02/12/2026
This is your reminder to always double check your vehicle after getting it serviced. Also, NEVER use Butte Subaru in Butte, Montana if you want to stay alive and safe.
My mom took in the family spare car to Subaru this week. She's been driving it since the Jeep is down and the car needed an oil change, alignment, and tire rotation. $206 later she got the car back with an estimated $2300 in further repairs.
The problems for this $2300? Basic leaks that can easily be done in a day, entirely new brakes, and a new pcv valve. Basically about $600 in parts and $1700 in labor costs for something a high school student could do. Clearly, they just saw an older lady walk in and saw an easy mark to get as much money out of as possible.
What's worse you may ask???
One brake is "bent" after they first say the brakes were all good. Said nothing about the damn thing being BROKEN which was 100% obvious in their provided pictures. Broken is far different than being a little bent!
So, I took the tire off and the brakes to only have the broken piece fall off as soon as the caliper pressure was taken off. I replaced both rear brakes and cleaned everything up to keep them the same, but as shown in the photo, the old brakes were almost new. Yet, according to Butte Subaru, they all need to be changed. So greedy!
This is just the start of the blunders. 9, yes I said 9 of the 20 bolts securing the rims and thus the tires to the car were not even torqued down! 3 of the bolts were not even hand-tightened!!! Basically, only one bolt of each tire was tightened and torqued down. I had even opened the hood to find the brake cylinder cap was off and the hose clamp for the engine filter was still loose and partially off the engine. They said the engine filter needed to be replaced which is clearly also new and just needed a quick tap out.
I guess their techs never do any double checks or care about the quality of their work???
There were so many DANGEROUS mistakes that could have resulted in a major accident or even horrible injury to my mom if she had driven the car on the highway to work and happened to hit a bump just right. A blown tire due to untightened bolts would have been a good case scenario.
So, if you are in the Butte area, take your vehicle elsewhere! Avoid Butte Subaru like the plague. Remember to always double check your vehicle after any service anywhere you get work done. Usually, I find tires not torqued enough or under inflated, but this experience was a new reminder to double check stuff. Needless to say, my family and I will be doing any repairs ourselves.
