Japan Subaru headquarters contact

  • Thread starter Andrzej Leszczynski
  • Start date
A

Andrzej Leszczynski

Hi,

I am looking for a address, phone numbers or other contact with Quality
Assurance or Customer Service (or equivalent) departments in Subaru
headquarters in Japan.

To make the long story short. After fighting with Subaru for more then
two years I decided to file some kind of complain directly to Subaru
headquarters in Japan. There is a problem with the manual transmission
in my Outback 2002 purchased used from the Subaru dealer with 5K miles
on it. When I change gears and engage/disengage the clutch the entire
transmission shakes and gives quite loud squeaky sounds. It is under
very gentle operations.

The car was services many many times at three different Subaru
authorized dealerships under the supervision of the regional representative.

They change the clutch twice and at least two times “repositioned”
entire transmission. Other parts were changed too (some rubber gasket or
something like that). There are also many minor issues they
never been able to fix: wind noise, really squeaky accelerator and
clutch, really squeaky windows operation in my wife's Impreza, they sold
me wrong brake pads, during the breaks check up they overlooked
destroyed wheel bearing just before 10k miles trip (what I told them)
not to mention general ignorance. In other words enough is enough.

I have to admit they were cooperative byt very reluctant and typically
after months of phone calls did that or this. That repeated a few times
over a period of two years. But it does not change the fact that they
totaly lack any effectiveness.

Interestingly the regional rep admitted several times that there is a
something weird with the transmission.

I do not want to sue them at that point, but definitely have to do
something about that. I thought contacting headwaters in Japan could be
a good move for the beginning.

Please advice,
Thanks,
Andy
 
Andrzej Leszczynski said:
Hi,

I am looking for a address, phone numbers or other contact with Quality
Assurance or Customer Service (or equivalent) departments in Subaru
headquarters in Japan.


Do you speak/write good Japanese?

I just wonder how you intend to communicate with them.

Japanese in Japan don't do business in English.

I don't want to discourage you from making contact with
Subaru Japan, just wanted to highlight a potential
communication issue. It may lead to misunderstandings
and subsequent legal liability implications - that's why
foreign businesses prefer to rely on local representatives
for resolution of problems in local languages.

MN
 
MN said:
Do you speak/write good Japanese?


No :).
I just wonder how you intend to communicate with them.

Japanese in Japan don't do business in English.

I don't want to discourage you from making contact with
Subaru Japan, just wanted to highlight a potential
communication issue. It may lead to misunderstandings
and subsequent legal liability implications - that's why
foreign businesses prefer to rely on local representatives
for resolution of problems in local languages.

I have planed to send it in both languages after the translation. My
friend's wife is Japanese, so I would probably ask her. I also planed to
make Cc: somewhere in US.

But in turn I wonder what liability implications do you think of?

A.
 
One suggestion: prepare written complaints against the dealers (not
Subaru, because you won't get anywhere against Subaru corporate) to be
filed with the Better Business Bureau, your State Attorney General's
Consumer Protection/Fraud Dept and your District Atty's Consumer
Protection/Fraud Dept. You'll have to get the proper forms from the
AG's and Dist. Atty's offices (likely available on the internet). Send
those prepared complaints to your dealers under a written cover letter
explaining that you will be filing these complaints if they will not
review/fix the identified problems w/ your car by a date certain. Send
it by certified mail. To be very frank, if you're not willing to take
these steps in writing, don't waste your time.

If the dealers don't respond, the BBB and attys will contact the
dealers directly to try to work it out on your behalf. Good luck.
 
Andrzej said:
Hi,

I am looking for a address, phone numbers or other contact with Quality
Assurance or Customer Service (or equivalent) departments in Subaru
headquarters in Japan.

To make the long story short. After fighting with Subaru for more then
two years I decided to file some kind of complain directly to Subaru
headquarters in Japan. There is a problem with the manual transmission
in my Outback 2002 purchased used from the Subaru dealer with 5K miles
on it. When I change gears and engage/disengage the clutch the entire
transmission shakes and gives quite loud squeaky sounds. It is under
very gentle operations.

The car was services many many times at three different Subaru
authorized dealerships under the supervision of the regional
representative.

They change the clutch twice and at least two times “repositioned”
entire transmission. Other parts were changed too (some rubber gasket or
something like that). There are also many minor issues they
never been able to fix: wind noise, really squeaky accelerator and
clutch, really squeaky windows operation in my wife's Impreza, they sold
me wrong brake pads, during the breaks check up they overlooked
destroyed wheel bearing just before 10k miles trip (what I told them)
not to mention general ignorance. In other words enough is enough.

I have to admit they were cooperative byt very reluctant and typically
after months of phone calls did that or this. That repeated a few times
over a period of two years. But it does not change the fact that they
totaly lack any effectiveness.

Interestingly the regional rep admitted several times that there is a
something weird with the transmission.

I do not want to sue them at that point, but definitely have to do
something about that. I thought contacting headwaters in Japan could be
a good move for the beginning.

Try this first. Copy *all* your correspondence,
place it in chronological order, write a polite
but direct letter to the president of Subaru USA
informing him of your problems and the lack of
resolution and that the next step is to escalate
the issue to Subaru Japan.

*Important* Send the package FedEx overnight.

I had a problem with a Japanese barcode printer I
bought for my company. I spent 4 months working
with the company's tech support and finally did
exactly as I described. The problem was resolved
within 24 hours of the president receiving my
package.
 
Bryce said:
You're letter would go on a wall for the employees to laugh at.

Why do you say that?

Have you been to Japan and worked inside Japanese
companies?

I have. I spent 6 months in Tokyo working on a
project with Hitachi. His letter will be discussed,
pondered, and eventually acted upon, but it *won't*
be laughed at.
 
Yes, I lived there for 8 years and worked inside Japanese companies for 7 of
those 8 years... and I go back bi-yearly.

And it WILL be laughed at.
 
Bryce said:
Yes, I lived there for 8 years and worked inside Japanese companies for 7 of
those 8 years... and I go back bi-yearly.

And it WILL be laughed at.

But you did not say why they would do that?

A.
 
Andy Leszczynski said:
But you did not say why they would do that?

A.

A Japanese person within Japan sending a complaint to Fuji Industries
regarding a child company within Japan isn't going to get very far.

Why would you think an American in America would have any influence? Because
they are American??? You've got about as much sway as if you were South
African.

I highly doubt that this person has exhausted domestic channels.

Now, if you want the "why". I'd suggest living over there for a little
longer than 6 months to find out.
 
Yeah, my brother-in-law works for a major Japanese phone/scanner company
and they always tell you 'gaijin' (sp?) just means foreigner. But, when
he was joking around with some of them here in a US facility and called
them 'gaijin' they didn't care for it AT ALL, even though my b-i-l
pointed out to them that here, HE was the native and they were
foreigners! Another time while driving his boss around, he put on his
driving shades and the thought occured to him he never saw too many
Japanese wearing sunglasses. He asked his boss why that was. His boss
said; "We have superior eyes."

Carl
 
Carl 1 Lucky Texan said:
Yeah, my brother-in-law works for a major Japanese phone/scanner company
and they always tell you 'gaijin' (sp?) just means foreigner. But, when
he was joking around with some of them here in a US facility and called
them 'gaijin' they didn't care for it AT ALL, even though my b-i-l
pointed out to them that here, HE was the native and they were
foreigners!

Gaijin just means 'foreign people' but is clearly in the offensive category.
It's not quite the "N word" but heading in that direction. The current
politically correct term is "gaikokujin" meaning 'foreign country people.'
Another time while driving his boss around, he put on his
driving shades and the thought occured to him he never saw too many
Japanese wearing sunglasses. He asked his boss why that was. His boss
said; "We have superior eyes."

It's partly based on biology--dark eye color is caused by pigment in the
iris whereas blue eyes have a clear iris and the blue color is a shadow from
the interior of the eye. Blue eyes let in vastly more light.

But yes, the Japanese are as arrogant as any culture in history. Island
countries get that way.

-John
 
Bryce said:
A Japanese person within Japan sending a complaint to Fuji Industries
regarding a child company within Japan isn't going to get very far.

Why would you think an American in America would have any influence? Because
they are American??? You've got about as much sway as if you were South
African.

I highly doubt that this person has exhausted domestic channels.

Now, if you want the "why". I'd suggest living over there for a little
longer than 6 months to find out.

Well Bryce, you're certainly entitled to
your opinion, but I have a higher regard
for the Japanese that I worked with and
I believe that if Subaru Japan people are
anything like the Hitachi people I knew,
there will be no laughing at his letter.

To each his own. I'm not about to get into
a flamewar over this. Life is too short.
 

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