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Prices Paid: Buying & Leasing Experiences Subaru Outback Prices Paid and Buying Experience
1624 messages, Last post on Jun 15, 2008 at 7:39 AM
You are in the Prices Paid: Buying & Leasing Experiences Forum. Your Hosts are car_man & kyfdx
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Replying to: steve98 (Mar 18, 2006 7:59 am) I had a slight snag in my 2006 Outback Purchase. We showed up for my schedual pick-up on Friday. The salesman asked if we had the VIN number on the car...of course we did...I had to get my insurance card for the deal....started to get that "UH-oh" feeling. He said that they found hood damage on the car I had test drove and had selected as the 'ONE". He said he had another car exactly alike and lets finish the deal. I told them that I did not like this turn of events, I had to travel a good distance, and why hed no one called to let me know about the switch! He said he tried to reach me but my phone was busy..hmm! I insisted on test driving the car. Call it mental...but I did not like the "FeeL" of this swapped car. It did not have the same drive feel of the car I had selected. The brakes had a distinct "pulse" and my wife heard it as well while siting in the back. I asked to drive with the mechanic for his opinion. He said it is probably just the rust on the brakes that will go away with time. He also understood why I would not be real happy with selecting this car. I asked to see the damavged car. Turns out it was "slight" damage on the spoiler. When they had removed the protected covering, they had noticed that there was places where Subaru just did not finsh off the paint. I say it was slightly larger than your pinkey Nail, but it was there. I took the damaged car out and it had just a better ride and no pulse in the brakes what so ever. And another curious thing that my wife had pointed out...the swapped car had NO "New Car Smell" It was just not there! The damaged car had that "distinct New car Perfume".. They clamed it was because of the cleaning of the car's interior. But I have bought many new cars in my life...all had that smell. It is what made that first drive so memorable. Now I have a headache. And it was not from the smell. LET ME ALSO SAY...Becker did not try to force me to take the car. This could be purely a bad set of luck! I am not saying that there was any "Bait and Switch" going on....I just had that feelinjg that If I took the switched car I would be using my "Subaru Warrenty" quicker than I might have expecte4d. And with this dealer so far away..the correction of any problems would go to a dealer who I did NOT buy the car from...and I am sure that they would not be as diligent to fix any brake issues and such. So I asked if they could change out the spoilers! NOt sure if that is a big deal...ANYONE KNOW?? Salesman was beside himself, but Sales manager was friendly and said it would be no problem. So what do you all think? Was I being too paranoid? I go back on Monday to try and finish the sale! Hoop |
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Replying to: hoople (Mar 19, 2006 5:37 am) Call your insurance agent with the new VIN number and ask them to fax papers to the dealership. Good Luck! |
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Replying to: hoople (Mar 19, 2006 5:37 am) I'm all the way down here in NC and I wont have any problem buying from Becker. Hopefully you will have a better day on Monday! |
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Replying to: hoople (Mar 19, 2006 5:37 am) Of course...that doesn't mean you aren't paranoid...  Good luck with the new car! regards, kyfdx |
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Replying to: hoople (Mar 19, 2006 5:37 am) I hope you see this before you go back today. I'd be pretty torn about going forward too. They say that they tried to call you. Did they leave a voice mail message? If not, why not? Here's some food for thought if you plan on going forward. If you are comfortable with the original car why not simply take it and have your local Subaru dealer fix the paint problem under warranty? Or are you starting to worry about the dealership? I seem to remember the bottom line amounts on what they offered me and what they offered you are similar. So my working assumption is that they are charging you $100 for a dealer swap and $209 for New England emissions. If so, I would want to know how they happen to have another one they can swap out for you. It may also be reasonable for you to ask them to deduct those charges since they arguably should not apply if you take another vehicle they happen to have on the lot and in recognition of the fact that you have been inconvenienced. If you recall, the MSRP on a Gold Plus, 7yr/100K, $0.00 Ded warranty is $2,560. I now know that the dealer cost less than half of that, or $1,230. I would insist that they sell the warranty to you at MSRP or maybe $50.00 or so over dealer cost. Before taking the second car I would call Subaru warranty again and ask them to run the VIN. Despite the additional inconvenience I would seriously consider finding the closest Subaru dealer and arranging for a thorough inspection before you finalize the deal. I am so sorry things are not going smoothly for you. However, I'm feeling a little better about my decision to buy a used 2005 (which I did on Saturday). I'll post those details separately. ~Cath |
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Hoop and Anyone Else Who Might Be Curious, I wound up buying a used 2005 OB Legacy Wagon for $18,995. It has 19,033 miles on it and about 24 1/2 months left on the warranty. As far as I can tell there is only one other dealer in Massachusetts selling them at that price and they are about 40 miles from me. I was hoping to do a little better based on a "lost leader" vehicle this other dealership sold at the end of last month but there is nothing in that price range, even in a 2004, that I can find. Both of these dealers picked these former daily rentals up at auction. In my mind I was only saving about $2,300 off of the new 2006 "Becker" price but --as some of you may recall-- I was haunted by the remote possibility of winding up with a lemon. Not only because I have no idea what sort of Lemon Laws Pennsylvania might have, but good luck enforcing them from Massachusetts. $2,300 is about what you lose in depreciation in the first year so, in a sense, at that price you aren't really saving anything. On the other hand, depending on which book value you are looking at I'm saving about $1,000 off of Edmunds "Retail", about $4,000 off of Kelly Blue Book "Retail", or about $3,000 off of NADA "Retail". The other way to look at it is that I'm paying slightly slightly less than the NADA trade-in value of $19,100. Having said that, buying the used 2005 turned out to be a 6 hour ordeal since I feel like the manager led me on somewhat. They had about 7 or 8 former daily rentals they picked up at auction, all with similar mileage and in-service dates ... within 5,000 miles or 4 months, give or take. Knowing that they would have bought them individually at different prices I spoke with the manager in advance, gave him my target price, and asked him to think about which ones he could negotiate on since I didn't mind an extra 5,000 miles on the vehicle and I didn't care about color. I assumed they'd want to get rid of the white one with 25,000 miles; however it had about 23 or 24 months left on the original warranty (time left on warranty is more important to me than miles due to our driving habits.) So we get there and they tell us that they would all be about the same within couple of hundred dollars. So we test drive the two with the lowest miles and the most recent in-service dates. Following the test drives this point we are about an hour or so into it and I have a pre-purchase inspection at another dealership in about 15 minutes. After the usual back and forth on the figures the sales guy finally tells me that he can't negotiate on those two. There is only one he can negotiate on and not only does it have about 5,000 miles more but the in-service date is about 4 months older than the ones we are looking at, and I'd only be saving about $700.00. Long story short, I finally get them to throw in the "all weather mats" (a $55.00 value), and 4 cargo nets (a $167.00 value). They also beat the other dealers sale price on the AutoStart/Alarm by $50.00 and sold me the 7yr/100K, $0.00 Ded "Gold Plus" warranty for about $50.00 less than the best price I found until that point. So I saved $1,160 or about 55% off of MSRP. By the time we hammer out the financial details, get the vehicle inspected, and finalize the paperwork another 5 hours or so have passed, for a total of 6 hours. However, I don't think I could have done much better on a used one in this area unless I waited a couple of months, but if the asking prices on the average 2004 is any indication I don't think so. For the fun of it when we were having the vehicle inspected we spoke with a salesperson who told us the best they could do on a comparable 2005 was $21,000 to $23,000. The whole gruelling ordeal should be over when we pick the vehicle up today. ~Cath
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Replying to: hoople (Mar 19, 2006 5:37 am) A quick follow up to my earlier response. New Jersey is not a New England state so the whole New England emissions thing is a non-issue. I don't know if NJ has any special emissions requirements. Assuming they don't, that just reinforces my impression that they may be able to do slightly better on price. Once you offset the extra feature you got ($187.00 auto dimming mirror ???) against the $308.00 dealer swap / N.E. emissions they are charging you there's theoretically $100.00 they can come down in price. Also, if you want to go through with the deal --on either vehicle-- see if they'll throw in some all weather mats ($55.00) &/or the 4 cargo nets ($167.00), and perhaps the cargo light, a glorified flashlight, $45.00. All they would be losing is their profit on these items. Although, I'm told the mats require installation, I don't know if they could do that before you pick the vehicle up. Good luck. I'll be checking back to see how you do. Oh, by the way, I just heard from the Central Mass dealer and they say they now have a 2005 for about $1,000 less. It does have about 3,000 miles more and 2 months less on the in-service date and I don't think they would have thrown the mats & cargo nets in or negotiated in price on the warranty or autostart so the actual difference in price to me is probably about $500 - $700, but again I'm doing better on miles and time left on warranty. Of course, I just heard from my husband and the car won't be ready to pick up today. They forgot some paperwork. So it's starting to look like we won't actually get the vehicle until Wednesday. Oh well. Also, I need to follow up with Subaru warranty to see if they'll give me the $200.00 loyalty rebate the quoted you. ~Cath
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Replying to: cathmac (Mar 20, 2006 9:38 am) Martin
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Replying to: cathmac (Mar 20, 2006 9:38 am) I think you meant the cargo nets. The nets require that someone install the little plastic buttons that the nets hang from. If you can handle an electric drill, you can do it yourself. The net kits should come with templates to tell you where to drill the holes. The mats can be just be thrown on the floor. Even the driver's mat that requires the little hook can use the hook that holds the standard carpet mat. Jim P.S. Wow, you really drive a hard bargain! I should have talked to you before buying my 2006 Outback on Saturday. |
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Replying to: snowbelter (Mar 20, 2006 2:17 pm) |
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