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December 28th, 2009

lizzie9208

03:14 pm - Timeline of my troubles with Subaru of Gwinnett This is mainly for my benefit to keep all the dates straight, but I figured I might as well post it anyway. On Monday, November 30th, I purchased the '06 Tribeca B9 from Subaru of Gwinnett (SoG). As we got the final run-down of the car, Gary-the-salesman mentioned that the TPMS light might trip when it's really cold outside. The light was flashing when I drove the car off the lot that evening. On Tuesday, December 1st, I was made aware that Subaru failed to give us all the paperwork to sign, and there was one piece of paper that still required signatures. On Wednesday, December 2nd, I went to SoG to sign the paperwork. On Wednesday, December 2nd, my $5,699.59 check to SoG was cashed. On Thursday, December 4th, I e-mailed Gary Sikes about the TPMS light that kept tripping and going off. On Friday, December 4th, I was told that my husband had to sign the paperwork himself. Because my husband had surgery on Dec. 1st, and emergency surgery on Dec. 4th, I told SoG that it would be at least two weeks before we could make it up there to sign the papers, and if they wanted to, they could mail the paperwork to us. On Tuesday, December 8th, we received the piece of paper to sign. We signed it and over-night Fedex-ed it back to SoG (via driving to a FedEx location and sending it off). On Wednesday, December 9th, I called Gary to tell him that we mailed the paperwork back and that my TPMS light was still flashing, so I needed to bring my car in for service. He said he'd make the appointment for me at 10 a.m. on Saturday, December 12th. On Saturday, December 12th, I took my Tribeca in for my appointment, only to find out that NO appointment was made. Thankfully, service was able to work me in and get me out within the hour. The TPMS just needed to be reset. On Wednesday, December 16th, Chris Herb e-mailed me to let me know that SoG forgot to do an emissions inspection on my car, and they cannot submit the tag/title information to the state of Georgia until this was done. I was given the choice of either bringing the car back to SoG or having the emissions inspection done locally and they would reimburse me. Because I had just discovered ANOTHER problem with the car - the driver's seat adjustment motor was broken - I decided to bring the car in. On Friday, December 18th, I dropped my Tribeca off at SoG and got a loaner car. Neal told me that he would try to have my car ready by Saturday evening, but no promises. He said that if he doesn't call me by 4 p.m., I should call the office and anyone there can tell me whether my car would be ready to be picked up or not. On Saturday, December 19th, I called SoG four different times between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Each time, I left a message with someone, who said they would either find out the status of my car and call me back, or would get Gary Sikes to call me. No call was returned. On Monday, December 21st, I called the service desk at 2 p.m. and nobody picked up. I got transferred to the phone operator, who took my name and number down and told me that Jill or Jack (I think that's his name?) would call me back shortly. At 4 p.m., as I was about to leave work, I called SoG to see if I could drop by and pick up my car. I spoke to Jill, who told me that she was with a customer and so was Jack(?), but he would call me back soon. I told her that I needed a return phone call within 30 minutes, because I've been trying to find out the status of my car for two workdays (Saturday and Monday) and multiple phonecalls with no success. She called me back within 30 minutes to let me know that they haven't had a chance to look at my car and figure out what's wrong with the seat motor, nor have they done the emissions inspection yet. On Tuesday, December 22nd, Neal called me to let me know that they figured out the seat motor problem, and now they need to order the motor. It may come in by the next day (Wednesday), or it may not be in until Monday, December 28th. He said that they have still not done the emissions test, and he will call me back either that evening or the next day to tell me when the motor will come in. He gave me the option of, if the motor wouldn't come in until Dec. 28th, picking up the car so I could have it over Christmas and then bringing it back to them to install the motor, but I declined because I didn't want to make yet another trip out there. In the meantime, I can still use the loaner car. On Wednesday, December 23rd, I called SoG to see what the status on the motor was, and they had not received the part. Therefore, my car won't be fixed (and available) until the middle of next week. On Saturday, December 26th, after leaving messages for four business days, I finally got in touch with Paul Corbett at Subaru of Gwinnett. I explained my problems, he listened, and he said that he would personally see to it that the seat motor gets fixed, that the emissions inspection gets done, and that the car would be delivered to me. On Monday, December 29th, Paul called me to let me know of the status of my car - my seat motor won't be in until Tuesday, and so the hope is that I'll get my car back on Wednesday, December 30th. I told him that while I appreciated all that he's done to return my car to it's normal certified used-car condition, I'm still disappointed in the service and the lack of compensation that I'm receiving. Yes, they're fixing the problems that should have been fixed before I bought the car, but I am not being compensated for the time, energy, money, gas, etc. that I've wasted on the problems that their dealership has caused. I asked if there was any 40,000 mile tune-up that they could go ahead and do (my car is at ~39,500 miles) or an oil change, and he said no, my car didn't need those services. I asked if he could throw in a free oil change for a later date, or any sort of accessory upgrade, but he said that he wouldn't do that - he would just fix the problems that were caused, not provide any compensation for my lost time and money. At this point, I have had the car for four weeks and have had to make three different trips to SoG in order to fix things that should have been done before the keys were handed to me: 1) we signed all the paperwork, 2) the TPMS was working properly, 3) the seat motor had been fixed 4) the emissions inspection done. In the first month (30 days) of my car-ownership, I will have spent nearly half the time (Dec. 18th - Dec. 30) without the use of my car because these things were not fixed and completed before the car was sold to me, about 6.5 hours worth of my time (spent driving to/from SoG from either Emory Midtown, the hospital my husband was at, from Buckhead, where my office is, or from my home in Lilburn, and time spent waiting for the services to be rendered), and about 2 hour's worth of phone calls (calling and being placed on hold, calling back, talking to various people, etc). This car is a certified pre-owned car. This should mean that the car has been checked out to make sure all components are working properly, including the TPMS and the seat motor. According to the "Subaru Certification Checklist" (warning: pdf file), these problems should have been checked: "35. Check for proper movement and operation of both front seats" and "88. TPMS warning light check (should be off)*" Additionally, SoG has not even begun the process of submitting the title information to the state of Georgia in order for me to get a tag on the car. Despite this lack of tag and title transfer into my name, my $5,699.59 check was cashed by SoG on Dec. 2nd. Essentially, I've purchased a car that is not even in my ownership, either in title/tag, or physical possession. Current Mood: pissed

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