Subaru Powertrain Warranty Review

Grinder34

Track Monkey
Honest question about that:

In the event of replacing an engine, does a subaru dealership get delivery of an assembled longblock, shortblock and heads individually, or all the individual parts and then assemble it themselves.
 

Piratemosh666

New member
I'm baffled by this, really. I don't understand why they won't do anything for you concidering the compression test came back the way that it did. I work in the parts department at a small Ford dealer, and with regard to the 6.0L Diesels being what they are, we see a lot of head gasket failures. Guys come in with popped head gaskets that are running programers, and we replace the head gaskets under warranty. Quite a few of them provide us with head studs and EGR cooler deletes, and the tech installs those parts while we have it apart. The customer takes care of the cost of the upgraded parts, and we take care of the rest. That equals a happy customer. It also keeps the truck from coming back with repeat gasket failures.

My point being that head gasket failures are a known issue with these trucks, and we do what we can for the customer. If ringland failures leading to low compression test numbers and the bad factory tune are known issues with our cars, why would SoA and the associated dealers not try to do what they can to help us?
 

DierwulfBL

New member
Small update, called customer relations at Subaru of America and they said they need to call the dealership and the DPSM and get the scoop then they'll call me back. Not getting a warm fuzzy feeling about what will happen
 

Batmobile_Engage

Squirrel Meat Aficionado.
Staff member
I feel like pasting the link to this thread into the "What really grinds my gears" thread. LOL SoA asshats :banghead:
 

DierwulfBL

New member
Another update, finally dropped my car off so SoA can see the latest compression results. I'm not taking it back this time until its in specification...
 

DierwulfBL

New member
Update: Does not seem loss of compression was due to anything in the shortblock. Service advisor called me and said "a valve needed to be tightened and theyre fixing it up good as new and id have it back soon".

I wasn't exactly sure what tightening a valve meant and when I pressed for details he said he wasnt exactly sure and the tech was busy. SoA called a few days later, and I told them what was told to me by the service advisor and that it didnt really make sense and I wanted more details. He said the head required resurfacing and didn't give any details past that really just said I'd have even compression numbers when they were done and he gauranteed that.

I understand these 2 people are customer service reps and likely don't posses great technical knowledge on cars, but dammit they should have it all pulled up in front of them if someone wants to know specifics. I'm going to need a full sheet of work done when it's over though to see if they replaced everything they should have and did it correctly (which im sure they did).

Also slightly worried if theyre decking one head, they should really be decking the other so I have even cylinder bank compression but I should be able to see if this is the case in the compression test results if everything is within 5psi ill be happy
 

Spamby

Meat Product Toy
That's some doodoo right there.
One guy says the valve is being tightened and the other says the head is being decked. At least they could get a story straight.
Translation: they are doing nothing and your car sits for a few days. They hope you'll get the placebo effect and be dumb and happy.
Or scenario 2: they replace the short block because its the most host effective approach. Plus dealer techs don't repair anything, they just replace parts.
Reason: piston failure is a black eye and they want to cover it up.

My theory, lol
 

DierwulfBL

New member
Yea, or they did the work, checked the compression and it was the same, cause I had these calls early to mid last week and havent heard shit yet. I was also under the assumption that if machine work was involved they just replaced with new generally. Regardless I'm not taking the car back without a nice long list in detail of what was done to the vehicle. This list will also be required to have 1-4 cyl compression numbers after the fix.

The only reason I tend to disagree with you Spamby is because it's not in their best interest to lie as that has the potential to cause a bigger problem then replacing the entire car and large corporations are not stupid, they are very very very calculated. This is the reason I have so much patience because i work with large auto manufacturers day in and day out on software for them and I see how their processes work, and they take fuckin forever :).
 

HolyCrapItsFast

Drinks beer!
OR.... they are leaving it alone and then doing the compression test on a wet cylinder by squirting a little oil in there to improve the results. I have seen people do that to skew the readings.
 

DierwulfBL

New member
My guess is they did the compression wet already long ago to no avail, because that's what i expected actually on the first go around "compression is fine, now pay us". Really the dealership is screwing themselves as i've put 6k miles on their loaners.....ROAD TRIP!!!
 

Spamby

Meat Product Toy
Exaggerated a bit but my point still stands.
It may not be in the best interest but it happens everyday. Anymore, dealers and Indy shops tend to regard the public as dumb and sometimes bet on you as being so. Can't deny this, though not all are shady or even close to it but nevertheless it happens.
You have more patience than I do. Once the first fib came out of their mouth, it would have been on. Lol
 

DierwulfBL

New member
They are taking forever.....should likely call for an update except I know it'll just leave me more confused by whatever the non-technical person tells me
 

DierwulfBL

New member
Man i must have a knack for timing on these things, got a call today, should get it back tomorrow with a clean sheet of health. Tech is taking it home to put some mileage on it so nothing crazy happens.
 

DierwulfBL

New member
The master tech took it home to make sure nothing crazy was gonna happen. So when I get home I'll take pics of the paperwork, but the gist of what went down is I have a new longblock in the car :tup:
 

DierwulfBL

New member
40% done with break-in #2, everything is nice and smooth again. Here is the pic of the write-up from the tech....quite interesting.

IMG_20130516_113501_554.jpg
 

HolyCrapItsFast

Drinks beer!
WOW is right... This is no cost to you right?

And people think I'm nuts when I demand a compression test on a brand new car before a tuning session will begin. :D

You see? You would never have known there was anything wrong with your car had I not insisted on a compression test :tup:
 

DierwulfBL

New member
Total Money Cost to me: $0
Total Time cost: ~4 hours (including driving time to and fro)
Total Gas Cost: ~ 6 gallons of 93

Yes Holy, while I had my suspicions I thought everything was good to go and we'd be ready to roll! However, I always told myself if I tuned before warranty was up I'd leakdown/comp check JUST to be sure though, and I am very glad you required it as sometimes I like to cut corners in favor of time savings. Had we tuned on a bum motor I'd likely be building my spare shortblock now and having no spare cash for other fun.

50% broken in, life under 4k sucks :'(
 
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