Half-way home on a 220 mile drive
Half-way home on a 220 mile drive, and every light on our 2017 Subaru Outback comes on, buzzers and chimes, out of nowhere. My wife tells me where she is and we find out that Autofair Subaru in Haverhill is only 5 miles away. As she drives to the dealership I called-ahead and they put her in the maintenance bay right away. By the time I got there myself, the service rep Ryan came out with a list of items that totaled $7,500. Although the car has over 100,000 miles on it, I know that with its impeccable maintenance that it isn’t true. There’s nothing on what we need to do to just correct the problem and get out (very clever). Upon probing further, we find out that for a $1,100 charge, we can get out. It’s called a “solvent flush of the oil system” and replacement of 2 valves and one sensor. It involved 2 oil+ filter changes. I never heard of this, but he said there is a repair protocol from Subaru on this, and he agreed to send me the service as recommended by Subaru. 2 weeks later I am still waiting for this – Hmmmm, very suspect.
Now imagine how a customer is supposed to experience the next thing that happened! While waiting for our “suspect” service for $1,100, a guy comes and offers us a cash offer for $8,000 for our car and no charge for the service being performed now. We said we weren’t interested. I look up the conservative KBB Trade-in value for our car by VIN number and just to be safe I put in “Good” condition. Value = $10,989 – $12,258. Gee, what a great offer from Autofair. Still, if someone is faced with a (bogus) $7,500 repair bill, it may look great!
When we finally got home, I made an appointment with my trusted mechanic to compare the rest of the $7,500 list with what actually needs repair and here’s what he found: (1) transmission leak ($2,500), nope. (2) Bearing replacement on both back wheels ($1,500), nope. (3) Lateral control arm bushings cracked, teared and separated ($900), nope. (4) Ball Joint replacement right front ($650), nope. (5) My personal favorite – Left front directional bulb replacement ($24), nope. (6) Front brakes and rotors ($560), YES, service performed by my mechanic (rotors still good, just pads) and it cost me ($250). Total bogus work quoted by Autofair Subaru = $5,574. If you include the whole oil system flush we had to get done (remember no formal Subaru procedure for this could be provided to us), it is $6,654 in bogus work.