Subaru Dealer Blacklist (Surprise markups and other shady dealings)

[Jayde]

Originally Posted by ngabdala

Damn man! I just noticed on cars.com. It's an hour and a half drive for me too.

I submitted an email for them to call me. I will grill them for you

Did they have the car on the lot ?

Thanks! Maybe they'll realise what they did and fix their markup for you. He said they should see them in 3-4 weeks. I spoke to Sean btw.

[ngabdala]

I already have a pre-order for DGM, I've just been wondering whether or not I would prefer SWP or Red

Originally Posted by Jayde

Thanks! Maybe they'll realise what they did and fix their markup for you. He said they should see them in 3-4 weeks. I spoke to Sean btw.

[ngabdala]

Dude I wouldn't go there if it was the last BRZ in the world based on how you were treated. They figured if you were willing to make the drive you would pay the extra.

Originally Posted by Jayde

Thanks! Maybe they'll realise what they did and fix their markup for you. He said they should see them in 3-4 weeks. I spoke to Sean btw.

[Jayde]

Originally Posted by ngabdala

Dude I wouldn't go there if it was the last BRZ in the world based on how you were treated. They figured if you were willing to make the drive you would pay the extra.

You'd think driving an hour and half they would tell me before leaving. Waste of my time and gas.

It's ok though, I was able to keep my order at my local dealer. Was told I would see my BRZ in late May, early June.

[George]

Hello Jayde, Longhorn and anyone else interested:

My name is George D'Angelo and I am the General Manager of Subaru Stamford. Jayde, I apologize for your experience. Your salesperson should have never told you we were taking deposits on pre orders for the BRZ at MSRP. He was misinformed. We have been allocated more BRZ's over the next few months than any other dealer in the area due to our high volume of WRX & STI sales. The problem we have run into is we have a market to serve and are getting inundated with purchase requests from far outside our market. We don't want to sell these vehicles to people in Delaware, Mass, or upstate New York. We'd rather sell them to a local customer whose business we can earn for the rest of his or her life. We are treating BRZ sales just as we do any other vehicle in our lineup. The market and supply and demand dictates the price. If you showed up at our dealership today, I have 100 vehicles that I would sell you at or close to invoice. At our store, BRZ's will be sold as they arrive. If anyone would like to be contacted as they come in feel free to call me or any of our salespeople at (203)252-2222.

Thanks and good luck,

George

[kwood9000]

Originally Posted by George

Hello Jayde, Longhorn and anyone else interested:

My name is George D'Angelo and I am the General Manager of Subaru Stamford. Jayde, I apologize for your experience. Your salesperson should have never told you we were taking deposits on pre orders for the BRZ at MSRP. He was misinformed. We have been allocated more BRZ's over the next few months than any other dealer in the area due to our high volume of WRX & STI sales. The problem we have run into is we have a market to serve and are getting inundated with purchase requests from far outside our market. We don't want to sell these vehicles to people in Delaware, Mass, or upstate New York. We'd rather sell them to a local customer whose business we can earn for the rest of his or her life. We are treating BRZ sales just as we do any other vehicle in our lineup. The market and supply and demand dictates the price. If you showed up at our dealership today, I have 100 vehicles that I would sell you at or close to invoice. At our store, BRZ's will be sold as they arrive. If anyone would like to be contacted as they come in feel free to call me or any of our salespeople at (203)252-2222.

Thanks and good luck,

George

You should have done the right thing and honored your saleperson's word.

[grst1]

This 100 times!

Originally Posted by kwood9000

You should have done the right thing and honored your saleperson's word.

[DP82]

The right thing to him is make some more profit which in sales is the thing to do. Sadly, yes, there will be dealerships that choose to go that route, more power to them! There will always be alternatives so find the one that suits you best! Asking others to change their way or word seems silly to me as they don't recognize us as a big influential member in public opinion, we are a close knit group in the grande scheme of things. I'm sure he'll sell the few he gets to other parties in the public... All we can do is find and follow the route that makes us happy in life. Doesn't mean it'll be quick and easy though.

There is a chain of command, a manager holds the highest authority well above a salesperson... Sometimes mistakes happen, but that doesn't mean they'll get fixed to our liking vs their liking.

[Longhorn248]

Originally Posted by George

Hello Jayde, Longhorn and anyone else interested:

My name is George D'Angelo and I am the General Manager of Subaru Stamford. Jayde, I apologize for your experience. Your salesperson should have never told you we were taking deposits on pre orders for the BRZ at MSRP. He was misinformed. We have been allocated more BRZ's over the next few months than any other dealer in the area due to our high volume of WRX & STI sales. The problem we have run into is we have a market to serve and are getting inundated with purchase requests from far outside our market. We don't want to sell these vehicles to people in Delaware, Mass, or upstate New York. We'd rather sell them to a local customer whose business we can earn for the rest of his or her life. We are treating BRZ sales just as we do any other vehicle in our lineup. The market and supply and demand dictates the price. If you showed up at our dealership today, I have 100 vehicles that I would sell you at or close to invoice. At our store, BRZ's will be sold as they arrive. If anyone would like to be contacted as they come in feel free to call me or any of our salespeople at (203)252-2222.

Thanks and good luck,

George

More power to ya for trying to make a buck as that is certainly your right and I have nothing against it. However I'm going to have to agree with kwood that you should have owned up to your salesperson's mistake and honored the agreement that he gave the potential buyer. Publicly throwing your staff under the bus to try and pass the blame and make it not your fault is pretty poor management IMO.

[Lonewolf]

Originally Posted by Jayde

You'd think driving an hour and half they would tell me before leaving. Waste of my time and gas.

It's ok though, I was able to keep my order at my local dealer. Was told I would see my BRZ in late May, early June.

You need to write a letter or email to Subaru of North America about this experience. They will take things like this into account when the dealership comes up for renewal and other allocations. They might even help you track down one at MSRP if they have any decency.

[kwood9000]

At the very least the dealership should have offered some sort of compensation for the person's time and gas. If I were local and willing to pay the markup I still wouldn't go there after hearing how they treat others.

[Jayde]

Originally Posted by Lonewolf

You need to write a letter or email to Subaru of North America about this experience. They will take things like this into account when the dealership comes up for renewal and other allocations. They might even help you track down one at MSRP if they have any decency.

I've considered it when I got home, but at the time I was still searching for a BRZ. Now that I've found one, I might.

[DP82]

Lesson learned: Initial release of a new car suited to cater to an "enthusiastic" group means that we need to band together quicker and have others recognize who we are. I.E. we should have walked into those dealerships proclaiming we belong to this group. I'm sure we have more than 50% of the pre-orders... we missed the opportunity to dictate terms rather than submit to theirs. Oh well, next time I hope we can shape this better and get more satisfaction (100%?) instead of these little tidbits of disappointment occasionally. I'm just saying :P I know I think too much! Hahaha! FEAR THE FT86CLUB!

[George]

Jayde,

I would be happy to compensate you for your gas. Call me at the number I listed above. As far as what happened, we did not have a clear process at the time of this event and our Sales Manager was out of the office. I am not blaming any member of our staff but rather telling the truth about what happened. I try to stay off the message boards because most of the time when it comes to a dealership you can't do right. For anyone to say there was poor management involved is mistaken. We are proud to be 1 of less than 100 Subaru dealers in the country named as a Stellar Care Award recipient which is the highest honor Subaru gives out for upholding Subaru Standards as well as the highest levels of customer satisfaction. As I said in my last post, I am here to serve the area of responsibility given to me by Subaru corporate. I guess I will have to live with a couple of guys from Georgia, Texas and New York who do not agree with what we do and I will continue to happily serve our loyal Subaru customers in my market. The point of starting a blacklist based on what one guy says is a bit ridiculous in my view because I have thousands of loyal customers who know I would bend over backwards for them.

Good luck to you all.