cplourde Posted July 14, 2018 Share Posted July 14, 2018 Just had my 2017 Outback in for its 30k service, and was surprised by the things they had my wife authorize: F Automatic Trans Front and Rear Differential Fluid Change with Factory Fluid Filled to Factory Recommended Level: $329.29 G This comprehensive fuel/emissions system cleaning kit includes three advanced formulations: a gas tank additive that cleans fuel injector & intake valves without disassembly; Throttle Plate & Induction Cleaner, high-pressure aerosol chemical mist: $295.95 In the experience of Subaru owners on this forum, is this common stuff? My manual says the differential fluid should be checked at 60,000 miles, not 30,000, and says nothing about what sounds like a fancy version of STP. Feeling like she got "upsold" $635.92 of stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1 Lucky Texan Posted July 14, 2018 Share Posted July 14, 2018 yes, many dealerships will try to brow-beat owners into an 'accelerated' maintenance schedule. They just do it for $$$ reasons. Insist on following the schedule in the manual (which, you can have done by anyone, including yourself or independent shop) UNLESS the car actually is used in an 'extreme duty' manner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted July 14, 2018 Share Posted July 14, 2018 (edited) Nice - that second one is a wallet flush. Egregiously overpriced - They buy all that stuff for about $40 and it takes the tech like 15 minutes to do it. All profit for no work at all. Totally awesome (for them). Does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Probably does more harm than good taking the airbox on and off that often. Reassembly mistakes - they use a $10/Hr lube tech for this stuff. Seriously there is ZERO measurable benefit to these snake oil cleaning products - besides at 30k there's literally nothing to clean. That engine should be spotless inside unless you drove through a volcanic eruption without an air filter. As a shop owner I am both well aware of, and completely disgusted by these practices and will NEVER allow this sort of thing in my shop. I literally run the snake oil salesman off my property with threats of violence. That sort of service provides NO benefit to the customer. In our experience the rear diff gear oil is pretty nasty at 30k. Front is usually fine. We do 30k rear, and 60k front. We have seen some rear diff failures on the limited slip models starting in the 2000's on up. Better safe. But rear diff gear oil change should be $60. It's a 0.5 hour and 10.25 for the Subaru gear oil. She got completely ripped off. Sorry. GD Edited July 14, 2018 by GeneralDisorder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmdew Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 Yep, find a good Independent Subaru shop (like GD's) and establish a relationship with them. You and your Subaru will be happy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numbchux Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 Yea, that seems pretty expensive for injector cleaner.... Rear diff oil is certainly a good idea, front diff and CVT is probably overkill at 30k, but I wouldn't say it's a waste. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idosubaru Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 Completely hosed. Reread what GD said about the fuel system - fuel systems in Subarus never need cleaned. There are some great dealers and some bad ones, for every manufacturer. You got a bad one...or at least a very expensive, upselling, one if they are honest and high quality. The ATF doesn't ever need changed - Subaru says for the transmission fluid: "Replace only under severe driving or towing conditions. " I'm not saying I wouldn't change it - but certainly not for a long time. There's gobs of people going 200,000 miles on ATF, they're not on these forums but it's common and I know many people like that, just average light use commuters and that's what they've always done, they don't pay attention to ATF and they've never had a reason too. Anyway - that's typically on vehicles that *are* supposed to have the fluid changed. Yours isn't even required by Subaru engineers to be changed at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
golucky66 Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 (edited) Just want to throw this out there as information. Lets all note that the transmissions on 2011 ish up Subarus are all CVTs which take more abuse and are fragile compared to the 4EAT and 5EATs. Some people change there ATF on a traditional automatic transmission as often as 30k with some not at all. With the higher failure rate of CVTs, wouldn't it be a decent investment/preventative maintenance to change the CVT fluid more then when it blows up? Also, car manufactures aren't in the business of keeping cars going 200,000 miles. Sure Subaru prides them self on "97% of Subaru's made in the past 10 years are still on the road". But they don't make money from keeping them going that long, if anything they lose money in the short term. So why would they want you to change your CVT fluid when it should last the life of the vehicle (I.E. 150k miles) Especially when they have to compete to have low maintenance cost in order to sell cars and compete with Kia's and Hyundai's low initial cost? Secondly, WRXs 14+ (or right around 14') and 2018 models have Direct Injected engines. If any of you are up to date in the automotive world, direct injected engines have tones of issues with carbon build up. While this 17' Outback isn't a DI (that I can recall). A intake valve cleaning via chemicals isn't going to hurt the valves on a DI engine and again goes along with the CVT fluid exchange. Preventative maintenance. Whats 300 $ to do a BG direct injected fuel and intake service, when if the carbon does build up you either need to get to a shop with the equipment to walnut blast it, or spend thousands to disassemble the engine to de-carbon it. Edited July 16, 2018 by golucky66 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 (edited) Subaru's don't have the DI carbon problem. They have 4 extra port injectors to clean the intake valves in addition to the main DI injectors. This is a system they borrowed from Toyota and I haven't seen a single problem with intake carbon build up. The early CVT's were fragile. The fluid should be changed every 30k on the pre-HD models. GD Edited July 17, 2018 by GeneralDisorder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
golucky66 Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 Did not know that about the DI engines. Good to know. Is with the newer CVT, more durable or not. It doesn't make sense to change the fluid every 100k? Maybe less frequently then 30k, but the whole "sealed for life" isn't possible if you want to go 200k or more on your car...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1 Lucky Texan Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 so....what's the first year of the 'good' CVTs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 (edited) They introduced the HD model when the 3.6 got the CVT. It's also used on the 15+ WRX's. I am not sure when they quit using the non-HD unit on the NA 4 cylinders. Subaru is replacing the older CVT's at an alarming rate. They extended the warranty to 100k on all of them. We do believe that some of the rate of failure is due to extended fluid intervals. Fluid is cheap - transmissions aren't. We recommend all auto's - CVT or 4/5EAT have the fluid drain/fill done every 60k with synthetic or every 30k with the stock fluids. We prefer Amsoil ATF and CVT fluid and are comfortable with it at an "extended" interval of 60k. GD Edited July 17, 2018 by GeneralDisorder 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numbchux Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 (edited) 18 minutes ago, GeneralDisorder said: They introduced the HD model when the 3.6 got the CVT. It's also used on the 15+ WRX's. I am not sure when they quit using the non-HD unit on the NA 4 cylinders. Subaru is replacing the older CVT's at an alarming rate. They extended the warranty to 100k on all of them. We do believe that some of the rate of failure is due to extended fluid intervals. Fluid is cheap - transmissions aren't. We recommend all auto's - CVT or 4/5EAT have the fluid drain/fill done every 60k with synthetic. We prefer Amsoil ATF and CVT fluid. GD The high torque CVTs still aren't standard on the regular 4-cyl. But any CVT behind a turbo (WRX or FXT) or 6-cyl got the high torque (which uses an even more special fluid, which Subaru only sells in a 5 gallon bucket). It's odd, junkyards sell decent CVTs for relatively cheap ($1k or less, find a CVT for another manufacturer for that little) which usually indicates that there isn't much demand. But when they extended the warranty, we started replacing them like crazy (Subaru reman is $7k...). My mom drives a 2012 Impreza with the CVT. We've been doing a drain/fill every 30k miles. Yes, the fluid is like $25 a quart, and it uses more than 5 qts. But it's still cheap compared to replacing the trans. Edited July 17, 2018 by Numbchux Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 The Amsoil CVT fluid exceeds the specs of the Subaru fluid and is $10 a quart cheaper: https://www.amsoil.com/shop/by-product/transmission-fluid/automatic/synthetic-cvt-fluid/ GD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idosubaru Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 (edited) 47 minutes ago, Numbchux said: It's odd, junkyards sell decent CVTs for relatively cheap ($1k or less, find a CVT for another manufacturer for that little) which usually indicates that there isn't much demand. But when they extended the warranty, we started replacing them like crazy (Subaru reman is $7k...).. that is weird. seen it plenty of times on other manufacturers with transmission issues - they fail a lot, demand is high, and prices are high on something that has a good chance of failing again and is old. Isuzu, Ford exploders... i guess i could see it being partly because "surprising failure rate" doesn't necessarily have to outstrip supply....?? Edited July 17, 2018 by idosubaru Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 (edited) The early units from 2010, etc are just now starting to trickle out of warranty. It was extended to 10 years /100k and Subaru is good-willing plenty of them that are a little out of the mileage range, etc. The demand will SHARPLY rise and prices will skyrocket in the next couple years as Subaru say NO to the warranty requests. Mark my words. GD Edited July 17, 2018 by GeneralDisorder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numbchux Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 1 hour ago, GeneralDisorder said: The early units from 2010, etc are just now starting to trickle out of warranty. It was extended to 10 years /100k and Subaru is good-willing plenty of them that are a little out of the mileage range, etc. The demand will SHARPLY rise and prices will skyrocket in the next couple years as Subaru say NO to the warranty requests. Mark my words. GD I would not bet against you there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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