LOTS of Problems with SOA, Dealer, and MYSUBARU.com

[saleen90181]

Has any one else had problems with MYSUBARU.com? I have tried to schedule my 7500 mile service and some Warrantee work threw the side for MONTHS. I have also tired to CONTACT SOA via www.mysubaru.com and recieved NO RESPONCE at all.

Here is the letter I have sent threw them via the site -

I received a flyer in the mail From SOA that stated for all your service needs you can use www.mysubaru.com

Well this has turned out to be totally FALSE -

I have tried to schedule my car for service mutable times threw www.mysubaru.com with my dealer Pine Belt Subaru. Each time I asked for confirmation of the appointment. NO Confirmation was ever received and in fact no appointments where ever scheduled.

On 9-17-2002 I used www.mysubaru.com to schedule my first oil change for my WRX. I entered all the information necessary and submitted it. I received the web page that confirms that I completed the request. Never received an appointment. I had to take the car to another service center.

On 10-21-2002 I again used www.mysubaru.com to schedule my 7500 mile service. Plus I have many warrantee issues to be addressed. I again entered all the information necessary and submitted it. I received the web page that confirms that I complete the request. I never received any appointment or any contact at all.

On 11- 19-2002 I submitted this request – threw www.mysubaru.com

This is the 3rd time I have tried to schedule appointments service on line. Each time I entered a Preferred Time and an Alternate time and asked that I be Called or emailed confirmation. I did not receive any emails or phone calls. My 3500 mile service was done else where because I did not receive any responses.

I did receive one voice mail message that my car was due for its 3500 mile service last week and that I should call or go online to set an appointment. That’s rich.

7,500 mile service - oil/filter change
Warrantee Issues
1-Squeaking Driver side window
2- Very hard some most of the time sometimes Can not go into 1st gear while moving under 10mph (Clutch FULL to floor)
3- Squeaking clutch peddle
4- Very Noticeable click/pop from glove box area when headlights are turned on
5- Very hard sometimes to get car into reverse. Sometimes Imposable and need to rock the car forward/backward to engage reverse (clutch FULL to floor) when cold
6- Wind noise in cockpit from Hatch area when temp is below 30deg
7- Frost on car and driving at Highway speeds (60mph) causes very loud noise, and vibration from roof/rear spoiler area
8- If car sits for more then one day and it is cold (below 40deg) when car starts very loud knocking until car warms up (93octane gas always used)
9- Car in 1st gear and under 30mph sometimes feels like it wants to pop out of gear on acceleration.
10 – Only happened 2 times in the 8500 miles I have had the car but – clutch shutter while decelerating in 2nd gear when cold

I have entered Preferred time below of Friday 19th – Please ignore this as I work till 6pm on weekdays. It does not give me the option Of Saturday.

Please schedule my car for its 7,500 service and addressing of these Warrantee issues for Saturday November 23 2002 –
The times I would like are – 9am or 10am
Also under my extended warrantee that I purchased it states that I have the option to have a loaner/rental car while my car is in for service. If the warrantee issues require the car be in the shop for most of the day please arrange to have a car for me.

AGAIN – PLEASE confirm my appointment either by calling me at Home and leaving a message –XXX_XXX_XXXX or by emailing me at [email protected]

I can not call from work to schedule this appointment and when I return home your service department is closed.

That is why this www.mysubaru.com and the ability to schedule my appointment is on line is very useful. But if I do not get confirmation its Useless.

If I do not receive confirmation via phone or email I will be unfortunately forced to contact SOA and express my dissatisfaction.

Thank you

[email protected]

Again I did not receive any contact. I was forced to call the dealership today to schedule my service. As you can see I have tried to schedule this service mutable times with no success. I informed the Service manager of this and that because my appointments where not acknowledged I have well over the 7500 miles – 9000 to be exact. He informed me that he could not get my car in for service till December 12 2002. I expressed again my concern about the amount of mileage I have and that I travel over 100 miles a day. He told me that December 12 was the best he could do and that I should be fine with the miles I have.

This is very disheartening. I am VERY concerned that damage might occur to my car. And upset that even though I have tried to schedule this service before and have warrantee issues that the car can not be service sooner.

He also informed me that even though they have to keep the car to check on the warrantee issues SOA will NOT give me a loaner car. This is even though when I purchased my extended warrantee I ask that specific question and was told I would ALWAYS receive a loaner car when my car was in for over night service.

At the top of the service page it states this –
Trust all your vehicle's maintenance and repair needs to certified Subaru experts by requesting a service appointment with our easy email form. You'll receive a prompt reply to confirm or suggest an alternate time.

As you can see for me this has been totally false and very frustrating.
I would Like to know How SOA is going to try and make this right for me? IS my car at risk for damage? If I experience problems in the future because of this issue what will SOA do about it? And how can SOA offer a service such as www.mysubaru.com and it not work?

I have expressed some other feelings about SOA via this forum and have not received any response. Have tried to schedule service for my car with this web site with no response. Will SOA respond to this dissatisfied customer now?

I have also contacted my Dealerships management and I am awaiting a response



My dealerships management Never have gotten back to me either.

I have sent this 3 times over the past Week and still no responce. Does anyone have a PHONE NUMBER for SOA customer service that I can call and complain too?

Thanks for any help - this is really frustrating!!!!!!!!

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[rogue]

Sorry about your problems.

This should probably be in SOA Issues and Warranty Problems

[newsman]

Sorry to hear about that. Let us know what your dealership will do about the issues you had, especially inability to shift into first. I have the same problem, but a lot of people here say it's an issue with WRX in general.

[rogue]

Also, several of your problems don't seem to be warranty issues, they're standard quirks with the car.

My clutch pedal squeeked a bit. I sprayed it with WD-40 and that stopped.

Your car will not go into first gear on a roll unless you double-clutch. Pretty much everyone agrees on this.

See many many threads on "getting into reverse" including one in this forum from a couple of days ago. Just put the car in neutral, let off the clutch, push back in, and it should go into reverse just fine. Normal condition for MANY manual transmission cars, not just Subaru.

The click/pop is the relay for the headlights, it's normal.

I don't know what number 9 means... feels like it wants to pop out of gear? Did it pop out or not?

[newsman]

I agree with rogue, that your glove box pop sound is normal - it's a rellay working I don't know if I would say inability to put into first gearshould be considered a normal thing even if it's common to WRX. I've heard people that it's not common thing to do , but it's still doable on their non Subaru cars.

That's when I need to do it: On a highway, if your lane slows down to almost dead stop, and the lane to your left have an opening and has normal traffic - what do do? I'm at 15 - 10 mph, I try to shift into the first, I double clutch, whatever - no go. It's too low of a speed to be able to have my car accelerate fast in the second. So I'm forced to come to a complete stop and wait till I can merge into left lane in the first gear.

I can understand though about reverse - there are no synchros, so it's expected. However in my case, I would sometimes, shift into the reverse from dead stop, there would be no resistance, I could slide right into the gear - however once there there would be some grinding - now that you can't tell me is normal. However it's happens rerelly so I didn't even bother mentioning it to the dealer. hmm, maybe I should

Finally, in the cold weather, I wold have weird blowing-through- the-bottle-sound in fast intervals, comming from the glove box area (turbo?) However, is sound more like a faulty fan noise than a normal turbo whooosh, but I guess (hope) this is normal for WRX as well.

[rogue]

Originally posted by newsman
That's when I need to do it: On a highway, if your lane slows down to almost dead stop, and the lane to your left have an opening and has normal traffic - what do do? I'm at 15 - 10 mph, I try to shift into the first, I double clutch, whatever - no go. It's too low of a speed to be able to have my car accelerate fast in the second. So I'm forced to come to a complete stop and wait till I can merge into left lane in the first gear.

I can understand though about reverse - there are no synchros, so it's expected. However in my case, I would sometimes, shift into the reverse from dead stop, there would be no resistance, I could slide right into the gear - however once there there would be some grinding - now that you can't tell me is normal. However it's happens rerelly so I didn't even bother mentioning it to the dealer. hmm, maybe I should

My car will NEVER go into first gear from a roll. Some people force it in (possible) but I prefer not to. You can start up in second from a dead stop if you want, rolling at 10/15 you should be fine in second. But double clutching ALWAYS gets me into first. If it's not working for you... either your gearbox is different, or you're not quite doing it right

If going into reverse grinds, I'd wager you were just moving forward a second ago. Your gears are still spinning. If you wait two seconds before going for reverse after moving forward, you shouldn't get any grinding.

[Chuck H]

In can see being a little upset with the dealership over such a long wait for the service appointment, but I don't see what's so hard about calling them up to schedule an appointment. I'd much rather do that than rely on some web page to handle things correctly for me. Especially when you realized that it didn't work for the first visit, why would you bother trying to use it again?

Also, have you tried another dealer? You can take your car to any Subaru dealership for regular service and for warranty work. If the one that you bought the car from stinks, write a letter to them telling them why you're not happy with them, also write SOA, and then take your business to another dealership.

[Skyline]

A lot of dealerships simply aren't internet saavy. Sad, but true. Unfortunately, these dealerships are still being listed by my.subaru.com. You just have to find a different dealership if you insist on internet appointments.

Fortunately, my dealership is very internet saavy and I make appointments by email. You just have to find one.

[bluesubie]

I would suggest that you don't give Pine Belt your business. My dealer is Flemington ((908) 782-5107) and they are top notch! I have four dealers that are half the distance, but the drive to Flemington is worth it.

I once stopped at Pine Belt because I wanted to by an oil filter (only because I was driving to the shore that day). I waited for 20 minutes, but the parts guy was on the phone so I left.
Now, for your problems:

1-Squeaking Driver side window
Flemington fixed mine

2- Very hard some most of the time sometimes Can not go into 1st gear while moving under 10mph (Clutch FULL to floor)
normal. gets a little better with more miles.

3- Squeaking clutch peddle
if it's just the pedal, an easy lube

4- Very Noticeable click/pop from glove box area when headlights are turned on
normal

5- Very hard sometimes to get car into reverse. Sometimes Imposable and need to rock the car forward/backward to engage reverse (clutch FULL to floor) when cold
normal. gets a little better with more miles.

6- Wind noise in cockpit from Hatch area when temp is below 30deg
7- Frost on car and driving at Highway speeds (60mph) causes very loud noise, and vibration from roof/rear spoiler area
my car too. clean the frost

8- If car sits for more then one day and it is cold (below 40deg) when car starts very loud knocking until car warms up (93octane gas always used)
normal as long as it goes away after engine is warm

9- Car in 1st gear and under 30mph sometimes feels like it wants to pop out of gear on acceleration.
not normal if it does pop out

10 – Only happened 2 times in the 8500 miles I have had the car but – clutch shutter while decelerating in 2nd gear when cold
clutch shudder common problem. there will be a fix for severe cases in a few months

Use the phone.

-Dennis

[GOT_WRX]

There is a big difference between 10 and 15mph in first gear (RPM wise).
If you tried double clutching and didn't work, it's either you didn't do it correctly or your blip RPM wasn't high enough.
If you want to stick into first at 15Mph, you might need to blip it at least upto 4000RPM. (see why it's dumb to shift into first at this speed?)

If you tried doing this in the morning, it might not work at all because the synchros aren't lubed fully.

I am not sure if my mod(3/16mod only) was helping, but I had no problem accelerating fast at 15mph in second gear. Just mash the gas.

Originally posted by newsman
I agree with rogue, that your glove box pop sound is normal - it's a rellay working I don't know if I would say inability to put into first gearshould be considered a normal thing even if it's common to WRX. I've heard people that it's not common thing to do , but it's still doable on their non Subaru cars.

That's when I need to do it: On a highway, if your lane slows down to almost dead stop, and the lane to your left have an opening and has normal traffic - what do do? I'm at 15 - 10 mph, I try to shift into the first, I double clutch, whatever - no go. It's too low of a speed to be able to have my car accelerate fast in the second. So I'm forced to come to a complete stop and wait till I can merge into left lane in the first gear.

I can understand though about reverse - there are no synchros, so it's expected. However in my case, I would sometimes, shift into the reverse from dead stop, there would be no resistance, I could slide right into the gear - however once there there would be some grinding - now that you can't tell me is normal. However it's happens rerelly so I didn't even bother mentioning it to the dealer. hmm, maybe I should

Finally, in the cold weather, I wold have weird blowing-through- the-bottle-sound in fast intervals, comming from the glove box area (turbo?) However, is sound more like a faulty fan noise than a normal turbo whooosh, but I guess (hope) this is normal for WRX as well.

[pdximpreza]

That's when I need to do it: On a highway, if your lane slows down to almost dead stop, and the lane to your left have an opening and has normal traffic - what do do? I'm at 15 - 10 mph, I try to shift into the first, I double clutch, whatever - no go. It's too low of a speed to be able to have my car accelerate fast in the second. So I'm forced to come to a complete stop and wait till I can merge into left lane in the first gear.

Theres a fix for this, its called a 2.5RS =)

Seriously though. I scheduled service with Carr Subaru in Aloha,Oregon. They called me to verify the apointment, no issues.

And most the things you are complaining about, or kinda petty things. Changing the oil and stuff I dont even bother to take to the service to do it. Something that you should know how to do, and something you should be doing.

The car wanting to pop out at 30 in 1st. Well if your hand isnt on the stick, does it pop out?

I would have 8 looked at..........dont think thats right.

Other than that, things like the frost causing noise.......well clean it off then.

You cant be coming out of the gates charging like you are. Specially with what you complaining about.

[bluesubie]

Also, read this for great shifting tips from SPD Tuning.

-Dennis