chilli

Just wondered if any of you guys had heard of this problem, which sounds rather worrying to me for anyone that may have bought a new 53 plate WRX.
It goes like this..... I bought my car new last September, which now has 6500 miles on the clock and can honestly say that in that time the car had not missed a beat. I was perfectly happy with the car until one fateful trip down the motorway. I had been giving the car a little bit as you do but nothing over the top, I accelerated onto the motorway and maintained a reasonable pace for several miles and then eased off to settle into a more relaxed cruise after a couple of more miles the engine appeared to lose power. Thinking I may have inadvertently knocked it out of gear I checked to see if I was still in gear at which point a could not miss in my rear view mirror the amount of smoke and oil that was being jettisoned from my exhaust. I contacted Subaru Assistance and got my car towed to the local dealership.
It just so happened that I needed to pick up some of my belongings from the car when the mechanic was actually lifting the engine out of the car which gave me an opportunity to speak to the mechanic. He showed me the problem, not that you could miss it, there was a very large whole where the conrod had punched a whole in the crankcase on number one cylinder. He then told me that usually the engines are pretty bomb proof but infact they had another similar aged scooby awaiting repair for the same problem and had another one a few weeks earlier. In the end they ended up replacing the block and I was without my scooby for nearly 4 weeks having to endure the pain of driving a Vauxhall Meriva hire car supplied by Subaru Assistance :-(.
Am not too happy with the garage I thought their customer service was poor and am about to go back to them tomorrow and ask why they have damaged the veins on the intercooler and why the engine bay is in such a state.

Anyway thought I would post this to see if anyone else has heard of this happening, as it certainly seems to be a manufacturing defect. All of a sudden I don't have as much faith in the car as I had previously had!

chilli

Any thoughts?

dij

Do a search on this forum and Im sure you will find a few stories.

Not sure why this happens but possibilities seem to lie with;incorrect fuel,faulty MAF sensor,not warmed up properly,running at high speed for sustained periods,wrong oil,and not priming the oil filter when changing oil.

Alot of people will tell you this engine is bullet proof but those people probably havent lost an engine.

krazy

Yeah b4 you buy, they say no never see any problems with these...
When they go wrong.... never seen one let go like that b4..
When something else needs fixing... can't do it this week got 2 full engine rebuilds to do..
Also usually this type of failure is only on grey imports...
hmmmm
Kinda believe the piston nipping in the bore theory due to tight tollerences, and/or getting a bit hot..
Though not necessarily due to high speed running, quite a few seem to go at normal mway cruise speed/just after mway. Perhaps they try to run closed loop at too high a speed and get a bit hot?

thetroublemaker

hmm.

all sounds pretty typical boxer engine fare.

i have come over to scooby's having owned several flat 4 beetles/campers and yeah these sort of problems are indicitave of an overheat and or oil starvation.....normally AFTER a fast run, this being the hottest time - engine has slowed so less air (water in scooby's case) flowing but the heat in the heads still needing lots of cooling.

on the bugs number 3 was the one that would die...

Chrisgr31

4 weeks? I'd have been delighted if my car was only in for 4 weeks! Its been in the garage now for 6 eeks and they don;t think it will be ready until a week on Wednesday which will be a day less that 8 weeks.

Not once have the garage made an umsolicited phone call to me, Subaru UK don;t really appear to care either. I wrote to them a week ago ;ast Saturday and not had a reply.

My car was new in Dec 2003 and had just had its 10,000 mile service when it failed.

Customer service is non-existent. Subaru refused to pay for the hire car after 5 weeks so my wife had to swap it for a garage courtesy car. Whilst she was in the garage complaining about the time it was taking there was a potential customer listening to her. When she finished he came over asked what the problem was and said I was going to buy one, won't now!

So thats one sale lost, mine will be due for replacement in 18 months I won;t be getting another, Dad was thinking about a Forrester, he isn't now.

Subarus customer care is going to lose them a lot of business unless they get decent dealers.

scoobyboy

maybe they just need decent customers who might appreciate the fact that some parts are on back order and if the garage kept ringing saying "sorry madam they are not in yet" every day you would soon get fed up and start whinging about that as well, they gave you a car they gave you a date when it would be ready what else do you want!

keevster

iTrader: (1)

Nah dont think so. 8 Weeks for an engine build, **** poor in my opinion. These are mass produced cars. How many engines go every week on new age WRXs in the UK. Not bloody many i hope. These parts should be readily available, i could see there point if WRXs where blowing there engines left right and centre over the UK. This would then be an explanation for a back log on parts.

Its all down to the same bloody story. No manufacturers give a toss when they have your cash. And a couple of complaints here and there aint going to do there rep any damage, so they just **** over the unlucky ones.

Buy an import, less bloody hassle.

Hope its all sorted soon mate, excuse the rant, but been in your situation before with a honda civic type-r, thats when i vowed never to buy a UK car again.


Paul

chilli

Hi guys thanks for the comments sorry to hear that you have had a similar problem Chrisgr31 i would have been going up the wall if they had my car for that length of time. I am sorry Scoobyboy but i disagree with you, one wonders if you work for a Subaru main dealer? I was not complaining about the length of time the job took just the state the car came back and the lack of attention to detail although i can report that when i took it back and complained to the garage owner he promised to give the car a full valet when the subsequent oil and filter change was due in another 700 miles time. I can honestly say in the dark days that i was forced to drive around in company cars aka the dreaded Vectra i received a much better level of customer service and i can assure you that car had a few problems! When i buy a new car that costs me £20,000 i expect to get a reasonably level of customer service at which i'm sure Chrisgr31 will agree with me.

On another note sorry to hear about the problems you had keevster with your Civic Type R i had an Integra Type R on an X plate b4 my scoob and it was a fantastic car that never missed a beat with only one exception, that being having to have the brake discs skimmed due to them warping which was a common problem with them.

Again though funnily enough a bullet proof engine when you buy the car but when i came to sell the car 45,000 miles later a Honda dealer told me these engines are a bit delicate i just laughed in his face and walked out.

Cheers guys