New bulletin for turbo Subaru's READ THIS!

[EvilAsPie]

hmmm... guess i will pick up some conditioner on tuesday.

ready for this...? I've never put a new crush washing in while doing an oil change on any of my cars (unless i loose it), and i've never had a problem.

Is a new washer suppose to keep it from leaking? I've never seen a drain plug leak on my cars, and i'm anal about oil changes and leaks.

 

[Pedro]

I made a punch for my saab crush washer (always leaked cause some dumb crap chipped it off)

made them out of copper for $0.01 each.

 

[Shorty]

hmmm... guess i will pick up some conditioner on tuesday.

ready for this...? I've never put a new crush washing in while doing an oil change on any of my cars (unless i loose it), and i've never had a problem.

Is a new washer suppose to keep it from leaking? I've never seen a drain plug leak on my cars, and i'm anal about oil changes and leaks.

The technical term for what you are is "lucky"
When you tighten it up, you feel the washer crush and then stop.

 

[Rightseat]

I know a certain older guy who beat the holey living crap out of his WRX and for some reason even with Motul in the motor, it spun a bearing (actually, several of em) at 88k miles.

but it weren't his fault, really! :angel12: :angel12:

teardown revealed a lot of varnish and accumuated crud in nooks n carnnies of the block and heads. machinist said it looked like the engine had had some "overdue" oil changes.

there were def some contributing factors here: engine failure on a box stock motor while running as course opening car at a tarmac rally, where said wagon was turning upper-half-of-the-pack stage times against real rally cars. machinist said that oil starvation wasn't unheard of with stock WRX oil pans in long-duration high-g turns. STI oil pans are baffled to avoid this issue. the car was run so hard the brakes were smoking at the time controls, heh, the workers thought it was on fire. etc etc.

so the short story is, "be nice to your suby and it'll be nice to you" If you beat on it, expect sharply increased service intervals. cool down the turbo after hard runs. NO BOOST til warm. just what the Suby bulletin said--this is not new news, just good procedure. Of course, there's probly some SoA CYA aspect to the bulletin, but it's good info none the less.

 

[Evan]

I've never seen someone use a suction device... why would you? To decrease the possibility of cross-threading the drain plug?

walmarts that do oil changes and more and more 10minute oil change places are doing it so they dont need to worry about cross-threading stuff, and more importantly not replacing the plug and blowing the motor.

yeah for the mentally handicapped changing your oil!! ccasion14:

 

[SlowDriver]

I thought a Fumoto was your penis pump converted to suck the oil from your "sump" :laughing1:

There isn't a problem with Subaru engines. If they are uncared for, they fail.

Except maybe N/A headgaskets uke:

Its a replacement drain plug with a valve.

I got one just like this. a small piece of hose and you don't have to touch the oil (makes hot oil changes a snap)

I am testing this one next oil change to see if I need to machine it down so it gets everything out of the pan.

Is there a way to lock that? I would be leary of some dink draining my Suby's blood while I was sleeping.

 

[SlowDriver]

hmmm... guess i will pick up some conditioner on tuesday.

ready for this...? I've never put a new crush washing in while doing an oil change on any of my cars (unless i loose it), and i've never had a problem.

Is a new washer suppose to keep it from leaking? I've never seen a drain plug leak on my cars, and i'm anal about oil changes and leaks.

Crush washer prevents the plug from being over-tightened. Stripped threats make you mad. Once it's crushed, it's tight.

 

[Pedro]

I thought a Fumoto was your penis pump converted to suck the oil from your "sump" :laughing1:

There isn't a problem with Subaru engines. If they are uncared for, they fail.

Except maybe N/A headgaskets uke:

Its a replacement drain plug with a valve.

I got one just like this. a small piece of hose and you don't have to touch the oil (makes hot oil changes a snap)

I am testing this one next oil change to see if I need to machine it down so it gets everything out of the pan.

Is there a way to lock that? I would be leary of some dink draining my Suby's blood while I was sleeping.

I can't reach it without the ramps even at stock WRX height. and I have clocked the valve so that the lever is on top so you would really have to be a skinny MoFo or jack up the car... either way.. mine is garaged cept at work.. and if my oil pressure light doesn't go out after .5sec after start you would get clued in real quick.

 

[katnip]

never put conditioner in my coolant, never replaced the crush washer after oil change, never used SOA oil filter (amsoil), don't change oil every 3k (amsoil full syn), haven't change brake fluid since summer 2005 (motul DOT5), good thing I drive my GC like an old lady :headbang:

When we had the rex Al was anal about the cooldown period and no boost before warmed up. Unfort, I drove the car more than him. :thumbsup:

 

[stiXXX]

Pat,

DSMs spin plenty of bearings, I'd hazard to say, far more than Soobies.

Oh, yeah, and Lancers = Epic Plastic Garbage.

(The Japanese definition of "evo" is, simply, over-engineered cheap plastic-covered crap. Literally.

As to SoobieUSA on Warranty Work:

I have never seen a bigger bunch of LOVING backwards shitbags than SoobieUSA weaseling out of warranty work on STis.

I'm not going too far into the story, but let's say it cost me about $7000 (on a $23,000,44K mile,clean carfax,one owner STi) to learn the hard way that a bunch of asswad early STi owners fucked the rest of us by flogging their cars and abusing their warranties.

I had a tranny with 44k go bad.

I'd had the car less than 90 days, and never beat on it.

Subaru stonewalled me then flat-out said, "Tough shit, your problem."

Under factory Powertrain "Warranty"

Yeah, well, they bought themselves a lifetime of bad p.r. for the cost of a tranny.

Brilliant Business Move.

I wouldn't buy anything from Subaru where I had to count on them to "warranty" it, because obviously they won't if they can weasel out of it..

For example, What if you get an early-failing OEM clutch that's not up to par with the motor that Soobie glued it to?

Will they disclaim the fix claiming "abnormal wear and tear" even if they put a shit clutch in to begin with?

You betcha.

**Especially if you change your shift knob, cuz' that voids all Soobie Transmission Warranties. Think that's lame? Careful, that's the next Service Bulletin.

Nice marketing, it keeps the service bay disgustingly profitable, unless people stop buying their cars over shitty, weasel-y crap like that.

(I never bought a new Soobie, now I NEVER will.)

A spankin' new OEM STi tranny is almost the cost of a brand-new subcompact beater, I'm sure the profit margin helped some dealership owner pay for another cigarette boat to spew filth into Sebago with.

I dealt with more than one dealership on this issue, it's not based on a single experience. If you so much as use a non-soobie air filter they'll fudge you upside down to Sunday, &

taht's exactly the way it's worded.

To sum it up: Don't ever buy a "performance" Subaru & expect the dealership to stand behind the car.

They won't, and they have written copious amounts of "addendum" on exactly how they're LOVING you, and how you should smile and nod happily.

It's updated regularly by a fleet of smiling, nodding Japanese loophole lawyers who give not a rat's ass about you, in fact they hold us in contempt equal (imo) to the way GReddy treats USDM customers.

We're a Bottom Line, nothing more.

If you don't know how to say "fudge you, ha ha, sucker" in Japanese, read the STi Warranty Addendum.

 

[Pedro]

That really sucks man. Evergreen rebuilt my trans without any hesitation. granted the problem was a grind from 5th to 4th and it was slightly like that since I bought it with 3k on the clock.

 

[Shorty]

You didn't come here. Plus, there isn't a single 44k mile STI that hasn't been beat on. That 6spd is almost bulletproof. At Subaru school, they say that tranny is rated for 1000hp. Have you ever seen the gears in it? I have. They are freekin' HUGE! There is no way that tranny wasn't beat before you got it. Sorry to say it. You bought it that way.

Subaru's warranty is against stuff breaking, not against people breaking stuff.

 

[Pedro]

You didn't come here. Plus, there isn't a single 44k mile STI that hasn't been beat on. That 6spd is almost bulletproof. At Subaru school, they say that tranny is rated for 1000hp. Have you ever seen the gears in it? I have. They are freekin' HUGE! There is no way that tranny wasn't beat before you got it. Sorry to say it. You bought it that way.

Subaru's warranty is against stuff breaking, not against people breaking stuff.

but if you buy a used car with warranty from a dealer you should be able to expect that it won't fail within a couple thousand miles of "normal" driving. I don't know if STiXX bought his from a dealer or not. But 90 days is unreasonably short for failure without serious abuse.

 

[stiXXX]

Yeah, I bought it from Kelly Jeep in Mass.

And yes, the tranny was baked when I got it.

The story is too long for here, but it involved my lawyer and a lot of shouting into a phone, and an extended warranty that they "sold" me that when I tried to put a claim in on, was rejected.

It was a massive clusterfuck all the way around, two states, lemon law crap...you see, I'd already sunk a lot of $ into the car when the tranny failed, so there was no "returning" it...and the 'mods I did made it look like it could ahve been done by me...Imo it's a fat load of shit, that Subaru wouldn't honor their warranty, but I'm out $7K, how can I be subjective??

I just ordered the TGV delete from APS to go with the FP Green-the previous owner cooked the facto turbo, as well.

Good fun, $10K in parts on a 48K mile car...when this is done, I'll have almost $50K in a car that cost me $23K, stock-o.

You may now chime in and tell me I could have bought the Carrera4 I've always wanted, but I've already had that thought.

Dammit.

I've got that extra tranny sitting in the garage, it needs a synchro or somesuch, Patriot told me.

If anybody wants to buy it, let me know.

Once you open a facto tranny imo they're never Right again, that's why I didn't go for a rebuild.

 

[Shorty]

At that point it was up to the dealer to stand behind the used car. SOA can wash their hands of warranty on any modded car. They guarranty the car they built will hold up. The cars other people build, not so much.