Premier Subaru Middlebury

If you want an honest car buying experience, look elsewhere. If you want your next car purchase to be an honest one, look elsewhere. I recently purchased a Subaru Legacy from Premier in Watertown. Great car, If you want your next car purchase to be an honest one, look elsewhere. I recently purchased a Subaru Legacy from Premier in Watertown. Great car, I love it - Subaru's are great cars. However, I'm out of state (MA) and the car had illegal tints. I was hesitant to purchase the car due to this fact, but was reassured by the salesperson, Robert Prescott, aka "Bo" that if the car failed MA inspection, they would take the tints off no problem. Just as I expected, the car failed due to the tinting. The heat shields were also rattling like crazy (safety issue) and the tires needed an obvious rotation. However, when it came to having this service done, I was told they won't remove the rear tint due to the risk of damaging the rear defrost line. I was also given a hard time by the sales manager, Carmen after becoming furious that I was blatantly lied to. This man claims he is an "upstanding citizen", but he's no better than the lying salesman, Robert, whom I dealt with. Long story short, I had to spend $100 out of pocket to have the tints removed in order to pass inspection. Filed a report with the BBB only to find that Premier to claims they never agreed to the tint removal. The sales manager even threatened that if I went to the BBB, he wouldn't have my car serviced at all. He also told me that they didn't even have a mechanic with experience in tint removal. If Premier is going to lie about something as simple as window tints, what else will they lie about? This is a perfect example of a dealership taking advantage of a young consumer. Lesson learned - Get everything in writing. Avoid your own nightmare when it comes to buying a vehicle, and look elsewhere. As much as I recommend purchasing a Subaru, do yourself a favor and check out a dealership with integrity. Overall, if honesty is what you're looking for, you won't find it at Premier in Watertown. More

Smooth Straight Forward Experience I found a great vehicle online from Premier Subaru, and drove from Long Island, NY for that deal. I dealt with both John Risk and Jeff from finance an I found a great vehicle online from Premier Subaru, and drove from Long Island, NY for that deal. I dealt with both John Risk and Jeff from finance and they were straight forward and very helpful gentlemen. Cant tell you what a great experience I had with them, and the follow up and assistance they gave after the sale was concluded. They were clear and concise and overall great! I'm very happy with their performance and recommend them, EVEN if your driving from Long Island ;) More

Go elsewhere to buy a car My wife were looking for a vehicle to replace a pretty crappy 2013 STI. The STI had numerous mechanical and electrical problems with only 9000 miles o My wife were looking for a vehicle to replace a pretty crappy 2013 STI. The STI had numerous mechanical and electrical problems with only 9000 miles on it, so it was time for it to go. We took it to a Subaru dealer thinking that way we'd get the most for it in trade. I test drove a 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser that I liked, that supposedly had the TRD off road package according to the salesman. While on the test drive I could tell the vehicle was poorly aligned and that the suspension was having difficulty keeping the tires on the ground through bumps. I told the salesman I liked the car but if I was going to buy it that the problems had to be fixed first. He assured me that it had not been through their shop yet and that the repairs would be done as well as a recall that needed to be done by Toyota. I went back in to sign paperwork with my wife, and I asked if the repairs were done and my salesman told me yes. I should have asked to drive it again, but I trusted them. I didn't think they would lie to coerce us into signing the paperwork. The salesman also sold us an aftermarket warranty by Zurich. So we signed the paperwork and on the way home I noticed the alignment still was not right and the suspension still was not riding right. I thought maybe it was normal to ride like it did because I was not used to riding in a bigger SUV. The second problem we noticed was the gas mileage we were getting was 10-12mpg instead of the 17-22 that the salesman told us we should get. I made an appointment and took the vehicle in for the alignment and the mileage issue. Premiers service department told me there was nothing wrong with the alignment even though the steering wheel was 20 degrees off center, and couldn't find anything wrong with the way the truck was running. When I got home I pulled the spark plugs out to find a mishmash of 6 different spark plugs, a bad thermostat and a dirty Mass air flow sensor. After I replaced the plugs and thermostat and cleaned the mass air flow sensor I was able to get 15mpg, better but still not right. I needed to replace the tires as they were wore almost to the wear bars so I figured I'd just pay the tire place for the alignment along with replacement tires. That cost was almost $1800. I got called back into the alignment bay at Town Fair Tire only to find out they couldn't so the alignment due to a seized adjustment bolt on a lower control arm. So I made an appointment with Premier Subaru and once again they told me they fixed the problem. They said they had to heat it up with torches and got it aligned. I didn't believe them so I immediately took the car across the street from them to Branch Toyota. I didn't tell branch what was wrong other than Subaru was struggling to get it aligned. Toyota did their inspection and told me that the lower control arm and hardware associated with it needed to be replaced and wouldn't be able to see if there were any other problems with the alignment until that was done. So i got the estimate from Branch Toyota that cost me $130 and took it directly back to the service department at Premier Subaru. Premier Subaru once again told me that there was nothing wrong with the lower control arm and the alignment was fine even though the camber on the tire is clearly off, and the steering wheel is not centered. So I took the vehicle back to Branch Toyota along with a copy of my warranty paperwork for the aftermarket warranty that Premier had sold me. The Rep for the warranty company came out and told me that because I was a volunteer firefighter that my warranty was voided and that the dealer that sold me the warranty knew that it was spelled out in the terms of the warranty. So when I talked to the rep directly I told him that discrimination was illegal and we were able to clear up his confusion very quickly. The next excuse he tried to use was that the bolt had rust on the head and that his warranty has exclusions for rust so it wasn't covered. If this is really the case then their warranties are completely useless so don't wast your money on one. So my wife and I had to pay Branch Toyota almost $800 out of our pocket to fix the lower control arm. We were also told at that time that the upper and lower ball joints as well as the sway bar links were bad and needed replaced. They also informed us that the shocks and struts were bad and the two rear coil springs were missing chunks of the coil on the bottom and the front springs were shot as well. They told us without all of those repairs being done they still couldn't get the alignment done. They also said that because they were aftermarket parts they couldn't fix it. But wait I was told my the Premier Subaru salesman that all the parts were the TRD package from Toyota. But the Toyota dealer is telling me no way. Hmm there is a big problem there. I called to complain to the GM of Premier about the mis information that we received when we bought the car. I made another appointment with Subaru to inspect the problems and also bring to light a new problem I noticed after finally getting to drive the vehicle a bit. Previously it had been in and out of service so much that in the first two months it was driven primarily back and forth to service appointments. The Transmission was acting goofy and shaking when the RPM's were in the 1100 to 1500 range. When I took it in and they looked at it they told me there was nothing wrong with the suspension and that the transmission problem was due to new tires. New tires really? The new tires have the same rolling radius as the old tires, although they have all their tread life remaining. Who knew new tires could do that? I left a message with Premiers GM. Never received a return call so I once again went back to Toyota as I knew the service technicians for Subaru didn't know what they were talking about. Toyota diagnosed it as a bad transmission and torque converter. Again I didn't have to hold their hand and they were able to find the problem and after much argument with the warranty company they transmission was replaced at a cost of $3500. I have never had another issue with the transmission since. They must have been really reaching to pull a new tires excuse on me. I left a message for Premiers GM. Never called me back. I had to go to an aftermarket four wheel drive shop to have the non factory parts identified for replacement. I ended up at EVB and the estimate for all the suspension work that the car needed was $3400. We ate the bullet and paid for the repairs. But EVB couldn't do the alignment on the vehicle even after all the parts that were replaced. I took it for a second opinion back to Town Fair Tire, it was put on the rack and they couldn't align it either and recommended I take it to a frame shop. Frame shop?So I paid to run a carfax on my phone and found out that the car had been in a pretty bad rear end accident. Now I understand why Town Fair Tire said frame shop. Thats how I ended up at Albert's Auto Body in Danbury. They checked the car for me for free after I told them the entire tale of all the headache so far. They determined the frame was still straight but the passenger side steering spindle was bent. Ah just what I needed another issue related to the alignment. Mind you all the problems so far minus the transmission were all alignment related. But wait, the salesman told me that it was fixed prior to signing for the vehicle so that can't be right. I took the Vehicle back to Branch Toyota to have an estimate done for replacement of the spindle and also left a message for the General Manager of Premier again. Still no return call from the GM. The estimate was almost $1800 to replace the spindle. Branch Toyota told me they wouldn't deal with the aftermarket warranty company again due to the hassle and arguing that it took to replace the transmission. So this is where I currently sit. After talking with an attorney he told me to write a summary of the entire ordeal and send it certified to Premier's GM Keri Pacheco, and the President Robert Alvine. So I did. I got several emails from Robert today trying to discourage me from pursing this any farther. No apology, no lets see what we can do to make this better. So I have contacted channel 3, reported their service department to the DMV for investigating, turned them in to the Better Business Bureau, reported them to the Federal Consumer Protection Agency and I am awaiting a return call from the Connecticut State Attorney Generals office. We also have a meeting on Monday with out Attorney to sign paperwork to initiate a lawsuit against Premier as a whole. In summary if you want good service go somewhere else, if you want to be treated fairly go somewhere else, if you want a competent service department go somewhere else and lastly if you want a dealer that respects you and has great customer relation skills go somewhere else. If I could give this dealership zero stars I would. We paid almost $22,000 for this car after financing, tax and the warranty and in service repairs so far there has been over $12,000 invested with at least $2000 more to be done. Do the math people, with a used car for $22,000 you expect to change the oil, replace the spark plugs and maybe a belt in the first 3000 miles or 6 months. That's acceptable. But to invest over half the cost of the loan back into the car in the first 5 months is excessive at the least. And if Premier had addressed these problems from the start as they said they did before we signed the paperwork, I wouldn't have to give them a bad rating here. Trust me go somewhere else for a car, as the President here believes $11,000 and counting is perfectly acceptable for repairs out of your pocket on one of his used cars. More