17 Jan (3 weeks since the dealership got the car).....

By way of background:
- P1 4.75 yrs old, 45k miles, extended warranty
- Had major service immediately pre-Christmas (all transmission oils, cam belt etc)
- 500 miles later, just before new year, engine blew up

Apparently a big end has gone and it needs a short block (a new engine in my head) - garage awaiting green light from warranty co.

Now this is where it gets interesting - the car had a faulty MAF (air fuel sensor) replaced at the service. The garage say this is responsible for what happened. i.e. before it was replaced, it was over-fuelling which cause excess fuel ('fuel wash') to enter the crank case, wash away the lubricants and cause wear which led to the subsequent piston failure (piston number 4).

I'm not very technically minded but this feels odd:
- wouldn't the piston rings stop the fuel going into the crank, kicking it out instead?
- surely I would have heard it missing (analagous to flooding an engine with too much choke?)

Is this something people have heard of before? Is it a feasible explanation? Reason I'm asking is that I'm slightly nervous that, if the warranty people don't cough up, the garage will expect me to pay.....

Gordo

 

A Friend of mine had exactly the same thing happen to his P1 about 6 months ago, apparently its a problem known to Subaru , He had to pay the labour to fit the short block, but Subaru paid for the short block still cost him over £1k.

 

I'm not an expert, not even technically minded in fact, but you generally know when a Maf is on the blink, it tends to manifest itself with one or more of the following: uneven idling, threatening to stall at junctions, hesitation around 4k. When I enquired at a specialist as to what happens when a MAF prob is not addressed, they explained that either the car runs lean and melts a piston, or the car overfuels, washes away the lubricant and, again, a piston melts....I always thought it was number three that tends to let go first though.

One word of advice, be careful who rebuilds it. I've heard of many bodged rebuilds on P1s -some of which have been conducted by dealerships- only to go bang about 500 miles down the road.

NS04

 

Yes, but if the car has full service history then it is down to Subaru Warranty to pay. Simple as.

 

Yes, but if the car has full service history then it is down to Subaru Warranty to pay. Simple as.

 

Could be a 3rd party warranty, I don't believe he's stated this info in the original post. Apologies if I'm wrong.

NS04

 

Warranty is an extended one - can't remember but think it's Subaru (will check the paperwork later on)

I'm guessing we have no choice but to let the dealership re-build it (as they have it in bits) - but presumably there's some kind of warranty on an engine post re-build?

G

 

My Mate got 12 months on his new block.

 

if it's done at the dealership then it should have 3 years or 60,000mls on parts warranty

 

That's an interesting point....do you have any substantiation to that claim?
AKAIK, parts warranties are normally 1yr, but even then, I expect that would be a hard thing to claim against.

Another issue I'm interested in is if it wasn't the replaced component that failed but another element of the system (e.g. MAF replaced by dealer- goes unserviceable - engine blows ) - does that mean a £10 part costs the dealer £3k as it had a 3 year parts warranty?

Anyone have any experience of this?

C