Tacoma Subaru

In 2017 I purchased a new 2017 Subaru Crosstrek from Tacoma Subaru. I was also talked into buying a maintenance and service contract, which I will get back to. There were ergonomic features of the car that were very irritating. Many of those irritations were fixed in 2018. In 2019 while having the car serviced, my wife and I were talked into trading the car in for a 2019 Crosstrek. I agreed to get a bank draft for the difference between what we got for the trade in and the price of the new car. I was going to drive my 2017 Crosstrek to the bank for the bank draft tp pay the difference. They insisted that I take possession of the new car immediately even before I paid for it and drive it to the bank. I did not like doing so but they absolutely insisted that I take immediate possession of the new car. I was also talked into buying a maintenance and service contract again. When I test drove the car down Tacoma Way the light illumination from outside was diffuse from all directions. The instrument panel was illuminated with the appearance of it being lit from behind. The car, although a premium model, does not have a digital speedometer readout but has an analog readout with a dial. Having the car at home I found that the speedometer lighting would change from lightly lit to totally dark. About a week after having the car, I brought it to the Tacoma Subaru dealer letting them know that the backlight on the speedometer was acting erratically. I was informed that there was no backlighting on the speedometer except for night red lighting that could not be seen during the day even if on. What I was seeing was ambient lighting that made its way into the dark recessed area the instrument panel was in. I was naïve thinking that an automaker would make a car without a lighted instrument panel. I was told there is a third party fix. It is a short string of LED type Christmas lights that are placed in the recessed area of the instrument panel and connected to a 12 volt supple. I went to another Subaru dealer and looked at all the Crosstreks on their lot. They all had digital speedometer readouts. I believe I now know why they were so adamant that I take the car even before I paid for it. It was likely an oddball that they wanted off their lot. As soon as I was told of the Christmas tree type string of LED lights, our conversation was essentially over. I was being told I had to go find a string of LED lights to see the speedometer of a $25,000 car. I could cancel the maintenance and service contracts within a month and get a full refund. A week later I returned and canceled both contracts. The original hard sell to get the contracts was repeated. I may be wrong but I think that these contracts are not from the manufacturer. I believe I was being mislead as to the manufacturer's warranties as part of the hard sell. The one thing I remember is that we were told that there is a lot of electronics in the car and if something goes wrong after a year it could be very costly. They finally agreed to cancel the contracts and refund several thousand dollars I paid for them. When I bought the contracts I paid that day. When I canceled them and they agreed to refund my payment, the payment would not come. They told me the delay was due to the head office. I assumed they meant Subaru America as being the head office. After a month Tacoma Subaru said they sent the refund on Oct 9, 2019. It would take no more than two days for the letter to get to me. On Oct 19, 2019 I had not received it. I finally contacted the state's Attorney General's Office on Consumer Affairs. A few days after contacting the Attorney General's Office I did receive the refund. The letter that the refund came is was post marked 11 Oct 2019. The letter was metered which meant that the postage was put on it on Oct 11, 2020 and the letter was mailed sometime after that. The Post Office does not mark a date on metered mail. I do not recall if they were dishonest about the manufacturer's warranty as part of the hard sell to purchase service and maintenance contracts but I know for sure that they lied about mailing the refund on Oct 9. I have not checked if electronic components only have a one year warranty as I was told and so cannot comment on the truthfullness of that. I contacted the Washington State Patrol enquiring as to having a speedometer in a car. They sent me the Washington State WAC so requiring it, WAC 204-10-028 . There has to be an operating speedometer. Tacoma Subaru would say there is one. There is sensor that reads the speed of the car. There is a dial that moves in relation to what the sensor measures. However, to determine if it is operational, it has to fulfill its purpose. The speedometer's purpose is to tell the driver the speed of the car at all times at a glance. The speedometer being unlit and not visible much, if not most, of the time is not being operational. The car Tacoma Subaru sold me is not technically street legal in Washington State. To make it street legal I would have to get a string of LED Christmas tree type lights and put them in the recessed instrument area. The state's Attorney General's Office on Consumer Affairs was at a loss and of no help. What major car manufacturer would build a car with a speedometer that could not be easily read or not readable at all? Lessons were learned when dealing with Tacoma Subaru that could be applied to other dealers as precautions. Do not assume the new car being considered meets state's requirements as a protection to the buyer. No one in the state looks to see that the manufacturer has met state requirements. The state assumes if the requirements are there they must be being adhered to. When buying a car at Tacoma Subaru as part of the agreement to purchase the car stipulate that if anyone mentions a service contract or maintenance contract, the car will not be purchased. I would give the sales person 10 to 15 minutes to go around the dealership to inform everyone not to mention the contracts. This will rescue one from many wretched minutes of a hard sell. Agreeing to buy the contracts is like an innocent person agreeing to have committed a crime just to get away from his interrogators. Obviously I would not do business with Tacoma Subaru again. P.S. The fix for the problem would be to replace the instrument panel red night light with a bright white light and connect it directly to the dimmer switch the red night light is connected to bypassing the headlight switch. This would make a little more sense than a string of LED lights in the recessed instrument area.