My New Subaru Outback and the Horror Story Behind It

​I don’t like to give bad reviews (so I’m not going to mention names or even the dealership at which this occurred), and the following story had a relatively happy (exhilarating) ending, but…
 
Yesterday I went to buy ‘my’ new Subaru Outback. I had picked it out on the dealer’s website and clicked the button to ‘schedule a test drive’ and heard back from the assigned salesperson within 24 hours, and set up an appointment for Friday, September 14th at 2:00. We knew we were coming into the city that day anyway, and we knew we wanted to buy ‘that’ car (2017 Subaru Outback with only 6,700 mile), so it was just all going to work out.
 
We hurried to get to the appointment after our son’s cross country meet, rushing through our lunch, showing up in our college t-shirts and jeans instead of the nice clothes I was planning to wear, drenched in sweat from standing out at a cross country meet in 80 degrees and sunshine and humidity, probably looking like we couldn’t afford the car we wanted to buy.
 
The guy didn’t have us on his schedule, like, at all. Didn’t remember we were coming, looked baffled that we were there and interrupting his lunch (that he had just grabbed from the breakroom). I pulled up the email, which had his picture on it, and the words, “I’ll put you on my schedule for Friday, September 14th at 2:00.” Once he found it on his email he was like, “Oh, okay, I remember now. You had a Town & Country you were going to trade in.” I said, “No, we sold it last night. We’ll just be putting cash down.”
 
Okay, so we all got settled in his office and he said, “You’re wanting to see some Subaru Outbacks, right?” I said, “No, we already picked out the car we wanted. We just wanted to give it a quick test drive and then buy it.” (I’m thinking: easiest sale you ever made, buddy) So, he says, “I’ll go find your car and bring it around front.”
 
He came back flustered saying, “I’ve walked the whole perimeter of this lot and I can’t find it.” So, he pulled it up in the computer, mumbling, “I wonder if it was that one that sold on Wednesday.” I’m like, “WHAT??? We drove all the way down here, had an appointment, reserved THAT car, and you SOLD it? And you couldn’t have called us to let us know???” Well it’s obvious why he didn’t call us because he didn’t have us on his schedule.
 
So, he starts listing off the other Subaru Outbacks he has on the lot and there were a couple of 2017s, but they were all in the 20,000 range in mileage for approximately the same price as the one we had picked out that had 6,900 miles on it. I said, “No, that’s not acceptable. I want a low-mileage vehicle that’s going to last forever.” I had just sold a car on Thursday that had 231,000 miles on it, so I take good care of my cars.
 
So, he did some more checking in his computer and said, “Well, since it was my fault… I can get you into a 2019 for $2,000 more than you were going to buy the 2017 for. We’ve got a blue one right over there in the showroom if you like that color.” We tried to keep a straight face and I said, “That would be acceptable.” We walked over to the blue one, still trying to keep a straight face. It was IN-CRED-I-BLE.
 
Although it has been ingrained in me since birth that you NEVER buy a brand-new car… ever, we somehow left the Subaru dealership yesterday afternoon with a car that had 130 miles on it. My daughter said, “This is the newest car you’ve ever owned.” I said, “This is possibly the newest car I’ve ever SAT IN.” I’m still in complete shock even though I drove it for about three hours yesterday to go to Novi and back to visit my daughter and her husband.
 
I still haven’t figured out how to turn on the cruise control…

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