to the Manager, who seemed sympathetic, but was clearly ready to side with an employee rather than a random, furious customer.
Has anybody else ever had this sort of trouble with a dealership? I know car dealer-types are lowlife assholes (read that chapter halfway through John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and you'll know what I mean), but this seemed really beyond the pale...
Now I've got to drive two and a half hours to get to the nearest Subie dealership to honor the remaining 44,000 miles of my warranty.
And, for the record, I'm not a hard guy to get along with. I've got three mortal enemies I've made in my 24 years: one I met in college, the other's awaiting sentencing before a U.S. Grand Jury and the other's a Service Department Manager for Riverside Acura Subaru in Little Rock Arkansas named James.
What the ****?
This is a 30-minute story I'm going to boil down for everybody.
I've got a 2004 Subaru WRX STi (look on UCA Official Ownership Thread, or whatever the **** it's called.) and I've had nothing but grief for 56,000 miles of ownership from my dealer.
I got the extended, 100,000 mile warranty, because I was sure it would be buying me all sorts of engine/drivetrain parts eventually. Approaching 60,000 miles, the STi is proving to be bulletproof, but my dealer has been a constant pain in the ass.
First of all, I had the shop manager of Riverside Acura/Subaru, a scrawny, Barney Rubble-looking cocksucker named James, test-drive my car because it was making an odd sound I thought was coming from the rear differential. I hopped in the passenger seat and he took off from the dealership at full throttle and proceeded to accellerate to 70 mph in traffic. I got pissed and asked him to slow down, calling him a mother****er in the process.
Whoops. Did I say that?
Anyway, he did slow down, for a while, then he ****-shifted from third to second gear at about 55mph, overrevving my engine by a thousand RPM or so. I was ****ing Irate.
However, the shift pattern in an STi is pretty tight, especially if you spend most of your time test-driving Acuras. I was pissed and screaming, but he wasn't saying anything.
I asked for an apology — something along the lines of "sorry, man. It's an exciting car and I guess I got carried away."
James would not apologize. Instead, he got angry too, saying he hadn't done anything wrong.
So, of course, I went and told his manager what a shitheel I thought James was.
Two years pass, and he tells me I owe $1,800 for two STi struts the dealership replaced under warranty.
I'd broken one rear strut when I hit a pothole going sideways. I just told them I hit a pothole and started hearing a funny sound afterwards... why do they have to know I was in the middle of a gorgeous 4-wheel drift when the rain-filled, invisible pothole reached out and snapped my car towards the opposite curb?
James himself told me he'd replace all four, since I had about 45,000 miles on the struts and 50,000 is their life expectancy anyway.
This all happened about a year ago, and I haven't heard from Riverside Acura/Subaru since.
But I took my car in for a quick once-over before taking a long honeymoon trip, and this James cocksucker walks in while I'm talking to the shop foreman and tells me I owe him for the pair of struts... at $1,800.
I told him what he told me, which he flatly denied, saying the dealership had contacted me an I had refused to pay.
I made what I thought was a valid point: I would never have bought struts for them at $1,800 when I could get the exact same struts for $450 each from my local speed shop. Then I called him a mother****er again for insulting my character accusing me of cheating the dealership.
I challenged him to produce any documentation showing how I owed anybody there a ****ing dime for anything, and he said "I don't need to pull your file, I know it's there."
The shop foreman reached into his desk and said "I'm not going to get into the middle of this, but here's his file." There were a dozen forms showing where I'd signed to purchase parts and pay for them, and other forms showing where I'd signed off on them — after paying for them — before they were installed and other forms showing where I'd signed off after paying for the labor of installing them.
James, the cocksucker, leafed through it halfheartedly and said "As I understood it, you agreed to pay for these, then we never heard from you again," which is utter bullshit, since there were three purchase orders dated past the day the shocks were intalled showing that I'd been in there to buy Subaru oil filters. I grabbed on of them and said "then what the **** is this thing? Why didn't the cashier let me know about owing you ****ers anything?"
He told me if I wasn't going to pay for my parts, he'd rather not have my business, and refused to check my car before my road-trip.
After really, really losing my cool (and my usual mastery of profanity) and calling James a "****ing little shithead" (I really, really could have done better), I walked across the building and explained the situation to the Manager, who seemed sympathetic, but was clearly ready to side with an employee rather than a random, furious customer.
Has anybody else ever had this sort of trouble with a dealership? I know car dealer-types are lowlife assholes (read that chapter halfway through John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and you'll know what I mean), but this seemed really beyond the pale...
Now I've got to drive two and a half hours to get to the nearest Subie dealership to honor the remaining 44,000 miles of my warranty.
And, for the record, I'm not a hard guy to get along with. I've got three mortal enemies I've made in my 24 years: one I met in college, the other's awaiting sentencing before a U.S. Grand Jury and the other's a Service Department Manager for Riverside Acura Subaru in Little Rock Arkansas named James.
What the ****?