Goodbye Subaru

I am finally saying good riddance to Subaru. I just sold my Legacy 3.6 and soon my sons 2019 Impreza. My wife has a 2017 outback with a little less than a year on the warranty so she is holding on to it for a few more months. Our 3 Subaru's have been nothing but problems with constant check engine lights and mechanical problems. My Legacy has been so unreliable with only 60,000 miles on it I am afraid to drive it too far from home. The Impreza has had numerous check engine lights with only 11,000 miles. The Outback with 30,000 miles has had no engine issues but many other problems such as the rear defogger not working twice and having to replace the window twice, the head unit replaced twice, a transmission issue, and a rear axle problem. Luckily these are not our only cars and we have had other cars to drive while they were getting fixed.

 

I don't understand how people get over 100,000 miles out of their Subaru. It must cost a fortune to keep them running when they get a few miles on them.

 

So my Legacy is gone, the Impreza will be up for sale in August when my son goes to college and the Outback will be sold in the next few months. I will never own another Subaru.

 

Thanks all who have answered my questions on here in the past.

I am finally saying good riddance to Subaru. I just sold my Legacy 3.6 and soon my sons 2019 Impreza. My wife has a 2017 outback with a little less than a year on the warranty so she is holding on to it for a few more months. Our 3 Subaru's have been nothing but problems with constant check engine lights and mechanical problems. My Legacy has been so unreliable with only 60,000 miles on it I am afraid to drive it too far from home. The Impreza has had numerous check engine lights with only 11,000 miles. The Outback with 30,000 miles has had no engine issues but many other problems such as the rear defogger not working twice and having to replace the window twice, the head unit replaced twice, a transmission issue, and a rear axle problem. Luckily these are not our only cars and we have had other cars to drive while they were getting fixed.

 

I don't understand how people get over 100,000 miles out of their Subaru. It must cost a fortune to keep them running when they get a few miles on them.

 

So my Legacy is gone, the Impreza will be up for sale in August when my son goes to college and the Outback will be sold in the next few months. I will never own another Subaru.

 

Thanks all who have answered my questions on here in the past.

 

My 2013 Legacy that I sold 2 years ago is still running with almost 120k miles as far as I can tell through MyCarFax. I sold it with almost 90k miles after Subaru re-sealed all the gaskets (all paid for by Subaru Of America) and it could've cost me around $3k-$4k if I wasn't still under warranty. I personally think that Subaru has fell into making junk cars with some of the worst CVT transmissions. The older Subarus seemed to have been built better.

Some people just get lucky in a bad way. We are on our 5th Subaru and no major issues with any of them. I have 104k miles on my gt with just regular maintenance, we have 46k miles on our Ascent with 0 issues other than a slew of recalls, our first subaru 2007 legacy never had a problem in 3 years 56k miles when we traded for our Tribeca which already had 89k miles on it and has 175k in it now again nothing major (a radiator leak, glitchy head unit, and battery failures), my 03 forester was the same story nothing major besides maintenance and headgaskets which is normal maintenance on these cars, lol.

 

I have seen some complaints about 2019 Imprezas so you aren't alone there, some issues seem to be hit and miss with each model/year. The CVT I think gets a bad rap because of poor maintenance or non-existent maintenance due to poor communication from dealer service departments. Every transmission needs service if only to check the fluid level and condition every 30k miles or so.

Edited July 3, 2022 by FLlegacy

My 2003 Outback was one of the lowest cost to own vehicles I ever had. Purchased at 63000 miles, sold at 166000 miles. Still on the road with current owners around the 230000 miles point. Replaced cv axles a few times, and a front wheel bearing. Everything else was just standard maintenance work as age and miles accumulated.

 

Now my OBXT is spendy, but in a different kinda way...

Edited October 3, 2022 by AWDFTW
clarity

Sell them and move on ,no big thing hope you buy a car that will meet your expectations .

Every Subaru in the family has needed major engine work. Dad had a 1999 Outback that needed a head gasket under warranty. Mom's 06 Forester' HG failed before she owned it and I believe it got a new engine. My car went 214K before needing anything regarding the engine, but lots of other stuff has fallen apart on it.

 

I still maintain that they're more reliable than the average car if maintained. They're probably the easiest new cars to fix in 2022, which is worth something.

pretty much all manufacturers have some cars with issues - Subaru seems to do quite a bit better than many. Some folks have more problems than others, that's for sure. My 02 WRX did great until it got hit/totalled. My LGT has done great with the exception of that spun bearing thing a few years back... Subaru defrayed quite a bit of the cost and it's been just fine since then. That being said, our Honda Odysseys have been pretty impressive >280k on the first (transmission died at 211k), a bit over 110k on the second (and still going - it's only a 16). Just picked up an 05 Pilot for my oldest with 200k on the clock from some friends that's been solid. I tend to be pretty neurotic about maintenance, though, so that probably helps (the Pilot owners were as well, but did everything at the dealer - things in pretty great shape)

 

 

New cars scare me with all of the electronics, though... I like dedicated knobs/buttons - controlling everything through a screen is disconcerting.

Sorry to hear you had all those problems. We are on our 6th Subaru now and no big issues. Granted, 4 of the 6 have been leases, and only a couple times had to take them in. On our 1st Subaru (2014 Crosstrek) the rear defroster developed a couple dead lines. The dealer decided to replace the whole window instead of using a repair kit.

 

For the purchased cars (2010 Outback and current 2011 LGT) the previous owners took really good care of them.

Every car manufacturer has expectations on reliability. Subaru supposedly has high expectations since they advertise that 90% of Subaru's sold in the last 10 years are still on the road.

 

The other brands of cars that I own or have owned with low reliability expectations are Audi, Cadillac and Chevy. But yet I have owned a Cadillac every day since my first Eldorado in 1992 and Audi's on and off since my first A8 in 2004 and have been to the Cadillac service department once with a 1998 Eldorado with a broken sunroof switch and never to the Audi service department. The Chevy Impala LS I bought new in 2000 and sold in 2016 with 77,000 miles and never had a problem with it. I have never had a check engine light on the Cadillacs or Audis. But yet my Legacy has left me stranded twice and been on a flatbed twice. I guess I got stuck with the remaining 10% of Subaru's that are lemons.

Here is my two cents: Subaru is, in the grand scheme of things a smaller auto manufacturer. Subaru started building the EJ engines in the late 80s, when subaru was almost unheard of. the company was cash strapped, and looking to change their brand image. as the 90s came, subaru needed to spend capital on changing that image. The company simply didnt have the R and D budget to design a new series of 4 cylinder engines. they simply took the EJ18, EJ20s and EJ22s and started trying to squeeze more ponies from them. They increased the bore and stroke, added DOHC, Turbos etc. but the inherent design of the engine (oiling system, bearings etc) remained the same until they ended the EJ in the early 2010s. A lot of the reliability issues arise from the fact that the EJ series engines were never intended to do what Subaru was asking them to do. Comparatively, Toyota and VW (the worlds largest auto manufacturers) have huge R&D budgets. they also have the advantage of not using the boxer platform, which has unique challenges to manufacture and engine reliability. I will say that as a professional mechanic, I distain Audi because of the hideous complexity of the car's electrical systems. mechanically they are sound, but when they hit 100k reliablity falls off a cliff. Dont believe me? go look at your local classifieds for Audis over 100k. here in Utah, there are TONs of them for dirt cheap with a host of complicated problems. Cadillacs? personally i don't really like them. i grew up in the 90's and 2000s and IMHO, practically all american made cars at that time just seemed cheap with poor quality control. So In my opinion, yea subaru has their issues, but their easy to work on, and they are nice cars to live with on a daily basis.

My '03 OBS had 194K on it when I traded it in on my '07 B9 Tribeca.  Still have the Tribeca today, a flawless 130K miles on it.  My '06 LL Bean Forester that was built and purchased in '05 has over 270K miles on it and I beat the crap out of it daily.  It needed head gaskets and a timing belt/water pump/front crank seal at 140K - so what?

Cars require maintenance.  My nephew has an Impreza and a Forester, and both are trashed because he lives on a 25 mile gravel road and he drives it like he stole it, runs the oil 12K miles in New Mexico where he lives, and couldn't change a spark plug if his life depended on it.  BTW, SOA just changed the failed CVT in the Forester 40K miles out of warranty.  Try to get that out of Toyota or Honda, or the Big 3.

I had a '94 Audi 90S, great car, non-Quattro - until it overheated due to a bad thermostat and warped both heads.  My '02 S4 Biturbo was junk 6 mos after purchase and went back to Audi forever.  My wife's '98 A6 went back at the same time because it needed a $4K timing belt replacement and wasn't worth it.  We went to Subaru and never looked back.  I am only dissatisfied with today's models because of the CVT and the built-in ICE that will be obsolete in four years.

Our Subie Stable:

Edited August 28, 2023 by kattz