Subaru City Edmonton — Restaurant in Edmonton

2 hours ago

-Came in, was assured that the price of the vehicle I was looking at was the price I would pay, no hidden fees, no extras. I had a bit of a time crunch, so I expressed this. I picked a vehicle, and was assured it may be ready by my leave date (end of Saturday). It was Friday. - I came in for 11:30, they said it would take an hour or so. It was actually 6 hours later when I left the dealer. I had brought a colleague with me, who was my ride, but every time he came to sit with me, the guy with papers would leave the room. They kept telling me they were negotiating with the guys in the back for having my vehicle to me "that day", even tho I kept saying the next morning was fine. It was like they were creating an artificial problem with timing. I was on the phone getting stuff insured for the next day, so I kept having to amend my insurance based on the updated information they kept dropping when I was on the phone. I was missing work calls and appointments like crazy, and every time Ideen would come back in the room with a new update on timing, I'd pass it off to my colleagues but none of them wanted to deal with me by the 4th or 5th time a timing update came. I missed out on a lot of time-sensitive work that day, and it's going to affect my performance. - Finally, the paper explaining my payments came. It was around 2:30-3:00PM when it was put in front of me, nearly 4 hours later from our original time frame. - Ideen kept telling my friend and others he was "showing me the options", but I was never told that the extra 16k of add-ons they he had hand picked for me were additional to the warranty coverage I was seeking. So they got all these 16k extras in on my final pricing whcih explained why my biweekly cost went up. I had literally 0 idea what I was looking at - not once did he say the things on the paper were options. Again, this added 16k of extra monies on my bill but I thought this was all standard comprehensive coverage warranty stuff. My colleague had left by that point, and work was furious with me, so I thought if I just signed whatever he had and left I could salvage those relationships. I should not have caved to the pressure to leave right away - that was my major mistake. I think they banked on me being exhausted and confused by the end of the process, and really got what they wanted out of me. - I was asked if I wanted to leave and come back, and said yes, but they didn't arrange a ride and when I went to the salesman they said was off and would drive me home, he changed his mind and kept me there for another hour and a half. - When everything was signed, I drove off the lot and went to see my colleague to see what I could fix that I missed that day - he handed me a stack of deadlines I'd missed, and I handed him the paperwork I signed. He took one glance at it and said: "I thought you only wanted skid plates, winter tires, and a roof rack? Why did you get all these extra add ons?" and I said, what do you mean "add ons"? That's the price for the warranty stuff - isn't that warranty work stuff? And he laughed and said 'you even took the life insurance'? And I said, 'What do you mean, "took" it? Isn't that standard with the coverage?" and he laughed again and said they put me in a room for 6 hours and separated us so I would be exhausted and sign anything they put in front of me to leave. I literally never saw it that way - I believed every single time when Ideen came into the room and said he was 'working hard' to get this thing set up for me and that was the reason he was out of the room so often talking with the guys in the shop, and that leaving on Saturday woldn't work for them I needed to leave with the vehicle today, etc - When I got home, my boyfriend said I wasn't stuck with it - he said I had 24 hours to go cancel the vehicle sale altogether, but too bad I drove 15 hours to get home, I could have just returned the vehicle the next morning. - Me, feeling completely taken advantage of and stupid by this point, tried calling the dealer but haven't had a call...

77 days (and counting) without our car...

On July 8, we took our 2018 Subaru Crosstrek to Subaru City (SC from here on) to investigate what seemed to be a CVT transmission issue. The transmission seemed to be "slipping" to the point the car was undrivable. We chose Subaru City because there are only two Subaru dealers in Edmonton and we live north of the river.

For weeks SC kept the car for tests and to establish whether the transmission problem would be eligible for Subaru's 160,000 km warranty. Our car has barely over 100,000 kms on it, and due to the prolific issues Subaru transmissions of this generation, Subaru chose to extend their original 5-year, 100,000 km to 8 years and 160,000 km. Good thing for us, right?

Over the course of the first few weeks, updates from SC and their service department were few and far between. Coming from the Customer Support business myself, I have been taught that updates to customers should occur every 48 hours, regardless of progress on the issue. This is not a philosophy that SC follows. Every week, we would call SC service for an update. They would tell us things like "our warranty lady is away", "we are awaiting direction from head office", etc.

Eventually, they swapped the transmission with one that came from Ontario. But apparently it didn't take. So, as the story goes, they tried another. Still not happy with the results, they suggested to us a carbon cleaning of the direct-injection valves. How this relates to transmissions? I don't know, but $1,500 for a problem that could cost $10k (or who knows) without warranty, ok, let's try it. So, we pay $1,500, they clean the valves.

On August 21, 44 days after initial drop-off, we were told to pick up our car. We're told that for all of our troubles, SC is going to give us 15% off our bill. Ok, a nice gesture. But when we get to the desk to pay, we find out that additional service parts and fluids, etc. were not part of the initial subtotal, and would ultimately eat up the 15% discount we were given.

And on top of that, a day after picking up the car, we start to feel the familiar slip of the CVT...

So we call back to SC service. They are, of course, shocked to hear the car is not fixed. They tell us to arrange a ride with the shop foreman because they want to see this for themselves.

We make an appointment and go to the SC service desk. As always, the service desk is a picture of chaos. The service department is always incredibly busy, no doubt dealing with all the CVT issues.

We find the foreman and after 5 minutes of driving around it is agreed that the transmission continues to slip. So, on August 29 we take the car back in. It has been there ever since.

I should say that SC has provided us with a rental car. After about a month (and only at our request), they first provided us with a car off their lot. But the very next day, they said they needed it back because they sold it. They gave us another car off their lot, but then needed that one back. Now we're driving a VW Tiguan rental. I am hoping to get our Crosstrek back before winter, as the heated seats, AWD and other features that drew us to the car in the first place are absent in the VW.

This 2018 Crosstrek is my second Subaru. The first was a 2012 Impreza, which I loved. Up to this point, I have been a supporter of Subaru and last year convinced my parents to buy a new Outback. But after this experience with SC and Subaru corporate, I don't know how I can ever spend another dime with these people. The transmission issue is one thing. Car problems happen. But the ineptitude of the mechanics, the lack of communication, the unprofessional and inconvenienced service staff, the stall tactics of corporate and the ineffective process that has cost us nearly three months without our car is going to be on my mind for...

Initial review mid 2023: Have been going to this dealership for 30+ years. I'm still driving the car I bought there 23 years ago with 485+K and they've done all the major servicing. The engine and transmission are still in good shape. When it comes to service and reliability, that record speaks for both the quality of the dealership's service department from 1990 to about 2022 and the vehicle. Five stars for that. But beware of 5 star reviews, as I have seen variants of this warning from several posters "They will also only offer compensation for bad experiences if you post 5 star reviews."

EDIT 26 October 2024: In my opinion, the mechanics there are mostly competent, but I have no respect for the current sales department management and don't think much of the current service department front end staff, some of whom seem to think the customer is now responsible for ordering their own parts.

This is just another in well over 100 one star reviews, many of which have been showing up on Google Reviews for the last couple of years since the sale of Subaru City to new owners.

My partner was interested in purchasing a new Subaru. We thought things were going well; we test drove the models we were interested in, took the time to compare the specs, got an initial estimate of the vehicle's cost, made an appointment for a trade-in appraisal and returned the day after the appraisal.

First warning: the sales department failed to communicate with the service department and the 9:00 appointment I made for the vehicle appraisal was basically cancelled, to be replaced with an estimate of the amount we "might" get and the promise that this wouldn't happen again. The finance manager also changed his tune when we said we had sold the trade-in privately.

We were in the final stages of negotiations with a salesperson who had to seek an answer for almost every question we had from either the finance manager or the sales manager. We were actually going to make a purchase; we were not sure on one issue, and that was the colour of the car. When you're spending $50K on a new car, you can reasonably expect to get what you want. Our alternatives were, apparently, take this one or wait months, and we've seen from other one-star reviews that their promises of delivery five months in the future can evaporate. All we took was 15 minutes to have that conversation and were ready to buy. When we returned, the salesperson told us it had just been sold. We feel for her, as she did do her best to get us the information we needed.

She lost a sale due to the dishonourable conduct of her sales and finance managers when they made the conscious decision not to notify us that there was someone else in the dealership interested in the same vehicle. One wouldn't look at me when I confronted them in the sales office, and the other said "Well, you told us you didn't like the colour, so what are we supposed to do?"

Buddy, you knew what you were supposed to do; you were at the salesperson's desk when we asked for a few minutes and you said to go ahead, and of course you knew at the time that another deal was in process. We surely had earned at least that level of respect because of our definite overall interest in the vehicle and the fact that we had done in excess of $150K sales and service business over the years.

But thanks, Rick and Phil, you helped us dodge a bullet as post-sales service and trade-in valuation seems to be an issue identified by other one-star reviewers. It'll be a long cold winter if you were actually truthful in saying your next delivery is five months out and all you have is overpriced trade-ins.

To fellow customers: You'll see a lot of responses from the dealership with the theme "We're so sorry... we'll change" from months ago. Yeah, sure, but in...