tl;dr: We had a great experience at Rye Subaru and love our car. Extra long and thorough version below.
Recently purchased our first car from Rye Subaru (a.k.a. Kingery Subaru). We knew we were looking for a used Subaru Impreza and had been scouring Cars.com and AutoTrader.com for months looking for the right car. In the end, we ended up buying from Rye Subaru and had an overall positive experience. Here are some highlights and tips:
1) Move quickly. If you're looking to buy a specific pre-owned model, and you see it in their inventory online, contact them now. On the Saturday that we came in to test drive the car, we were the first of three appointments that the rep had made for the car that day.
2) Email them. We communicated with our rep frequently via email. She was really responsive and will answer questions.
3) Financing: If you're looking for financing, speak with your own banks first, but also look into the dealership financing while you're there. We actually got a lower rate through the dealer than through our bank.
4) Inspection: Before you sign on the dotted line, consider getting the vehicle independently inspected. Our car had a clean Carfax, but for peace of mind, we asked the dealer if we could get it independently inspected. They'll talk about the 152 point inspection that their service folks do, but getting it independently inspected made us feel better about making the purchase. Turns out, the independent inspection was just as positive about the car's condition as the dealer, but found a couple of small things, such as tire adjustments, that the dealer took care of.
5) Sales technique: This is not the land of the "hard sell" for their used cars. I have a sense that their used vehicles move quickly, so don't expect them to twist your arm to buy a car.
6) Piggybacking on the point above, they're also honest. We inquired about buying an extended warranty for the car. Generally, purchased warranties are money makers for any company, but the dealership told us that it'd probably be a waste of our money. The car was in great condition and the dealership probably could have taken advantage of us being first-time car purchasers who know nothing about cars, but they didn't. Our independent inspection also recommended not bothering with the warranty.
7) Ask for what you want. They're not going to do things, such as installing a new stereo or repaint your car, but they will generally take care of small things to make sure you're happy. We got all of our tires adjusted, got new wipers, and because there were a couple of small scratches on the car, we also got some touch up paint.
8) The dealership is really close to the Metro North train station. Yes, this is obvious simply by looking at a map, but for those of you who also live in NYC and want to buy a car, it was incredibly easy to get here. Don't be deterred just because you have to come up to Westchester!
9) The people here are nice. I wasn't going to comment on this at first, but reading other people's reviews about how rude they are, I have to chime in, because I did not have that experience whatsoever. Everyone was nice and professional.
10) Price: We got a great deal. Our purchase price was on the far low end of the Kelley Blue Book range for Subaru Imprezas of that model and year. The Carfax report actually stated that whatever the KBB range was, you could add several hundred dollars to it, because the car was in great condition.
The only negative thing about our purchase experience was that after we purchased the car, we realized the service team never refilled the wiper fluid! Not a big deal, but hey service team, isn't that part of your 152 point inspection? Oh well. Wiper fluid is cheap and I needed to learn how to refill that by myself anyway.
Final note that's not related to the dealership, but if you're actually still reading my review, you may find this helpful: if this is your first time buying a car, seriously shop around for auto insurance. We first got quotes from three different major brokers that were relatively the same (and all relatively expensive), thinking, "Okay, this is basically what we're going to get..." and then we called the lizard insurance broker and literally got a quote that was a fraction of our first quotes!
We've had our car for several weeks now and love it. read more