6000 mile service?

The oil change at Subaru is free for the first 24k miles unless you bought an upgraded warranty. Not free at the oil shop. you also get the advantage of Subaru parts and documentation of a multi-point check. I think this is worth doing for the first 24k. If problems begin to develop, the dealer should be able to recognize and advise how to proceed. If they miss somthing and a problem occurs later, then you have the supportive documentation from the dealer, not some oil shop.

While I have no issues with the Forester, I did have some problems on a VW CC that validates the benefit of getting dealer checks when under the free warranty period. At about 30k, the dealer did the normal check and rotated the tires. There was a horrible shimmy in the front end at 65-80mph. We took the car back and the dealer said the tires were bad and needed to be replaced. They showed us the assymmetrical wear pattern that was created by poor rear end allignment. When those tires got moved to the front, the wobble appeared. They said we ran over a curb and knocked the allignment out of wack and that it is not covered. I went home and did some google searches to find that this was a common complaint for this vehicle and VW actually redesigned the rear end suspension 2 model years later.

I returned to the dealer and asked if this wear pattern was caused in less than 6k miles and we both agreed that this was a long time wear pattern and unlikely cuased since the last checkup. I pointed out the google search findings. I also argued that we have brought this car in every 6k for a check at this dealership. And then proceeded to argue that there was no way that this wear pattern occured in the last 6k, and that I wanted to see the records where the service tech identified this poor wear pattern. There was no documentation. So, I then argued that the techs were checking boxes stating that tires were good when they actually never checked the tires and made no notation that there was a poor wear pattern developing. Needless to say, the dealership kissed my azz a little bit, appologized and replaced all four tires and realligned the suspension. We no longer take the car to this dealership, but there are benefits of using the dealer when you are under the bumper to bumper warranty period.