2002 Subaru Impreza Wrx Wagon Blue 5sp 102k, 1-owner!!! Very Clean!!! on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Subaru suing CA dealership for alleged false customer surveys

Whenever you buy a new car from a dealer these days or sometimes even go in for service, you can expect to fill out a customer satisfaction survey at some point down the road. The responses are actually quite important to showrooms because automakers require the businesses to keep things at a certain level or face penalties. However, a Subaru dealer allegedly found a way to game that system, at least briefly, and now the Subaru of America has filed a lawsuit in US District Court for breach of contract. South Coast Subaru in Costa Mesa, CA, reportedly falsified 224 customer satisfaction questionnaires in 2014, according to Automotive News. The scheme wasn't that hard to figure out, though. All of the faked surveys were allegedly submitted through the IP address of an Acura showroom managed by the same dealer. Under normal circumstances when someone buys a Subaru, the dealer is supposed to collect the customer's email address and submit it to the automaker. However, South Coast allegedly presented false addresses, and then managers had employees fill the forms out during lunch. Subaru claimed in the suit that by doing this the dealer harmed the company's product reputation and its goodwill among customers. "Defendants prevented Subaru from discovering the actual customer satisfaction level of Subaru retail customers at South Coast Subaru by providing sham customer surveys to [Subaru]," the complaint said, according to Automotive News. Related Video:

Junkyard Gem: 1992 Subaru Loyale Wagon, with Budget Cargo Carrier

Before there was the Impreza, there was the Leone. Sold in the United States at first as, simply, The Subaru, the Loyale name appeared on the last few years of the third-generation Leones. Here's a final-model-year example of the Loyale wagon in a Denver wrecking yard, complete with rust, outdoorsy-activity-themed stickers, and interesting homebuilt plywood upgrades. These cars weren't quite as sturdy as their successors, but this one reached the magical 200,000-mile mark during its quarter-century on the roads and trails of Colorado. For some reason, there's a mid-1990s Mazda Miata M Edition badge on the tailgate. Some Colorado Subaru dealerships sell "Rocky Mountain Edition" option packages, so perhaps this was the Loyale owner's way of joining the exclusive club for owners of Subarus with snow-grooved floormats and ski-friendly roof racks. In keeping with that theme of homebrewed upgrades, this car has a plywood version of the roof-mounted cargo carriers so popular with local Outback owners. Sure, it's a bit heavy and the lack of paint reduced its lifespan, but it got the job done. The skinny twine holding the box to its plumbing-pipe mounts looks a bit scary; I'd hoped to see some hefty lag-bolts going through the roof's metal into the box's underside, but did not find any such hardware. Tailgating this rig would not have been advised. Inside, a sturdy wooden floor covers the rear-seat and cargo area. Just the thing for lots of bicycle parts or camping gear! It's those little details that make an installation like this work best. A tire receipt from last year shows that this car lived in even-more-Subariffic-than-Denver Boulder, and that it was still running and being maintained in the recent past. Unlike nearly all retired Subarus of this era that I see in Denver junkyards, this one has not a single cannabis-dispensary sticker on the dash (in stark contrast to, for example, this THC-saturated '84 GL wagon). None of that lung-capacity-destroying weed for this Subaru, no sir— just healthy outdoor adventures! You could still buy front-wheel-drive Subarus in 1992, but this one is an all-wheel-drive car with 5-speed manual transmission and 90-horse boxer-four engine. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Before Subaru pitched their wagons as outdoor-activity-enabling adventuremobiles, they were sold as practical family haulers.

Subaru ending Tribeca production in January?

The writing has been on the wall for some time, but it seems that Subaru is finally pulling the lever on the guillotine to put the midsize Tribeca crossover out of its misery. Jalopnik has what appears to be a communication from Subaru to its dealers announcing that the final Tribeca will roll off the Lafayette, IN assembly line in January, with the last dealer delivery expected to occur the following month.
The last report we heard regarding the Tribeca said that Subaru could be planning a fullsize, three-row crossover, possibly to compete against the Nissan Pathfinder and Ford Explorer. Dropping the Tribeca would leave the automaker without a three-row crossover for the foreseeable future, but according to the memo, Subaru has sold just 78,000 Tribecas since 2005 making it one of the worst-selling vehicles in the US in 2011 and 2012 - for comparison, the automaker has already found 84,372 customers for its new Forester this year (through September) alone.
We have reached out to Subaru for comment on the Tribeca's passing, but have yet to hear back as of this writing. Stay tuned for an update, when and if we get word.