This ENTIRE Subaru Engine IS SCRAP! So Much Damage In A FORESTER? EJ253 RIP
Caution: this autopsy is not for the faint of heart or those given to queasiness.
Subaru: Boxer Engines. Lineatronic CVTs.
From my fanboi perspective, these technologies are not, strictly speaking, “unreliable”.
What they are is manufactured by a smaller auto company with relatively razor-thin margins.
There’s a lack of … tolerance, here. There is very little margin for error.
This circumstance is directly reflected in the internal physical operations of the major drivetrain components themselves.
The slim margins are cast into the very metal.
Most of the time it all works out fine.
But the older things get, and the less perfect the adherence to the maintenance schedule, and without going over and above it by doing things like checking the oil every 1000 miles instead of just letting them check it whenever the filter gets changed …
The narrower the tolerances become. And …
When as a result, things do go wrong, the failures ramp up and start to cascade quickly.
Within minutes. Sometimes within seconds.
That’s the real real truth of it as best as I can make it out, and say it.
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Subarus are, in a very specific sense of the word, Fragile Inside.
And, in a different specific sense, very tough on the outside.
No one and I mean no one else has the true miracle that is Symmetrical AWD.
Like I said 15 years ago when I chose a Subaru to be the first (and possibly the last) New Car of my life, what I care about most is my car’s ability to stick to the pavement no matter what, no matter whether that pavement is covered in blowing and drifting snow, hydroplane rain, or glare ice.
By that metric, it was, and is, the little japanese emperor, the pint-sized king.
10/10, would and will buy again.
Now to figure out …
Just how to make it happen, in the dollars and cents sense.
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Contrary Opinion: Subaru Sucks (and it might be Toyota’s fault)
So yeah. Buy a very old one, with a manual transmission and as few miles as possible.
Like the Rocky Mountain Edition, right? Dammit.
(“I was under the impression that Subaru had sorted out the problems with their CVTs by the ’14 or ’16 or ’19 model” yeah me too but apparently not.
Ultimately the problem here isn’t CVTs or Subaru or Toyota or anything obvious like that.
Ultimately the problem is this world, and civilization, and the profit motive, and the necessity of hiring expensive lawyers to have any hope of anything resembling fairness, much less justice. Shit like that.
Mayhap the generation of my nephews or niece will be allowed to import or drive some nice sweet capable Chinese EV that can tow a camper without breaking the bank.)