To anyone in the Maryland area that is thinking about buying a subaru. No doubt subaru makes a great car but the subaru dealership (Russell) I dealt with in particular pulled the old bait and switch on me. In the end the dealership ripped me off by about $4K.

Let me explain how they did this to me so no one else out there will make the same stupid mistake I made. First I was trading in a 2006 2.5i wagon that I loved but unfortunately did not have enough horsepower for me. The 2.5i wagon was purchased for ~$21.8K plus taxes and I had the car for about 6 weeks and put about 1600 miles on it. I had put around $2K down so with taxes my lien on that car was $21.7. The salesman told me that the 2005 LGT that I was thinking of purchasing had a value of $24,995. The 05 LGT was pretty nice with leather, electronic dimming rear-view mirror and e-compass but it was demo car with over 6,000 miles on it.

The First Offer (Verbal):
The Salesman offered me $550/month for 6 years which I told him I could not and would not do. I stated if he could get $2K out of the deal we could be around $500/month for 6 years. Given the car was a demo and had 6,000 miles on it and my 2.5i was barely used I figured this would not be a problem. He stated my 06 2.5i was currently in the deal at about $17.5K but he was trying to increase the price of my trade in to make it work.

Second Offer Accepted (Verbal):
2 hours later the salesman called me back and told me 6 years at $509/month. I accepted and stated I would be in tomorrow morning to sign the paperwork. When I showed up I purchased the extended warranty for $1,400 more. That took me to $530/month.

Paperwork Bait & Switch:
As I was in an extreme rush that morning I saw the monthly for $530/month and I signed. What I did not pick up was that they added another year onto the loan. When I was going thru the paperwork, I requested from the finance guy (Jim Murray prepared the financial paperwork and Neil Gillis approved the rigged deal) that he show me the values for my trade-in and the value for the LGT demo car. He stated he could not do this because of Maryland law regarding the paperwork but everything was properly taken care of. I SHOULD HAVE DEMANDED THIS FROM JIM MURRAY BECAUSE I WOULD HAVE CAUGHT THE RIP OFF, IF HE GAVE ME THE VALUES FOR BOTH VEHICLES…but I was in a rush to goto work that morning. So Russell blurred the math so I was just looking at one #, that was a composite (total new loan Amount). No one informed me of the change in term of the loan (not the salesperson who I told from the beginning I could not do a 7-year loan and not the finance guy who I had a conversation with how I could not do a 7 or 8 yr loan).

After the dust had settled on the car I was reviewing my paperwork and I noticed (this was about 3 weeks later) the 84 months on the loan. I called my salesperson immediately and I wanted him to check for an error. He called back and stated that the finance people had stated there was not an error but he did say he remembered the deal should have been for 6 years at the verbally agreed price.

Experience with the GM:
When I had a talk with Rick Baker, the GM of the dealership, he stated everything on his end was in order. I asked him if he had talked to his salesman and he stated he has no need to. A GM HAS NO NEED TO TALK TO HIS SALESMAN WHEN THERE IS A DISPUTE ON THE DEAL HIS SALESPERSON BROKERED. SHADY, SHADY. I asked Rick why I would negotiate a worse deal than the first offer at 6yr, $550. If I had just extended the 6yr, $550 to a 7th Year I would have been well $500/month (more like $480/month). Rick did not respond. This is exactly why car dealerships have the worst reputation and we all hate buying cars (think how much we love our cars and how we all hate dealing with dealerships). I call what happened to me FRAUD/DECEIT. Rick did not like the word, “fraud”.

End Result:
That means I purchased a demo 05 LGT with >6,000 miles on it for almost $27K. This same dealership lists 05 LGTs for $22.4K in the Local Examiner Paper all the time. Now I agree I should have reviewed the paperwork more thoroughly but the worst part is I was a financial analyst for 8 years and I should have caught this. Thats a $4K reading lesson I just took. I hope no one has to ever go thru what I went thru.

I reported the dealer to subaru and unfortunately they can not do anything except give you a case# (915381). Next stop the BBB, then the local States Attorney Office.

Please contact me if anyone else has had a bad experience with Russell Subaru.

Zach Shamoo

 

that sucks dude, but you just proved a very huge point, read everything three times before signing.

 

Sorry to hear, but you know what you should've done...

 

Sorry to hear that man I feel for you.
I heard about that shady Subaru Dealership a long time ago.
I would never give them my business.
Tell everyone you know because it could happen to someone else.

 

Hefty price tag on that lesson.

Good luck with the fight you are going to have ahead of you.

 

Good luck and yeah the BBB may be your only saving grace.

 

sorry about your deal.
always look at the total, not monthly.
good luck with your fight!

 

isn't there local/regional reps for the corporation you can talk to and present your case to? The Ombudsman office contact info should be in the back of the manual if you want to give that a shot. I would, **** that's a lot of cash and the dealer is giving the company a bad rap with this.

The downside is that legally, you are bound to the contract even if you didn't read the fineprint on it. It may be futile because you are responsible for checking over documents to see if they are in order. sucks dude, it sucks bad :/

 

I agree. As a salesman at a great dealership... I was honestly ready to read carefully and explain why you weren't ripped off. Can't do that.

Tell everyone you know (buying, servicing, owning a car) in your area. The law of retail is a happy customer tells 2 people of his 'good' expierence, a disgruntled customer tell 10 people of his 'bad' expierence. Your a 'numbers' guy... you do the math. You can burn bridges pretty fast as a dealer. The bad ones WILL fall!