Emma

Honest honourable main Subaru dealers

Why buy a car from KT Green? It’s a question I once asked. Experience has taught me that honest, and more importantly, honourable motor traders like KT Green are exceedingly rare, and after I’d discovered KT Green, I’ve kept on going back there for nearly twenty five years. The previous owner of my first Subaru Legacy was Mr Subaru UK in the Midlands and it was sold to me when it was 10 month sold 1998. When it needed its first service, by chance I took it to KT Green and found an efficient servicing department. The knowledgeable manager was able to readily answer questions to any level technicality and I appreciated the free additional things done for me such as reminding me when the MoT was due. Dishonest traders offer low cost MoT inspections as an excuse to invent jobs that need doing. Not so KT Green, who charged me the full price and made no such dishonest claims. Each year I received a MoT certificate with no demands that something expensive needed to be done before the car would pass, and occasionally got an advisory notice about needing to get new tyres soon or other things they couldn’t make a profit from. Seventeen years and 140,000 miles later, their service department had maintained the car in a state of total reliability when it’s first component failure occurred – the radiator started to leak. By then, the value of the car was less than the cost of a replacement. Only a fool with money to waste would not immediately look for another reliable Legacy whose running costs are no more than being properly serviced and KT Green offered me a fair price for my old car in exchange for one with a much lower mileage. After the deal was struck, the salesman, Mr Simon Green, decided that the clutch plate needed attention, so at no extra cost to me, had a new one fitted. The service department then continued to keep the car in perfect running order until it reached about 88,000 miles when the engine’s main crank-shaft bearing collapsed. Instead of seeing the broken engine as opportunity to try and sell another car to me, the service manager used a computer to ask the car how well I’d treated the diesel engine. Because it had not been abused, he persuaded Subaru in Japan to replace it at no cost to me. Nor was there any charge for driving their loan Legacy whilst waiting for the replacement engine to come from Japan and be fitted into my car. You have to ask yourself how many other car dealers would treat their customers so honestly and not seek blame me for the engine’s failure and try to sell another car to me. (Around the same time, a friend’s prosperous son had a small problem with the wheel trim (?) on his almost new Bentley that was probably a manufacturing defect, and was told that it was his problem to sort out. Clearly, he should have bought a Subaru and had the benefit of KT Green’s customer care!) When the Subaru Legacy had reached 105,000 miles, I made the mistake of accepting Simon Green’s invitation to have a test drive in a much younger Subaru Forester. ‘Mistake’ because, much as I liked the Legacy and intended to keep it for many more years, I was badly smitten by the Forester. The trade-in price that Simon Green offered for the Legacy with its new engine only having only done 17,000 miles was a genuinely fair price, as was the price he wanted for the Forester. There was a delay in completing the deal because Simon Green had offered to arrange to transfer my Legacy’s registration plate. This gave him time to look at the Forester and decide that he didn’t like the tyres and, at no cost to me, replaced them with new OEM tyres to sustain their reputation for only selling the best second hand cars with a 12 month guarantee. I also found out when I collected the car that he hadn’t approved of the rear window wiper either, so that was also replaced. This long essay serves to show why, after having discovered the rarest of motor traders who have been consistently honourable and honest for over twenty three years in their dealings with me, I wouldn’t go to any other dealer. Obviously this decision is helped by the fact that KT Green are a main dealer for Subaru who happen to build very good cars.