Subaru roadside assistance faulty

Recently my wife had a blowout on the Interstate in Washington in her 2004 Forester and was stuck on the median. She used her cell phone to call Sub roadside assistance. The operator was located somewhere in the Southwest. She was not able to find the location and told my wife that she would call back when she had the information. After waiting 15 minutes, my wife called again only to get another operator, who had no information related to the previous conversation. The Highway Patrol had shown up in the meantime. When they decided that it was too dangerous to continue waiting on the median while Sub roadside assistance got their act together, they called their own towing service to tow the car off the Interstate and change the tire. Has anyone else had any bad (or good) experiences with the Sub roadside service?

Reply to
tenplay
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I called them once when I destroyed a tire running over some construction debris.

I was told it'd be 50 minutes before someone would be out. Then I was called back later to extend that by 30 more minutes.

I changed the tire myself in the dark--almost out of sheer boredom waiting for these clowns.

It seems roadside assistance is marketing. And then the service they subcontract is such garbage, no one will use it and give up before a truck actually has to show up. They seem to have taken a play out of the playbook of software and internet support services. Ignore the customer long enough, they'll fix it themself or just go away.

Best Regards,

-- Todd H.

2001 Legacy Outback Wagon, 2.5L H-4 Chicago, Illinois USA
Reply to
Todd H.

Well before you get too feisty on Subaru's program, I'll tell you AAA (and most likely anyone else) is about the same.

I've used AAA a couple of times myself, and witnessed it with several dozen "stranded motorists", and a 60 minute ETA is normal.

You're talking to a "corporate" customer service rep, who's going to refer to their database of tow operators. They'll start trying to contact the closest ones until they get an answer, and then you'll be in the queue for that operator. You might be waiting for a one-man, owner- operator tow guy to respond, or a larger outfit...won't know till he/she shows up (I guess there are female tow operators, tho I've *never* seen one...not sure I'd want to either, lol).

Depending on if the one-man show operator is watching his favorite team, or if there's been a multi-car pile up that's sucked up all the tow resources in the area, there's a ton of factors that can result in wildly extended variations from the customer service rep's ETA. It's just the nature of the beast.

Steve

Reply to
CompUser

Oh, I suspect all of them suck equally.

I'd hate anyone to base any purchasing decisions on them though, cus when yer most likely to need help, it's when others will need it too, and without a quality-of-service guarantee, it behooves the contractors to keep expenses as low as possible. Which means the negotiated rate for getting someone out there is probably marginal, so if there's more than one job to do at a given time, the tow operator is likely gonna go help someone who called them directly.

-- Todd H.

2001 Legacy Outback Wagon, 2.5L H-4 Chicago, Illinois USA
Reply to
Todd H.

I guess his will not be something particular to Subaru's service.

When on vacation this year in Orlando from the UK I broke down in my Dollar hire car in the car park at Sea World Orlando......

Try explaining that to somebody in (Chicago I think it was....)

No sorry Sir I need a road/intersection.....

Yes I'm from the UK I have broken down in the parking lot (car Park in UK speak) of THE Seaworld in Orlando Row X.

Yes Sir but which road/intersection is that on.........

I don't know but this is THE PARKING LOT OF SEA WORLD ORLANDO..............

and so it went on..........

Only a member of staff from Dollar when I rang back after I limped back to my hotel was able to help.......

Reply to
MJG

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