Capitol Subaru sucks

My recent service experiences with Capitol Subaru were so infuriating that I created a Yelp account and wrote a scathing review of the dealership. My review was posted to Facebook, and over a dozen of my friends read the review and clicked "Useful." Unfortunately, Yelp's automated systems filtered out the review, so no one will see it. In Yelp's defense, a harsh review by a brand new account does look pretty suspicious, particularly when it receives a sudden burst "Useful" clicks. It's not much fun to bitch if no one hears me, so I've included the text of my review below.


Since the former service manager (Justin) left in spring/summer of 2010, service is awful and shady. Do NOT trust them with your car.

I paid over $30,000 for a 2008 STI in October 2008. I kept it completely stock, and I've gone to Capitol for every repair and maintenance, a few thousand dollars in total. At 40,000 miles, it appears my car is a lemon, and Capitol Subaru can't fix it, despite multiple attempts. I haven't had a working car in two months.

In spring of 2010, on the way to work, I got a check engine light (CEL): cylinder 1 misfire. About 38,000 miles. The car was idling rough at startup. I brought it to Capitol Subaru. Justin wasn't around. The repair tech could not reproduce the problem, and sent me home. "Because I was a repeat customer," they waived the $135 fee for not finding anything wrong with my car.

The next day, on the way to work, the CEL was back. Exasperated, I took it to Auto Headquarter. They did a compression test, and the results were not great--barely within spec. The car was running rich and there was lots of blow-by. They told me the piston in cylinder 1 was dying, and would soon fail. I was skeptical. They changed the spark plugs, and the car handled a little better.

I drove it for a few thousand miles, but eventually the CEL came back. Cylinder 1 misfire. The car idled very rough, and was sometimes slow to start. I took it back to Capitol Subaru. Now that the problem was much worse, they actually took the time to compression test the car. At this point, the result was awful. 140 psi in cylinders 2,4, but 80psi in cylinders 1,3. Totally out of spec, totally broken. The cylinder walls were white. They told me they would have to tear down the engine to figure out what to do next. By this point, Justin (the old, competent service manager) was no longer with the company.

They took over a week before they even began the work. When I asked what had taken so long, they told me that a representative from Subaru USA was at the dealership, and they wanted to wait until he was gone before starting work. They said it would be harder to get the warranty fix approved by the manufacturer, if their representative was on site.

About a week and a half after I dropped it off, they told me that cylinders 1 and 3 were ovalled, and valves were leaking. They ordered me a new short block, under warranty. At the two week mark, the car was ready. I asked if they had compression tested the engine after the rebuild. The service manager said something like, "I do not have that information, but I'm sure our tech did everything properly."

I picked up the car. It idled very rough. I saw signs that the car had not been significantly road-tested. The engine knock sensor was completely uncalibrated. When you pull the battery on an STI, the knock sensor reverts to a conservative setting, and acceleration is sluggish. After a few dozen miles of normal street driving, the sensor calibrates, and throttle response improves. It's very noticeable. I was worried. I drove it home.

When I got in the car the next day, the car shook unhappily when it was started. On they way to work the next day, just 35 miles after the repair, I got another check-engine-light. Cylinder 1 misfire. On the brand new engine. I drove it back to Capitol Subaru.

This time they told me it might be the fault of the non-OEM spark plugs that my other mechanic installed. They charged me $145 for new spark plugs and an oil change (which I requested). They replaced the coil pack for cylinder 1, on a hunch. I picked up the car. It idled really rough. The knock sensor was uncalibrated again. Noticing a pattern? I took the car for a couple hundred mile drive, to see if I could trip the CEL. No luck.

I took the car to AutoHQ, to have them check the quality of the rebuild. Unfortunately, Kevin (owner) was on vacation. Still idling rough, I took the car to Santa Cruz Subaru last Sunday afternoon. Still no CEL. The service manager wasn't around, but I had a nice 15 minute chat with a tech.

Tuesday morning, I heard back. They said the car was idling very rough, and it threw a CEL for them: Cylinder 1 misfire. This was the first time that a Subaru mechanic acknowledged that the rough idling was not normal! Progress! They compression tested the car. 120psi in cylinder 1, 140psi in all other cylinders. Anything more than 7psi difference between two cylinders means the car is broken, according to Subaru USA.

So Capitol Subaru gave me a car that either:
1) they had not compression tested after the rebuild
or
2) they had compression tested, and found problems that they didn't tell me about.

Either is inexcusable. They never acknowledged that rough idling was a problem. They proved incapable of identifying a serious problem on the first attempt, and incapable of fixing it after two attempts. And they gave me back a car that clearly wasn't working.