Lynnes Subaru

My wife and I purchased a 2012 Subaru Outback Limited 2.5i from Lynnes Subaru in Bloomfield, New Jersey, on December 23, 2011. While we were quite happy with our salesperson, Akiem Smith, we had a very negative experience with sales manager Tony Cipriani, one that has left me unable to recommend the sales department at Lynnes Subaru. Here’s the whole story: On November 1, I spoke to Lynnes Subaru customer service representative Doris Delgado after getting a “purchase price certificate” through the American Express Auto Purchasing Program at zag.com. Doris said they didn’t have the car we wanted in stock, but they could do a tri-state (NY, NJ, CT) search to see if they could get it from another dealer. If the search was successful, Doris said, Lynnes would have the car in 2-3 days. However, in order to initiate the search, I would have to pay a $500 “locate fee.” Doris assured me that the locate fee was fully refundable if the search failed. Wanting to get a car as soon as possible, I agreed to pay the locate fee (after negotiating it down to $300) and gave Doris my credit card info over the phone. At no point did Lynnes Subaru provide me with the terms of the locate fee in writing. The search was initiated and turned up no Outbacks in the tri-state area that met our criteria. In other words, as the terms were explained to me, the search had failed, and my $300 would presumably be refunded. Wrong. The dealership ended up finding us a car from “incoming inventory.” Our car was delivered to the dealership on November 29, almost a month after I’d paid the $300 fee that was supposedly refundable if a car wasn’t quickly obtained from a nearby dealer’s existing inventory. To make matters worse, on the day that our car arrived, Subaru issued a “stop sale” order (essentially a preemptive recall) until a problem with the master brake cylinder could be fixed. So we had to wait another 3+ weeks for the car to be repaired before the dealership could sell it. Finally, on December 23, almost two months after I initially contacted Lynnes Subaru, Akiem Smith called to say the car was ready for pickup. At the dealership, as I was going over the paperwork with Akiem, I noticed that the $300 “locate fee” was still on our tab. (I had actually raised this concern with him earlier, on November 30. He’d told me he wasn’t authorized to remove the charge and that a manager would call me “within a few minutes.” I never received a call from a manager.) Now, when I (re)explained the situation and asked Akiem to remove the charge, he said I’d have to talk to his sales manager, Tony. Tony and I then had a lengthy conversation in which he indignantly refused to refund the “fully refundable” locate fee and complained about the price guaranteed by zag.com—a program Lynnes Subaru participates in voluntarily. Tony did not care that the terms of the locate fee had been misrepresented to me. He did not care that the actual terms I’d agreed to unambiguously called for a refund. All he cared about was squeezing an extra $300 out of us on a car that cost, with taxes and fees, more than $31,000. He even suggested at one point that he would not sell me the car if I was not completely satisfied with the terms. Get this: he told me he wanted to see a smile on my face. “Because what good does it do me,” he said, “to sell a car to a customer who isn’t happy?” Of course, he proceeded to do exactly that. In the end, we walked out of Lynnes Subaru with a bad taste in our mouths, despite having purchased a car we really like. We might buy another Subaru someday, but definitely not from Lynnes, and we’ll continue to spread the word about our unpleasant experience there. At this point, we’re just hoping things are different in the service department and will post another review when the time comes. On the plus side, our salesperson, Akiem Smith, was friendly, helpful, and very conscientious about returning calls and keeping us updated during our wait for the car. For the record, the other fees that Lynnes Subaru charged us included: $7.50 NJ Tire Fee $8.00 CVR Online Processing $450.00 Estimate Registration* $399.00 Documentation Fee** *According to Akiem, this estimated fee covers only the actual registration cost, and we will be refunded any difference. **According to edmunds, any documentation fee over $100 is considered “high.”