Subaru trying to deny my warranty please help!

[Jordan Silveira]

Originally Posted by justatroll

ORRR....
you could skip all this bullshit and go borrow a goddamn ODBII reader from Autozone and read out the fucking CALID Like I already suggested.


If this had happened to me I would have completed that step before the tow truck showed up. And CERTAINLY after the dealer tried to tell me they couldn't read the ECU.


Again My $10 OBDII Bluetooth reader can do this from my cellphone.


This is like watching a slow motion trainwreck

As previously mentioned, I will be doing this next. Thanks!

[Jordan Silveira]

@justatroll what's the app you use? Do I just need to buy the app? Or do I need a tool/device as well. Unfortunately I don't have a vehicle to get to an autozone at the moment.

[justatroll]

Originally Posted by Jordan Silveira

@justatroll what's the app you use? Do I just need to buy the app? Or do I need a tool/device as well. Unfortunately I don't have a vehicle to get to an autozone at the moment.

I use an ELM327 Bluetooth module that I bought on ebay.
That connects to my phone using the 'torque' app.


The free version of Torque will read out CAL ID and ECU status and even clear trouble codes.
I have the paid version now, so I cant remember the limitations of the free version.

[guybo]

Originally Posted by justatroll

ORRR....
you could skip all this bullshit and go borrow a goddamn ODBII reader from Autozone and read out the fucking CALID Like I already suggested.


If this had happened to me I would have completed that step before the tow truck showed up. And CERTAINLY after the dealer tried to tell me they couldn't read the ECU.


Again My $10 OBDII Bluetooth reader can do this from my cellphone.


This is like watching a slow motion trainwreck

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v6AfvKyFKQ"]train crash compilation 6 - YouTube[/ame]

[gravitylover]

Originally Posted by Jordan Silveira

[MENTION=130320]jUnfortunately I don't have a vehicle to get to an autozone at the moment.

Bicycle?

[Lonewolf]

OP - What came of this?

[Jordan Silveira]

Originally Posted by Lonewolf

OP - What came of this?

Hey Lonewolf,

Thanks for checking on the status update. As of right now I am three days out from being without my BRZ for a whole month. In that time I have been trying to survive using my grandmother's car who I live with. I have not been given a rental and insurance will only provide one for a collision claim. In short, SoA proved to be more useless than I can begin to explain. They claimed they would send out a service/district rep to get "their" own version of the story and when I finally received a call from SoA they told me they concurred with my story and they would not assist in anyway and there was no way to appeal the decision and my car would be flagged for the life of the vehicle. I then called the service manager at PHS and he told me they never even sent a field/service/district rep from SoA but rather he just received a call from SoA asking for confirmation of his allegations. Thus, SoA just took his word and provided absolutely no effort or help to get to the bottom of this.

Moreover, I then towed the car to where I purchased it (authorized Subaru dealer) and was going to just see if they as my last resource would at least assist in selling me the parts at cost, etc. Well I dropped the car off on July 5th and as of right now still don't have any official word on what's wrong with the car. As a matter of fact I feel they have been lying to me from the start, since the 5th up until 16th I have probably spoken to the Service Manager and they have given me different stories to where they were at in the process of diagnosing the car going as far as to say they were checking fuel samples?!?! How that relates to a immobilizer light and starting issues is unknown to me. Also, I told the Service Manager upon delivery the whole situation from start to finish and he told me he would look at it from a holistic view and gather his own conclusions on whether I modded it. Obviously I told him I bought the car there with 193 miles and I didn't do it so I needed some real help in this matter because I wouldn't have bought the car from them if I knew I was being sold a faulty vehicle or a possible lemon.

Finally, I have to call on July 16th once again and he finally tells me that my car has been the discussion of the whole morning because the CID is not the stock CID for the car and the numbers don't match. This was the same information I got from PHS and despite telling him that we had already been over this he told me he was frustrated (for what reason I'm unsure, I don't know maybe he thinks I am lying to him) and that he would be calling a field engineer to check further on the matter and if it indeed was modified per the CID allegations, I could be looking to pay 2000-3000 dollars for a repair (PHS was saying 1100 ballpark range). I then continued to tell him I haven't modified the car and that the car was sold to me with whatever issues its having and I questioned whether or not they tested the vehicle and inspected it for modifications prior to selling it to me. He told me they do visual inspections to look for modifications to things like suspension, engine, etc. But told me that with 193 miles on the car they would not have done any computer analysis to look over things like the CID. This is fricking unbelievable to me but he told me he'd call me back before the end of the day. Also, when I took the car in I was given a service history sheet that indicated the car was brought back in and had a "used vehicle reconditioning" with 16 miles on the ODO in mid Feb of this year. I bought the car in late March so in that matter of time the vehicle got around 180 miles on it which seems to be way too high for just test drives. My new conspiracy is that the vehicle was being driven around by some employee on a more frequent basis (which is a common practice for used vehicles at lesser qualified dealers albeit but still a practice that is done). My car had a small crack in the bottom of the bumper and a hairline rip in the seat bolster that I failed to notice until I got the car clear bra'd almost immediately after I got it home. This would indicate the car was ridden roughly with little care and I can't imagine these things would have been done through test drives so either in the first 16 miles of the initial delivery or during the next ~180 before I purchased it.

Anyways, this same service manager who tells me the CID looks funny and claims my car is modified later calls me (give or take 4 hours) and tells me that upon further investigation the CID matches and as of now there are no modifications that seem apparent with the vehicle. He says the Field Engineer he spoke with confirmed this and that this engineer has given him some possible troubleshooting issues and he would be checking those on 7/17 and get back to me that day (which didn't happen). He told me if it didn't work he would be having this field engineer coming out to the dealership to look at the car and diagnose it so they can figure out what's wrong. So far that's what I know and it's been a complete mess that's been nothing but an absolute nightmare. At this point my number one goal is to get the car fixed one way or another so I can resume driving on my own accord and will be more than likely seeking legal representation. As for the current experience with the dealer it's been just as underwhelming and it seems like SoA and at the very least my local dealers are incompetent or do their best to look it in hopes of avoiding work and effort they would otherwise have to put in. However, I won't rule out that perhaps I am just that unlucky and I have the BRZ from hell where I literally have stumbled upon problem #XYZ that no one has ever encountered before.

Sorry for the long response but that's where I'm at in the process currently.

[steve99]

Hmmm pretty well what i thought at the start, the original diagnosis re tuning was crap, and then they just ran with it. Seems the car has developed a genuine fault possibly in imobiliser and they tried to blame ecu. If the ecu was bricked they would not be able to talk to ecu to extract calibration id, then the crap about incorrect calid, they probably looked up wrong model\year.

Apperars they are now comming arround,and you will get car fixed, complete wombats

[gravitylover]

Jordan - What a bummer to have to go through. I hate dealer service departments, they just don't seem to want people to be happy with their cars or the decisions they have made. It's too bad...

steve99 - Complete Wombats. That's funny. I agree it does sound like things are finally on the right path and the car will get repaired properly.

[Traffic]

This now seams to be on a decent track ..Dealers as any other business are only as good as the staff working for them. Poor skills lack of training leads to fuck ups and reinforcing the negative perception dealerships get. You then have to move on to another one to get the job done. Getting the car out of there was the best thing you did.
Hang in there!

[Lonewolf]

Originally Posted by Jordan Silveira

Hey Lonewolf,

Thanks for checking on the status update. As of right now I am three days out from being without my BRZ for a whole month. In that time I have been trying to survive using my grandmother's car who I live with. I have not been given a rental and insurance will only provide one for a collision claim. In short, SoA proved to be more useless than I can begin to explain. They claimed they would send out a service/district rep to get "their" own version of the story and when I finally received a call from SoA they told me they concurred with my story and they would not assist in anyway and there was no way to appeal the decision and my car would be flagged for the life of the vehicle. I then called the service manager at PHS and he told me they never even sent a field/service/district rep from SoA but rather he just received a call from SoA asking for confirmation of his allegations. Thus, SoA just took his word and provided absolutely no effort or help to get to the bottom of this.

Moreover, I then towed the car to where I purchased it (authorized Subaru dealer) and was going to just see if they as my last resource would at least assist in selling me the parts at cost, etc. Well I dropped the car off on July 5th and as of right now still don't have any official word on what's wrong with the car. As a matter of fact I feel they have been lying to me from the start, since the 5th up until 16th I have probably spoken to the Service Manager and they have given me different stories to where they were at in the process of diagnosing the car going as far as to say they were checking fuel samples?!?! How that relates to a immobilizer light and starting issues is unknown to me. Also, I told the Service Manager upon delivery the whole situation from start to finish and he told me he would look at it from a holistic view and gather his own conclusions on whether I modded it. Obviously I told him I bought the car there with 193 miles and I didn't do it so I needed some real help in this matter because I wouldn't have bought the car from them if I knew I was being sold a faulty vehicle or a possible lemon.

Finally, I have to call on July 16th once again and he finally tells me that my car has been the discussion of the whole morning because the CID is not the stock CID for the car and the numbers don't match. This was the same information I got from PHS and despite telling him that we had already been over this he told me he was frustrated (for what reason I'm unsure, I don't know maybe he thinks I am lying to him) and that he would be calling a field engineer to check further on the matter and if it indeed was modified per the CID allegations, I could be looking to pay 2000-3000 dollars for a repair (PHS was saying 1100 ballpark range). I then continued to tell him I haven't modified the car and that the car was sold to me with whatever issues its having and I questioned whether or not they tested the vehicle and inspected it for modifications prior to selling it to me. He told me they do visual inspections to look for modifications to things like suspension, engine, etc. But told me that with 193 miles on the car they would not have done any computer analysis to look over things like the CID. This is fricking unbelievable to me but he told me he'd call me back before the end of the day. Also, when I took the car in I was given a service history sheet that indicated the car was brought back in and had a "used vehicle reconditioning" with 16 miles on the ODO in mid Feb of this year. I bought the car in late March so in that matter of time the vehicle got around 180 miles on it which seems to be way too high for just test drives. My new conspiracy is that the vehicle was being driven around by some employee on a more frequent basis (which is a common practice for used vehicles at lesser qualified dealers albeit but still a practice that is done). My car had a small crack in the bottom of the bumper and a hairline rip in the seat bolster that I failed to notice until I got the car clear bra'd almost immediately after I got it home. This would indicate the car was ridden roughly with little care and I can't imagine these things would have been done through test drives so either in the first 16 miles of the initial delivery or during the next ~180 before I purchased it.

Anyways, this same service manager who tells me the CID looks funny and claims my car is modified later calls me (give or take 4 hours) and tells me that upon further investigation the CID matches and as of now there are no modifications that seem apparent with the vehicle. He says the Field Engineer he spoke with confirmed this and that this engineer has given him some possible troubleshooting issues and he would be checking those on 7/17 and get back to me that day (which didn't happen). He told me if it didn't work he would be having this field engineer coming out to the dealership to look at the car and diagnose it so they can figure out what's wrong. So far that's what I know and it's been a complete mess that's been nothing but an absolute nightmare. At this point my number one goal is to get the car fixed one way or another so I can resume driving on my own accord and will be more than likely seeking legal representation. As for the current experience with the dealer it's been just as underwhelming and it seems like SoA and at the very least my local dealers are incompetent or do their best to look it in hopes of avoiding work and effort they would otherwise have to put in. However, I won't rule out that perhaps I am just that unlucky and I have the BRZ from hell where I literally have stumbled upon problem #XYZ that no one has ever encountered before.

Sorry for the long response but that's where I'm at in the process currently.

Wow, sorry to hear the ordeal continues albeit with some progress made in your favor.

Are you getting all those diagnoses and "new" findings in writing? You need to document everything and everyone you encounter.

Keep all receipts for rental cars and other expenses you're out while this garbage has been occurring.

I would send a certified letter with return receipt to SoA regarding your ordeal and their unacceptable lack of assistance. Reference how long your car has been out of service and how much money this has cost you. Request reasonable compensation. Phone calls only do so much.

If this isn't resolved (or close to it) to your satisfaction by week's end, I would consider more aggressive legal options.

[justatroll]

Originally Posted by Jordan Silveira

Hey Lonewolf,

Anyways, this same service manager who tells me the CID looks funny and claims my car is modified later calls me (give or take 4 hours) and tells me that upon further investigation the CID matches and as of now there are no modifications that seem apparent with the vehicle..

Say... has anyone suggested that you borrow a OBD reader from a local auto parts store and read out the ROM ID yourself?

Seems that this could have been used as information that could have been useful when the car was at the original dealership.

(NOTE: This is EXACTLY what I suspected from the very beginning - That THE ROM ID WAS FINE)


SOA had better have one hell of an apology for you!!!

[strat61caster]

FYI California lemon law:

https://oag.ca.gov/consumers/general/cars

Good luck.

[Jordan Silveira]

@steve99 Wombats is an understatement but as always you've been invaluable in this process and I can't begin to thank you for the constant responses and your knowledge of the twins electrical and CPU components and procedures. However, the same thanks and appreciation goes to all the members on this forum who have taken the time to read and offer up help or feedback in general. So THANK YOU BEYOND WORDS!

@gravitylover you are absolutely correct. It truly is unfortunate that the only desired result is to sell the car but when it comes time to ensure customer satisfaction vs time,effort, labor, cost, resources, etc. they prefer the latter. Even more so this is seen when taking the car to a dealership where you did not give them your money to start and they'd rather curse you away than provide you with excellent service in hopes of securing my future business.

@Traffic thank you for the kind and profound words. I agree it seems I am in a better spot than before. As I said above to @gravitylover the way dealerships operate are such a shame. I mean to put it in perspective as sad as it is to say the way this ordeal has played out I really believe I will find it hard to purchase a Subaru again. That's not to say all manufacturers produce problematic cars but the lack of actual care and assistance from the bottom (dealers) to the top (SoA) has been astonishing in the worst ways. Not to mention, not only would I have a hard time purchasing a Subaru but I think I would urge those close to me to look at other stops before ending up there.

@Lonewolf I absolutely have been documenting everything and while maybe not as apparent as I tried to be in my response to your question, my long answer should show some proof that I am incredibly detailed in what has been going on. I have been documenting and keeping proof of everything I could since the start and it continues on. Once again thank you for concern and following up to see if this has been taken care of yet. The members on this forum never cease to amaze me at how friendly, helpful, responsive, and caring they are about fellow owners of the cars we all love and share in one way or another.

@justatroll Hey there yes someone previously mentioned I borrow or rent a OBD reader and when I tried to get a hold of one at my local Autozone, the one they supplied me wouldn't show me and ROM/CID/CVN or anything I could discern but rather it seemed to a device more geared to seeing if there was any check engine codes that could be pulled and discerned. At that point prior to ordering a reader and waiting for it to ship I still was eager to get the car to a Subaru dealer where even if the initial allegations were or were not true, a Subaru Tech was going to be needed to program the ECU anyways so I figured getting the car to another dealership was the next best step. In the day I had it home before moving to the next dealer, I checked the battery and the aforementioned OBDII port and nothing worked so I moved on. Thanks though for the suggestion. Once the car gets fixed (whenever that is) my next battle will be to ensure SoA rectifies whatever flags for modification were put on my vehicle and seeing about getting any type of reparations/vindication for what I have gone through. Long story short, it seems that in every aspect of this process I have dealt with incompetent people, from those at SoA, to the dealerships, to Autozone for goodness sake (however I guess I would expect as much from this place).

@strat61caster believe me I am all too familiar with the CA Lemon Law at this point. I appreciate the link though. I am probably going to seek legal representation in the form of counsel that specializes in Lemon Law suits because at one point or another this car was sold to me with at the very least very shady intentions.