Any lawyers here?

[WVNed]

Subaru is selling cars. On their webpage for the Impreza Sport it says you get this.

Harman Kardon® Premium Audio​

The Harman Kardon premium audio system captures detail-rich acoustics through enhanced sound control and superior high sound output. At the heart of the system lies a high-performance 8-channel class-D amplifier pumping out 432 equivalent watts of power. The amplifier works to efficiently distribute clean audio signals to the vehicle’s 8-speaker sound system – including a dedicated center channel speaker and subwoofer. Harman’s Clari-Fi™ Technology restores and corrects audio fidelity, resulting in musical reproduction that sounds clearer, crisper, and more dynamic.


After you buy the car, look for the subwoofer and cant find it you ask them and they tell you this. My car has the Harman Kardon badging.

Thank you for contacting Subaru of America, Inc.
Your vehicle is equipped with the following:
Two dash panel tweeter speakers and two front door speakers & 4 rear door speakers. The rear door speakers have 2 speakers on each door. The vehicle also has an amplifier.
The retailer is in the best position to assist you with locating this equipment if needed.

It is interesting to note that the car has coaxial speakers in the rear doors that are counted as 2. It also has coaxial speakers in the dash that are counted as 1. So the number of speakers being sold as 8 is purely arbitrary on their part. Counted one way it would equal 6 or the other 10.
There is no center channel output by the system at all much less a speaker for it. There is no subwoofer output or speaker either.

I am surprised they don't tell you you are getting a turbocharged 300 horsepower engine.

In any case what they tell you are buying and what you actually get don't agree. This is false advertising. Right in your face.
To the best of my knowledge this would apply to all Subaru Impreza 5th generation cars sold new from 2017 on. Mine is a 2020 I bought one owner used, still under factory warranty. The false information did effect my decision to buy.

I have already undergone the expense of adding a subwoofer to my "Premium" audio system that was supposed to have one already.

I would think this would be a slam dunk.

 

[Waters]

Just guessing, but if you look throughout the manual/documentation there is probably a disclaimer somewhere that says information is subject to change....or something along those lines?

 

[WVNed]

Just guessing, but if you look throughout the manual/documentation there is probably a disclaimer somewhere that says information is subject to change....or something along those lines?

I am curious.
If you went and bought an advertised 100 gallon tank and got it home and it was a 50 gallon tank.
Is there some kind of disclaimer that excuses fraud before the fact that would make this okay?

Better yet. What if you bought a complete aquarium setup that was advertised to come with lights and a skimmer but they aren't there when you unpack it?

I am in fact surprised that the people that bought these cars have been so complaisant to the fraud. This has gone on several model years now.

 

[WVNed]

I have another question. Who wants a center channel speaker in a car? A center channel is used in home theater for watching video. The car has no ability to display video.
It appears they are just adding desirable features to the advertising that aren't on the car to increase sales.

I was under the impression this was illegal and actionable as fraud.

 

[Waters]

I am curious.
If you went and bought an advertised 100 gallon tank and got it home and it was a 50 gallon tank.
Is there some kind of disclaimer that excuses fraud before the fact that would make this okay?

Better yet. What if you bought a complete aquarium setup that was advertised to come with lights and a skimmer but they aren't there when you unpack it?

I am in fact surprised that the people that bought these cars have been so complaisant to the fraud. This has gone on several model years now.

Legally, yeah it would probably make it ok....ethically, not ok lol. I have seen that type of wording used before...especially with cars.

 

[Opus]

I have another question. Who wants a center channel speaker in a car? A center channel is used in home theater for watching video. The car has no ability to display video.
It appears they are just adding desirable features to the advertising that aren't on the car to increase sales.

I was under the impression this was illegal and actionable as fraud.

Acura used to have surround sound in their cars, not sure if they still do. You used to be able to buy some remastered cd's in dts which the car could read and split out the audio.

 

[Opus]

I am curious.
If you went and bought an advertised 100 gallon tank and got it home and it was a 50 gallon tank.
Is there some kind of disclaimer that excuses fraud before the fact that would make this okay?

Better yet. What if you bought a complete aquarium setup that was advertised to come with lights and a skimmer but they aren't there when you unpack it?

I am in fact surprised that the people that bought these cars have been so complaisant to the fraud. This has gone on several model years now.

It works for harddrives. That 18tb harddrive is not 18tb.

I would assume no lawyer would take the case unless it was going to be a class action case. Subaru would most likely make it financially impossible to sue as one person with a lawyer. If you did it yourself then maybe. There was a lady recently that did all the work to get her student loans written off and won in court. She said no lawyer would touch the case because there was such a slim possibility of winning.

 

[WVNed]

Interesting.
So a major manufacturer can sell a product claiming it has a feature worth $1000 + that doesn't actually exist.

You buy it and have no recourse is the opinion here.

About 290,000 units have been sold since 2017.

 

[Waters]

Unfortunately yes. We recently leased a VW Tiguan that had mood lighting built into the roof around the moonroof. It was advertised as a feature that was part of a package. Had to take the vehicle back in for a recall where they just unplugged the mood lighting with no plans on fixing saying it could catch on fire. We definitely will not be reimbursed anything for now not having a feature that we were told was in the car when we purchased it. I think it happens all the time.

 

[WVNed]

Well now we will see. I have gotten their attention.

Hi Francis,
The speakers have been outlined in the previous email. This vehicle is not equipped with a subwoofer.
I have made the product team aware so that they can update the website. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
You are more than welcome to forward a copy of your invoice and proof of payment of the subwoofer by replying to this email with an attachment. I am more than happy to see what options are available for you.

Sincerely,

Martina Brown

Subaru of America, Inc.

Customer Advocacy Department


I replied and attached my invoice from Crutchfield. It is the principle of the thing though.

Bait and switch is illegal.

 

[Silvas]

It works for harddrives. That 18tb harddrive is not 18tb.

TL;DR - Blame windows (and any other OS that does this), not the HDD manufacturers.

ugh. yes it is. 18TB is 18 Trillion bytes, as the prefix Tera is for trillion, which is what an 18TB drive is. What *windows* (as well as possibly some other OSes) reports as 18TB is not 18TB.
Windows is reporting Tebibytes (TiB) but using the Terabyte (TB) nomenclature. In Tebibytes, an 18TB hard drive would be 16.37 Tebibytes, and if you put an 18TB hard drive in your computer, windows will tell you it's 16.37TB. What windows would call 18TB is actually 18 TiB, which would be 19,791,209,299,968 bytes or 19.79TB.

Also, the capacity of hard drives is stated as raw storage, not formatted (which does take up some of the space) and this is unavoidable as different file systems will use up differing amounts of the storage.

 

[WVNed]

I was compensated for the subwoofer installation and have no more dogs in this hunt.

 

[homer1475]

Interesting....

I recently bought a subaru legacy with the premium harmon kardon headset/speaker. There is a monster 10" subwoofer in the deck lid, and you can definitely hear the sub when you play with the equalizer settings.

 

[SteveMM62Reef]

Find a Lawyer that Specializes in Class Action Lawsuits. I have a distant cousin who did this. He had deal for a discovery fee, so he got a bigger part of the settlement money. It was for a Compact Tractor, that Advertised a HP Rating on their Engine, a certain Gear Box and Tires. Was on what would be the Window Sticker on a Car. Had none of the items.