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Old 04-14-2022, 05:34 PM   #15
DickR
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Moultonborough
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You will spend at least $20K for a new car, and likely more. If you get 10 years out of it, that's $2K/year. If you spend that each year in repairs, you break even, so laying out some money to buy a few more years isn't a waste. To me, 100K miles isn't that old, as many cars go easily beyond 200K miles.

As for Subaru failures, sure, they have had some problems over the years, as have most kinds. Most notable for us was the "oil consumption" issue Subaru and others had in model years around 2011-15. In trying to meet CAFE requirements, some manufacturers didn't get attempts to cut engine friction quite right, and excessive oil consumption was the result. Some manufacturers were stingy regarding what they called "excessive" and what they would do to make things right. Subaru wasn't the worst in terms of excessive consumption, yet they had a quite decent standard on what was considered excessive (1/3 quart over a 1200 mile test run).

What you get in service on something like this can vary with the dealer. When we got the notice about the oil issue on our 2012 Forester, after about 80K miles on the car, I went out to the garage and pulled the dipstick. There wasn't anything showing. Since the car was due for an oil change anyway, I took it in right away and told the shop what my concern was. Measuring the oil drain out, it was 3 quarts down. When the next change was due, I took the car to the dealer where we bought it, they changed the oil at no cost, and the 1200 mile test run thus began. After that run, I took the car back, checking the dipstick before leaving home (low by over the 1/3 quart). I guess they didn't want to do any remediation under the warranty, at whatever rate the parent company would pay. Bottom line: not only was there no drop in oil level after the car was back out of the shop (out of sight from me), there was a bit more oil in the crankcase than at the start of the 1200 mile test! Basically, they had added about a half quart on the sly. Needless to say, that dealership will never see us again.

A few months later, I took the car to another Subaru dealership and explained what had happened. Another 1200 mile test was run, and this time, as I watched, oil was added to bring it back up to level. After doing a few calculations, the service manager told me we needed a new block. We got a loaner car for a couple of days, while the new block was installed. Net cost to us: zero!
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