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Old 12-13-2004, 09:06 PM   #1
Susie's Suby
Scooby Newbie
Member Sales Rating: (0)
 
Member#: 21370
Join Date: Jul 2002
Chapter/Region: MAIC
Location: In the #24 Chevy--I mean Subie
Vehicle:
01 Impreza RS 2.5
Blew-ridge Pearl

Default Suburban Subaru in Pittsburgh, PA

I don't like the idea of hurting someone's business, so I thought long & hard about this before deciding to post...

We've had some problems with the service department at Suburban Subaru in Pittsburgh, PA. We bought our 2.5 RS new in 2001 there--no problems at all with the sales dept.

However, the service dept has messed up more than once...1st, they took several tries to fix a leaky window gasket (this was back when the car was a few months old). But they eventually got it, and we figured it was no big deal.

But then we had a problem with our brake pedal after they changed the break fluid in a routine maintenance visit; it seemed like they hadn't done a good job bleeding the brake line. We took it to a friend who is an auto mechanic and he was able to do it properly. He explained that it's a difficult system to bleed properly and, again, we decided that, while we'd go somewhere else for our maintenance (cheaper, anyway--I don't remember why we opted to have the dealer do it that one time!) and only go to Suburban's service dept for the big things...like the TIMING BELT.

I posted a thread on service & maintenance describing our timing belt woes in detail; suffice it to say that someone screwed up royally. They replaced the timing belt and tensioner. The engine died when the tensioner malfunctioned, leaving me stranded up on I-79 in the middle of nowhere in cold weather with a baby and a cello in the car.

Now, to be fair, they have done right by us since this happened. They gave us a tow and a loaner car. It took 3 weeks for them to fix the engine, but Thanksgiving was in the middle of those 3 weeks.

The thing is, because of their mistake, I'll never feel fully confident of the RS again, which sucks because I do a lot of winter driving to far away places for gigs. The only way I'd feel okay about it again would be if they put in a new engine, and since the car has nearly 100,000 miles on it (hence the need to replace the timing belt), I can't really blame them for not putting a new one in...I just wish they hadn't screwed up in the 1st place.

Granted, anyone can install a defective part (if that's what it truly was), but I think that, combined with the other problems we've had, this illustrates a certain carelessness on the part of the service department at Suburban Subaru in Pittsburgh, PA.

Susie
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