Coming through St. Louis on my way home to Cincinnati two days before Easter in 1996, my Subaru station wagon was making a horrendous howl every time I accelerated. I pulled into Firestone about 4:30 on Friday afternoon to get my car checked and didn’t hit the road again until 9:00 – in a rental car. My car was in need of a new transaxle, so it had to be towed to the Subaru dealer in Manchester.
The Subaru dealer had to order the part, and they told me that it would take about a week. So I waited patiently. When I hadn’t heard from them by the end of the work week, I called to learn the status of my car. They hadn’t even looked at it, ordered the part needed, nothing.
I promptly called Floyd, who was still in Wichita, Kansas for his job, and he called the Subaru dealer in St. Louis. They responded to his displeasure in a hurry. “Yes, Mr. Strebe, we’ll get to it right away.” And they did.
The service manager phoned me a couple of days later to tell me that the transaxle had gone bad because of an oil leak that I should have had fixed long ago. Since the damage was due to neglect, he informed me that the warranty would not cover the repair.
I said, “What? That’s ridiculous. My car is serviced regularly and the car dealership changed the oil and prepared my vehicle for my trip out to Kansas just a couple of weeks ago.”
He replied, “I don’t think so, Mrs. Strebe. This is neglect.” Then he told me how much it would cost to fix the car. “Would you like me to order the part and go ahead with the repair?”
“Let me talk to my husband first.” I hung up the phone and promptly called Floyd to let him know what was going on with the car. Then he called the Subaru dealer from Kansas, and the guy told him the same thing he told me. Only problem was, he didn’t know that Floyd always got the car in for servicing, checked the oil, and maintained my vehicle in top running condition.
He told the service manager, “Look, the car sat in the motel parking lot for a week while my family was here. We drove my car everywhere we went. The day they headed back to Cincinnati, I checked the oil, and it was good. When my wife drove away, there was not a puddle of oil under the car. So it wasn’t leaking then.”
“Mr. Strebe, when the car got to us, there wasn’t a drop of oil in it. That’s neglect.”
“And what did you expect her to do? Stop every ten miles to check the oil?”
“Well, no.”
“Then how can you call it neglect? You fix that car under warranty or I will contact Subaru about it.”
The Manchester Subaru dealer had every intention of billing Subaru for the repair under warranty, and then they were going to charge me, too. Floyd instructed me to run over to our car dealership and pick up a copy of all the service paperwork to take with me when I finally drove out to St. Louis to pick up the car. He wanted me to have proof that we’d maintained the car mechanically, just in case they gave me problems when I picked it up, but they didn’t. They fixed it under warranty and didn’t charge me a cent when I picked it up a week later.
Unfortunately, a lot of dealerships still treat women like that. However, I’m discovering that there are more reputable garages than ever. So don’t allow yourself to be snowballed by a mountain of unexpected repair charges. If possible, get a second opinion.