Littleted

Ive yet to see a warrenty , that when push comes to shove they let you mod it. I know what your saying if done properly but its still a risk.

cars are made to the params there sold, you toss that aside then at your risk.

You may be right about the engine, i,ll have to keep my fingers crossed and see what happens.

Subaru are changing the way they sell i think, looseing the Chav look and making the wife want to drive it, i personally like some of the looks, but if they want to attack a bigger market its gotta go, or they will always be sold in little numbers, as a specilist car, but for their pocket there isnt enough of us.

look at the EVO 10 how normal thats started to look, its all gona go that way for the sub 50k cars i reakon.

I,ll hopefully wont be the first to start the thread, but lets see.

Ted

andy97

iTrader: (1)

I can see some very cheap, low mileage Imprezas coming on the market with blown engines.

Those of us who could afford to buy said cars, I know a good engine builder very close to Leamington

Andy

Powder hound

The 08 WRX STi has now been sold to a dealer at great loss after just 6 months. The car had three engines in 17000 miles and enough was enough. We have found that the dealer is now having difficulty selling the car even with a brand new engine.
Maybe word is getting around about the poor the reliability of these cars ?
Warranty direct has published a report on claims for the WRX, and 40% relate to engine failures on this model. Simply staggering.
Now a proud owner of an Audi A4 and feeling much richer after a massive insurance premium drop and massive MPG !.
Must keep my sensible head on now !! Good luck to other owners and hope Subaru get round to a full recall to address these issues.
Out of interest, Subaru UK offered a further 12 months warranty in view of the problems with this model (4 years). I hope all other owners will get this offered too. The offer was conditional on a data recorder being fitted and never being revved above 6000 RPM or in any way modified. Hmmmm

honeybadger

Hi guys

I bought myself one of the last STi hatchbacks a month ago. I have wanted one for 9 years. On Saturday my buddy tells me about the big end bearing issue.

I'm not planning to tune the car the enhance performance, it came with a sports exhaust and that's it.

Can I expect this engine to fail due the the big end bearing or pistons, regardless of the fact that I'm running the engine in exactly as the require in the manual?
This is depressing, one pays a **** load of money to find out that it will probably undergo severe engine failure.

Regretful in South Africa.

TypeUKPPP05

Hi what are peoples views on subaru extended warranty (Auto protect). As I really want this 07 STI I was hoping for the sake of £400 it would solve the issue of worring about costs of an engine rebuild?

mickp

iTrader: (1)

If a warranty company have evidence that the fault is inherent and fairly common they won't want to know.

This situation is yet to be tested but i am sure it will be, come Feb 2011 >>

TypeUKPPP05

I just spoke to subaru uk and they said they use auto protect and said if one of their dealership thought the engine trouble was due to a sudden mechanical failure they would argue the case for you if the Auto protect technician thought it was wear and tear.

Littleted

Thats a lot of engines powder, was the car totally standard no mods at all ?

they prob wont sell it with all the failures, i know id never buy it with that history lemon car

Carlh

it will be interesting to see if the new saloons have the same failure rate. different mapping i know, but still - choco pistons might strike again....

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

http://forums.sidc.co.uk/topic/15259...put-to-subaru/

Go on ask!

paulbu

On reading this thread, it would appear that the greater the power being generated by the standard factory 2.5l boxer, the more likely it is to suffer from engine failure. Does anybody know of any definite failures (not rumour or gossip) where the power output was less than the 296bhp generated by the Sti hatch ?

Alan Jeffery

From what we've seen forged pistons fix the problem. We've dealt with plenty who are out there running about with a stack more power no bother at all.
I really sympathise with those who are having problems, but it seems to me it's a better choice to just get the thing fixed than sell at a loss bigger than the cost of the repair.
I can't see for the life of me why Subaru haven't just specced a better quality piston, other than having to admit their choice was wrong in the first place.

Littleted

outa intrest what is the cost for a supply and fit of said pistons ?

if one was going to have it done ?

Alan Jeffery

We can do the job for £2595 inc vat drive in drive out, which includes everything needed and the first 50 miles of running in.
That includes forged pistons. I'm allowing for a rebore to the first oversize and a hone to fit as being better than a marginal drop in. The price includes genuine Subaru gaskets, new cam belt and ACL Race bearings.
We can of course add a whole host of extras if required, including forged rods, uprated oil pumps and head stud kits, Cosworth head gaskets and baffle plates. In fact, anything you like!
We've already produced several making well over 400 bhp, which makes these cars a pleasure to live with.

f4la k

iTrader: (1)

Hows your new saloon goin Ted ??

You shouldnt have to worry about cost Ted as youll have plenty warranty. Just get the foot down and give it a good thrashing and if it goes pay for the forged pistons and give them to subaru to fit when there repairing it under warranty.

P.s. Hope this dosent happen, but better to get it done under warranty than cough up out your own pocket...

Littleted

Cheers Alan

Flak, its ok 2000 on clock now run in well.

Fingers crossed n all that

rasheedn

pistons r not the main problem

its the stock tune

car stays at 14.7 while in boost...forged pistons or not they will eventually take a dump on u

Littleted

Rash can you elaborate

14.7 what Carrots ? peas ?

How does the number effect the pistons, sorry not an expert so im unsure what your saying.

joz8968

iTrader: (13)

I assume he means 14.7:1 AFR (air:fuel ratio) i.e. the 'perfect' Stoichiometric ratio.

That's okay in closed-loop, Lambda sensor-operating conditions when off-boost (for best mpg/emissions).

But when on boost, that needs to richen up significantly to, say, anything as low as 11.x:1.

Run 14.7:1, on-boost!, for any length of time.... melted pistons!

Littleted

ahh i get ya thanks

dsemuk

Im seriously considering going down this route, I don't plan on trying to get more power out of my STi hatch but the cloud hanging over the 2.5L engine I just want to have an engine I can trust.

If I went for a rebuild I would go for pistons, bearings rods & baffled sump.

Just don't want to let the car run until it fails and then also need a block & perhaps crank to add onto the cost of a rebuild.

Just got to broach the subject with the Mrs now

Subaru, unlike most cars !

Plastikman

I have doubt in my mind about the talk of weak pistons, I know there are people within this thread who are going to disagree and rightly so if your engine pup'd itself but really what's the overwhelming evidence you have that proves the piston was the cause of engine failure? My point for this post is to eliminate who is the casualty from the perpetrator of this problem.
Firstly, you are massively misguided if you think this duck and cover is a Subaru only problem and by that I mean those of you declaring you wont be buying Subaru again and choosing another manufacturer, unless its a Kona, Specialized or GT I bet I can find either a massive recall disaster or a Hidden Fault denied by the manufacturer. One example: BMW, before I bought my 5th impreza I bought a sensible car, a BMW 330D. After 6 months of ownership and various smallish noise problems I found a small amount of people that were suffering from what seemed like the same noise problem. Turned out to be the whole rear diff carrier was tearing away from the floor as it did in the previous marks (E36 & E46) and this wasn't just the big 3L Diesel, it was right from the 1.8s to 3L Check You Tube for the video footage and trawl the net you will see all the unhappy customers. http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...9948066992482# BMW point blank refused to take responsibility and when they did one of their first fixes was to inject foam between the two skins of metal in the boot floor. I guess they thought that if you couldn't hear it, it would be ok. LOL and that's supposed to be one of the better manufacturers. They all have skeletons its just Toyota got caught out in America due to the power of the lawyer, they were over a barrel. This head in the sand by Subaru is age old and a well used strategy by all.

Getting back to my point about the pistons, I think those who believe Forged pistons alone will help are wrong, if the engine has Det then no piston no matter what its made of will last. The forces exerted from Either Det or Pre ignition are too great and something will give and as the Piston is closest to the offender it will come off worst. The fact that there are some small end & big end failures too makes me think that Det is definitely the cause, the piston will be rising in the bore but the combustion will pre ignite thus a huge amount of energy trying to force the piston back down the bore when the rod/crank is still trying to push the piston up. Stretching rod bolts or mincing the piston edges. The pre ignition is a result of the huge temperatures in the Cylinder from a volatile and uneven combustion (detonation) The det has to be the criminal here and that surely has to be down to air/fuel mixture i.e. mapping.

I'm not claiming to be an expert, but I want to understand the reason for this problem other than what the dealer says or hearsay from fitters who call themselves mechanics. The fact that Subaru reflashed ecu' s tells us the mapping must of been wrong, the piston unfortunately is the casualty and therefor under the spotlight for being weak.
I am of the opinion that the mixture is the difference between 300hp and a pile of scrap, the slightest changes to what air or fuel goes into the engine from either filters, dump valves or exhausts will have an effect on the mixture and therefor need to be accounted for in the mapping or an uneven combustion is possible.
I have rebuild only two engines, neither of which was a Subaru but I spent enough time on them to understand the basics, one engine I managed to get just under double the original HP, so I guess a little more than the basics. At that time my work was right next door to a mechanical engineers workshop. They confirmed that the biggest killer of engine's was the stress from high Revs, I'm talking in general terms here. This is why I wont bounce my engine off the limiter, ever, also because the power has usually dropped off way before then. These days you can add a shift light or in our cases adjust the shift light on the dash to a lower rev point.

Be interesting to see the differences between stock maps and say an Andy F map or any other competent mapper. I for one hope I am right because my car falls into dodgy 08-09 era, and the sympathy from here if it does **** itself will be too much!

salsa-king

are we saying that the failures are due to the re map or it's across the board on the 2.5 engine, even without the re map.

as said above, intetresting to see how other 'maps' have performed.

those who had failures, are they std WRX STi typeUK cars, PPPd or/and 330s?

ps:
when I asked about extending warranty on a car with the subaru extended warranty, so far I've not had someone say at the dealer that you cn't do it on a STi they are selling.

scooby L

RaceDynamix Re-Map on mine from 24k miles. Never missed a beat right up to the day I sold it (30k)

Standard internals (including the "weak" pistons)

Running a nice 340 odd and 1.3bar

Apostle

Failures have been on Std UK cars, Euro imports, Subaru secondary remapped cars, PPPd cars, 330S cars, and one or two modded cars.

One member on here had his tuned way past 350 for quite some miles, when he decided to go internal and fit forged parts 'I believe' he found ringland damage to his pistons - thus it was on borrowed time. Maybe he will verify this.

'Officially' its about 7% failure of UK cars 'UNOFFICIALLY' its at least one in ten that have blown...

Mine was one

A

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show...engine+failure

186 pages on the 2.5l engines from 2008 onwards. It's not just the UK.

rob84

iTrader: (5)

Mine ran at 1.5 bar boost and 380bhp for 30,200 miles. It destroyed the ringland on cylinder 2 and wrecked the bore, But I get the feeling it would have lasted for longer had it not been down to dodgy fuel

ritchiritch

What do ya mean exactly "dodgy fuel"?

urban

iTrader: (1)

The garage he was using were putting nornal unleaded in the tanks and flogging it as "good stuff"

dsemuk

I think in Robs case the Shell garage put regular 95RON fuel rather than 99RON VPower into the VPower pumps.

Sure Rob will clarify.