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Buying A New Car Advice - Subaru


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Hi Everyone

 

I'm looking to get a new Subaru, and was looking for some advice on getting a good deal.

 

Firstly, can anyone recommend any good site where i can find out what other people have paid for their new Foresters and Outbacks.

All the sites I end up on are from the US, so I need something with a local perspective.

 

Also, what buying suggestions can you offer to get the best deal with respect to

invoice price

hold backs

etc.

 

also the intrest rates they offer are different by 1% depending on the model

 

anyone had any luck negotiating these to be the same

 

thanks

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I just went through this process with a friend before Christmas. What we found out was that the Forrester with the Tech package sells out even before they arrive in Canada. In short, none of the dealers in Calgary were willing to move one bit on the price. One of the dealers was very arrogant bordering on insulting to myself and my friend who was actually buying. This experience caused us to go online and read up some of the customer reviews from both dealerships. I encourage you to do that. As arrogant as the first dealership was, the second one was very courteous and helpfull. No pressure at all.. The vehicles are very nice and we both felt that the attitude of the front line sales people is often a reflection of the management attitude. That was reinforced by the customer reviews I read particularly in regards to the service side of things.

 

I have heard from another friend who bought the same vehicle in Lethbridge that they were a little flexible and very easy to do business with. I have no personal experience with them.

 

The end result was that my friend bought a Forrester with the Tech package(the new Eyesite collision avoidance system). It is truly unique and worth the extra bucks in my opinion. There wasn't a vehicle that matched in the province that wasn't already sold. Six weeks after signing the papers, she had her new vehicle. She is very happy with it and the dealership.

A word of caution, it seems that these dealers have several fees that they don't tell you about upfront, ie: $500.00 for the bill of sale. She did negotiate that fee downward.

 

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Two words for you... Whitefish, Montana!

 

They sell their maintenance loaners with ~500 -1000 miles on them and you save quite a bit (even with the exchange). of course they are all loaded as far as options and automatic transmission. This circumvents the restrictions Subaru puts on US dealerships selling to Canadians. When Deb and I spoke with them last year they were great. Didn't end up buying but we are not in a rush. For warrantee work, you pay and they reimburse.

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Tried to buy a Forester last fall. Salesman was VERY arrogant about the product. Pittance for cash incentive, no loaner vehicles -we live out of town and plan a day trip around servicing- and absolutely NO movement in price, and crap for trade in value. Oh, and we found the seats quite uncomfortable. The dealer really wanted us to buy , but was not willing to do anything to sell. Response re loaners was no, but look at the vehicle you are buying.

 

Tried an Acura RDX as well. The dealer wanted to sell. 5x the cash incentive, $1500 better for trade, loaner vehicles, a manufacturers incentive of $2000 and a bit of dickering on price, and a lot more convenient for us.

Local mechanic told me, good decision as the recent Subarus are not the vehicle they were when they rightfully earned their reputation. Not so much now.

In the end we paid about the same for the loaded RDX as the partially loaded Forester, by the time we tallied up all the accessories and ad-ons we wanted. Oh, and we didn't have to wait 6 to 8 weeks. Pretty happy so far with 5k kms.

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Get the STi. You won't regret it.

 

I owned a Forester before my STi. I found the rear passenger space to small to take 4 men any long distance (ie skiing/fishing trips). The outback is wider and longer but not as tall. I find the capacity is more useful.

 

Don't buy winter tires and rims from the dealership. Get them on tirerack, or locally.

 

I change my tire myself (winters to summers). And tell the dealership whenever I get the car service not to rotate my tires saves me about half the price on a regular service.

 

Overall subarus are awesome cars, great value, and they last a long time. I highly recommend them.

 

 

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I can absolutely echo Murray's viewpoint. I had a very similar experience. I talked to 7 or 8 dealerships in western Canada and nobody was willing to move very far on price at all. This is the first new car I've purchased and it blew my mind how little they'd negotiate. I had it in my head that price on cars was always substantially overstated on MSRP. I was also told that the 2014 models all sold out and they anticipated the same for this year which is why they wouldn't budge much on price.

 

I ended up buying the 2015 Outback with the technology package. Unfortunately, I haven't received the car yet and don't even really know when to expect it. I'm hoping the EyeSight feature is as good as it seemed on the test drive.

 

Best of luck in your search!

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Bought my last 2 subaru's from Dale at Subaru Calgary. I always go for last years model. We have an outback now and love it. The outback has a much nicer ride to it than the forester IMO. I prefer to drive it over my 4x4 Nissan frontier when the roads are snow covered. It can also go to 85% of the places I would take my 4x4 to go fishing...

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Buy invoice reports from Car Cost Canada. $40 is huge value to know most of the background on the pricing. I used it on the last 3 vehicles.

I've used CarCost a couple of times, and found it was a very helpful tool to get to a bottom line price quickly (I hate negoitiating... just tell me what your best deal is and I will decide from there if I want to do business with you or not!). One thing I did after registering the second time round, I removed my email address from the personal info screen. Otherwise you will find that every report you request is met with email from dealerships (and from some of them, several for the next few weeks). Guess you could just hit the delete button on these email, but I have a tendancy to read most of the email that makes it through spam filters and hits my inbox.

 

When we were looking for my wife's vehicle a couple of years ago, we found that our local Subaru was not prepared to move much on their price. Same thing with Honda.

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I have had two foresters ('04 XT and a '12). If you don't necessarily need a brand new car I would recommend buying a year old model if possible from a person (vs. a dealership). I bought used and saved thousands plus the car came with a three year transferable warranty. My wife drives it now and loves it.

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Hey guys!

 

Wow, and thanks for all the responses.

If you could also share your top secret fishing spots that I could get to in my new subaru as well,

you know, just so I can test out the all wheel drive...............haha :whistle:

 

We test drove both the Forester 2.5 and the Outback 2.5/3.6 last night,

The wife prefers the Forester.

The Forester 2.5i with convenience package is about MSRP $33k with fees and taxes

 

The Eyesight tech package and the 3.6 Outback is pushing $40k, which is way out of our budget.

 

Coming from an '05 mazda 3, the pickup on the 2.5L engines seems a bit sluggish, but that may be me having to get used to the CVT transmission.

 

We did consider buying from the states or second hand, but we need the financing at at 0.9% over 3yrs, its abit more affordable then even getting

a 15-20k vehicle secondhand.

 

Thanks for the tip on the Car Cost Canada report, i will definitely check that out.

 

We are also finding some of the dealerships difficult to deal with, and no one willing to move on price.

 

Will keep you posted on what we do.

Luckily we don't need the car until July/August so I might wait abit longer to see if there are any deals or incentives,

especially as they make room for the 2016 model

 

thanks

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Bought my last 2 subaru's from Dale at Subaru Calgary. I always go for last years model. We have an outback now and love it. The outback has a much nicer ride to it than the forester IMO. I prefer to drive it over my 4x4 Nissan frontier when the roads are snow covered. It can also go to 85% of the places I would take my 4x4 to go fishing...

 

Now that his name has been let out, that is also the guy my friend dealt with. Very professional and courteous. If I was buying a new vehicle, that is who I would deal with.

We did check out the 1 year old vehicles. They were all used, although relatively low mileage but the price on them was only $2000.00 and $3000.00 less than brand new. You also give up 1 year on the warranty...

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I did a Cars Cost Canada check on this vehicle. For a cash deal I found that you could get the $28,795 Forester 2.5 Convenience package in the link shown below for somewhere in the $30500-$31000 range, all in (Current Factory Incentive Programs, Freight, Dealer Advertising Charge, and GST).

 

I bought a Honda Pilot after doing a Cars Cost Canada check. Over the phone I had a few dealers in Edmonton and surrounding areas find exactly what I put into the Cars Cost Canada site, bought it from Sherwood Honda. Walked in, test drove, wasn't upsold, sweetest car buying experience at a dealer ever. You will get emails from dealers if you sign up to Cars Cost Canada but if you want to save a few bucks it is well worth the price of having to sort through the emails.

 

http://www.subaru.ca/WebPage.aspx?WebSiteID=282&WebPageID=19207&Range=Forester&ModelYear=2015

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