DON MILLER SUBARU

It was a lot of money, I can’t recall the price. Subaru always gets good ratings, which I always tend to look at, before I buy a car. The salesman was “A”, very good & responsive. Waiting room very clean. They offer beverages and cookies, I think, something like that.

It takes about 45 minutes to complete the work. The workers are very professional and friendly. They clean the vehicle really good, the car is very clean. Just keep doing what they are doing!

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They were really good. We checked everywhere and they were the cheapest. It was a good deal.

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It was brake work.  They didn't replace the rotor they resurfaced it.  They did a really good job.  The service was excellent.  The staff was really interested in what I was talking about.  They took a test ride with me to see what I was talking about.  I left the car there for the day and rented a car from them.  That was very nice.  It was more convenient.  They will give you a free ticket to get a free car wash at Mermaid Car Wash. 

Well, it well pretty well.  They had the car we wanted and they knew it.  They didn't "deal" which was not a surprise.  They did a moderate hard sell on the extended warranty package, which my spouse went for.  Oh well.  We'll see.

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I found a Honda online. I purchased it in Madison, my bank was very close to the dealership. I was buying this specific car because of my mothers limited mobility. Under these constraints I purchased the car. There were some problems. They are not a Honda dealer and they didn't go through the certification process properly. I had to later follow up on a recall. They did a dealer certification but not specifically a Honda. Several defects were pointed out by the service person and am I hoping this is all that there is to be discovered. I would only buy Subarus here not any other make.

We like them. We have always liked them. They are always nice, but their prices are a little high sometimes. We have gone to them many times. They gave us an $800 quote recently that was pretty high for the service. My husband double checked the estimate and found a better deal, but we would absolutely consider going back to Don Miller Subaru.

My wife was driving down the road on a Sat and suddenly all the warning lights went on and the car stopped. She called the Don Miller Subaru service center and they towed the car. They were not able to diagnose the problem immediately due to it being so close to closing time. The service tech promptly called me Monday morning and told me a worst case scenario and updated me frequently to let me know the diagnosis and how much each repair was going to cost. The final bill was much less than the worst case scenario. When I went to pick up the vehicle the tech showed me the shredded timing belt and the immovable water pump bearing.

Staff is friendly, they have drop off and pick up service, a nice waiting room.

There are no problems with this dealer. They get things right the first time. They do all they can to keep the customer happy. They let you know when they get started working on it and give periodic updates how it's going and let you know when it's done.

Fairly typical car-shopping experience. Reel 'em in with what seems like a fair starting deal and then pile on the fees and offer a negligible discount. This dealership offered to make a trade to get the car I wanted only after making a contractual commitment. Others will get the car in hand and then deal from there. Yeah - and there was the old and quot;let me check with my managerand quot; discussion. You know, the one where you ask for another $600 off and he goes into the manager's office, talks about the weather and last night's game, and then comes back and offers a whopping $200 drop. I had to laugh. I've been shopping for cars over a span of 30+ years now, and the game never seems to change.
Not the worst experience I've ever had, but disappointing since I would have preferred to deal locally instead of shopping a 200-miles radius area.
I will possibly go back for service, but will probably not go back to purchase a car.

checked out the car as it was left with them.
Recommendations included $3200 for a new exhaust system and valve cover gasket.
We opted to go to another place and had the exhaust system welded for much less money.

My wife was rear-ended in our 2011 Subaru Forester. It was a low speed collision so no one was hurt but there was some deep scratches on our bumper and a small dent in the rear gate. The other driver's insurance was paying for everything so I took it to one of their preferred shops to get an estimate. But I wanted the work done by my dealership if possible so I took the car to Don Miller Subaru East to do the actual work. All I had to do was drop the car off with John Fox and they took care of the rest, working with the insurance company and coordinating with the rental car company. It turns out that the original estimate that I got was done incorrectly and missed some critical damage to the bar underneath the bumper. So the final price was almost twice as much as the original estimate from the other shop, but they worked it out with the insurance company and got everything finished in a couple of days with no worries for me. Hopefully I wont have any body work needs in the future, but I would definitely take my car back here if I do.

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Later that day, I got a call from the service advisor, who insisted that I needed a new air conditioning compressor. He told me he didn't feel he could put the car back on the road unless it was replaced. Strange. I quizzed him about what was so wrong with the compressor that it would make the car un-driveable. He eventually admitted to no mechanical damage or refrigerant leakage. He said the wiring to the compressor had been "destroyed" because the serpentine belt had rubbed on it. I told him I'd come over and have a look. The compressor had some superficial damage to the electrical insulation of the conductors that serve its clutch. To my eye, it didn't look fatal. He eventually admitted that the wiring issue shouldn't keep me from driving the car, but said that the mechanic hadn't wanted to plug in the compressor's electrical connector. I told him to leave it disconnected, and that I'd look into the issue with the compressor myself. It was also then that I found out that none of the internal components that we had discussed (except the timing belt itself) had been replaced. Unfortunately, someone had a better idea - and they did not call me to discuss it. I was stunned. Between the mechanic and the service advisor, they apparently thought it was reasonable to spend $1000 to replace external, service-it-any-old-time components like the compressor. But not the less-expensive internal components that require lots of labor to replace. And that can cause a catastrophe for the engine if they fail. The service advisor again insisted to me that the quality of those parts is extremely high on Subarus, and that they never see failures. And he "covered his a**" by telling me that I hadn't *insisted* on replacing them. Pretty strange, since he had certainly acted like he understood me when we initially discussed the repairs. My feeling is that ... If there was any time in our discussions that I failed to make myself completely clear, it happened just at this point in the transaction. I *should* have told them to tear the timing cover back off and replace the internal parts as we had discussed. I confess I did not. I foolishly trusted their judgement that the exceptional quality of the Subaru parts involved would keep me out of trouble. They prevailed upon me to be a nice guy and to trust them. They also told me they would want to split the labor cost (my share: $200) to go back and do what I had initially asked. Disgruntled, I paid the bill and accepted the car. $712. The compressor was fine. I did electrical checks at home, and found no functional problems. I plugged it in, and it worked flawlessly from the first try. Unfortunately ... the story does not end here. Early the following January, an hour into a snowstorm, with several inches of new snow on the ground, I was making a left turn off of a busy main street, across oncoming traffic. I stepped on the gas and immediately heard a strange noise like a heavy-duty zipper being closed. And the car moved extremely sluggishly. My first thought was that something had gone wrong with the automatic transmission. With almost no power to move the car, I was unable to get out of the intersection. As I rolled down the window to wave someone around me, I saw the Check Engine light come on. Then I noticed a scraping noise. I shut down the engine immediately. I asked a couple of bystanders to help push the car out of the street into a nearby parking lot. Given that the Check Engine light had just come on, I figured it wasn't the transmission. I feared the worst: An idler bearing had failed, and the zipper-like noise I had heard was the timing belt jumping. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. The engine's valves had collided with the pistons and were bent. And the pistons were damaged. That idler failed just eight months, and less than 14,000 miles, after the timing belt was replaced. I had the car towed into Don Miller Subaru, assuming / hoping that they would give me some help in making the car right again if that was the problem. It had, after all, been their judgment, not mine, that those parts did not need to be replaced. But that was not to be. They continued to insist that they never see failures like this one, and that they could not have anticipated this failure, etc. The service advisor I was now working with kept insisting to me that Don Miller Subaru never replaces those parts when they replace timing belts. Period. It was apparent that I was looking at over $3,000, minimum, to get running again, including duplication of much of the repair I had paid for only eight months previous. They were willing to "help me out" with a $300 discount. Basically, as far as they were concerned, it was my car, my bad idler bearing, my trashed engine, my problem. Which is, of course, completely true. Except that I had asked them to replace that bearing. And they had decided, without consulting with me, that it simply wasn't necessary. There was lots of go-round in the discussion about how to repair the car. Rebuild the engine? New engine? Used engine? But all with the shop refusing to admit that anything about their judgment or actions might be in question. The final straw was that I carefully read the type-written shop ticket that we were now working from ... and saw that my carefully-laid-out description of the failure had been re-written in a way that could make it look like I had somehow been negligent. After an evening's thought, I told them to put all the removed parts in the back of the car. Given the demeanor of the Dealer's staff, and all that I had seen and heard, I felt I could no longer trust the shop's judgement or honesty about any mechanical issues. And I no longer had any expectation whatever that I would be treated fairly as a customer. I paid the diagnostic bill, $227, and had the car towed to an independent shop for it's repair. The independent shop found me a much better used engine than any that the Dealer had offered. We repaired it by that route. They consulted with me on the repairs all the way through. The engine had only 42,000 miles on it. It went into the car with new timing belt, idlers, tensioner, and water pump. $4,300. For what it's worth ... there were other issues as well. This was just the biggest one. Because of my experience as a mechanic, a lot of my friends ask me questions about their cars: what's wrong when it makes this noise; where should I go to get it fixed; my car died, what should I buy to replace it? I really like Subarus, and enjoyed mine when it was running well. But I now strongly steer people away from Don Miller Subaru. People do like to be able to trust their car's Dealer. Ultimately, it affected my own choices, too. When my Subaru was totaled in an accident in April of 2011, I chose to replace it with another make. If I hadn't gotten this kind of treatment from Don Miller Subaru, I would probably be driving my 4th Subaru right now.

As I expected, one or both bearings in the clutch are failing, which is a very costly repair (at least $1300, maybe a good deal more if it is both bearings). However, the technician said that because of the cost, if it was his car he would just continue to drive it if I can tolerate the noise, as long as there are no performance issues with the clutch. Eventually it will need to be repaired, but there is probably a fair amount of life left in it. In my opinion, a service shop turning down a $1300 repair they could have easily (and honestly) said was necessary gives them a huge amount of credibility and says a great deal about their integrity. Dealer service prices are never the greatest, but these guys really take care of you.

Getting a service appointment always takes more than a week, typcial wait time can be half a day. Works is a bit sloppy, they forgot to reconnect the switch that controls cruise control, spilled transmission oil over the motor or greasy marks left in the car. Parts are very expensive, however Subaru parts are good quality.

Felt like the staff were not taking me seriously. Felt like they were giving us the runaround. Asked a point blank question about when the tires were replaced on a particular car and after several minutes of mumbo-jumbo talk of everything else but the question, never got the answer even though I repeated the question several times. An "I don't know" would have impressed me! Asked why a leased car maintenance record would not be on a carfax report, was told those maintenance records are not entered on carfax since the work isn't done by subaru - which I find ridiculous - wouldn't it be logical for a leased car to be maintained by a subaru dealer? One of the salesman seemed to be doing this thing of "playing dumb" whenever I asked questions which was annoying as well. C'mon just be straight up - that's what customers want. Just overall unprofessional attitude and staff. I took my money elsewhere - Don Miller lost out!

The location is nasty and horrible, sheet metal quonset huts from the 1940's. Things are only fixed once they break. The dealer owner refuses to upgrade any of the facility due to long-standing leasehold issues, so the place is in continual decay - this is the primary reason the professionalism gets a C rating. The staff is friendly, courteous, and competent. They get back to you quickly and make it easy to make and change appointments. They provide one-way ride service during your repair, which is a great service. They have moved to a prix fixe repair menu which can only rarely save you money. I regularly have to haggle down some of the costs of repairs with them since they put in fixed "from the book" hours which I know are an extreme overestimate based on the length of time I'm waiting for my car. Other than this, they seem honest and upfront, and the staff seems to work extra-hard to overcome the overwhelmingly depressing and decrepit building and facilities they are forced to work in.