Burlington Subaru

Beware, something shady is going on at Burlington Subaru. I was looking to purchase a new Subaru and finance it. Ran my credit through Subaru.com’s finance system and it said I was approved. But the finance folks at the dealership “ran my credit” they said I DID NOT qualify through Subaru, and I’d have to use an external bank (with a much higher interest rate of course) which they were happy to put me in contact with. I informed them that I had a cosigner with perfect credit, so this time when they “ran it I “qualified” but only if I put over $3000 down on the vehicle. I was in contact with another Subaru dealership and had them run my credit. I qualified through Subaru financing just FINE, NO cosigner, NO money down. The criminal part is that the other Subaru dealership informed me that if Burlington Subaru had actually run my credit via Subaru finance and I’d been denied, the other dealerships would have seen it and not been able to approve me at all. In other words, they either never ran my credit and lied to me, or they didn’t run it via the proper Subaru channels, and lied to me. Clearly, they did this in an attempt to extract more cash from me at first by trying to force me to take a much higher interest rate, and after that failed by putting a lot of cash down up front. Greedy and Dishonest, they should be ashamed of themselves. Needless to say, I went to the other Subaru dealership and bought from them instead, more on that in a minute. On top of that there were several other problems I encountered at Burlington Subaru. First, they pressured me into signing a non-refundable deposit on a car I liked. Talking to the other Subaru dealership, this is against Subaru policy as it should be a refundable hold which they don’t charge (Burlington Subaru charged it right away). Luckily, I made sure the deposit was only valid if they got me the deal I wanted, which they didn’t. But as soon as I decided to go with the other dealership, Burlington Subaru refused to refund my deposit. I had to talk extensively to a manager to get it refunded and it was done very begrudgingly. They kept insisting they deserved something for “doing the work” (aka trying to rip me off). Not to mention every dealership does the same work. Second, they would not negotiate on the price of the car after the initial sit down, or on the extended warranty at all. When I informed them that the other Subaru Dealership was offering me over $1300 cheaper on the same package, they responded with “isn’t there something we can do?” Yes, lower your prices! That didn’t seem to be an option. So not only was this other dealership actually on the up and up about financing, they also ended up being over $1300 cheaper on the exact same car! TL;DR—Shady financial department, wouldn’t budge on pricing, shady deposit scheme. Avoid at all costs! Too many other good Subaru dealerships in the state to get stuck at Burlington Subaru.