From SoA Corporate: "hesitation is considered normal"

Per Subaru of America corporate: "Hesitation is considered normal" on acceleration.

 

Thought you might all enjoy that, since until now they've been denying it occurs.

I wonder if sulphur fumes in the cabin are normal too?

 

damn

 

what was in that middle paragraph that you blurred out? Obvoiusly you blurred it out for a reason but I can't guess what it was. Was it information about the dealership you bought from?

Well honestly it's considered within "normal" spec of the car across the board. Honestly people shouldn't be suprised since it is a "first" model year of a new engine and chassis.

So the car is like Microsoft. Crashing is considered normal.

I wonder if sulphur fumes in the cabin are normal too?

 

My thought exactly. Even though the district service rep agreed to replace my clutch, and the smell has since returned on the new one, I still remember him saying during our initial conversation that he drove a 5MT and that this smell was a normal part of his driving experience. Like sure that's just the way it runs. To his credit, he reported it to SOA as have many others. But maybe we will soon see another TSB or letter to customers saying the same thing about our clutch!

What is a hesitation problem?

somewhat heavy 'luxury' car+dual mass flywheel+turbo lag = guess what?

 

just get a cobb ap and swap the oem 2.5rs flywheel on there if it really bothers you that much

Well honestly it's considered within "normal" spec of the car across the board. Honestly people shouldn't be suprised since it is a "first" model year of a new engine and chassis.

No, I would be surprised if it never got fixed. It would make me likely to buy another subaru again.

Does this affect 5MT owners only?

Lol i get the described symptoms in my 2.5i auto if i life the throttle before shifting "manually" from 2nd to 3rd. I cant always reproduce it though.

somewhat heavy 'luxury' car+dual mass flywheel+turbo lag =

problems with a poorly engineered car. Not something that we should be expected to fix with our own money because they can't get it right from the factory.

Write back to subaru and tell them to get rid of the DMF... I suspect this coupled with AWD is the problem... Too much drivetrain mass to be throwing around.

 

My "stuttering" improved a bit when I took 8 lbs off the crank by replacing the crank pulley.

 

Its a simple fix really. Subaru should have never put the POS Sachs DMF on the car in the first place. My stock WRX setup with the solid fly was alot better and thats not saying much.

It's not a mechanical problem, it's just not.. It "improves a bit" depending on where in the rev range you are talking about your driving style, and your car. At this point it's probably still true that a big enough nerd to understand what is going on hasn't even been assigned to the problem back in Japan. The people handlers don't have a clue and neither do the mechanics, hence, this letter. Actually another possibility is that the problem has been blocked the the people handlers in Japan, as they will not admit to their people having made a mistake. Keep pushing and maybe we'll hear about a harikari.

 

Every mod changes the physical characteristics of the car, and thereby the ECU interaction with it, changing how the stuttering appears. There's probably been a hundred people with a hundred different mods posting "I got X mod, it helped with the stuttering"

Maybe... But I still beleive in my mind that drivetrain mass is the heart of problem. My WRX did it every once in a while and when I swapped out the crank pulley the characteristic all but dissapeared. Same characteristic in my LGT but it happens enough to call it a problem. But the LGT still has it from time to time.

 

ECU tuning may mitigate it or change the characteristics of it but. From experience it seems as if excessive drivetrain mass the culprit. To my knowledge subaru has NEVER used such a heavy complicated flywheel in ANY of thier cars EVER. My friends 1998 MT legacy does it but occasioanally not enough for it to be called a "problem." My friend in DC who has a WRX with a 12lb flywheel combo never EVER EVER gets it.

 

I makes sense in that the motor is trying to get a near 35 lb flywheel/pressure plate combo going it finally builds up enough momentum to spin.... Its near 43 lbs that it has to move at the crank if you add the crank pulley. Its got more momentum than the motor internals itself and it forces the motor to rev faster than it wants to go when the motor is trying to slow itself down. Then you get bucking bucking, bucking.

 

Its compounded by the fact that the flywheel is heavy enough to load the engine to build boost... then when the flywheel reaches its inertial steady state that load drops then boost drops and you get bucking bucking bucking.

 

I plan to find out for sure when I find a good clutch kit for my car. Then I will report on it.

 

 

 

Thats just my 2 cents.

I plan to find out for sure when I find a good clutch kit for my car.

 

That's the route I'm probably going to end up going but I hate shelling out $$$ for something that should have been done from the factory.

so SOA is going to make us pay for repairs when the warranty expires??WTF??