Subaru issues temporary stop sale on all vehicles equipped with 2.5L turbo engine

[hklaine]

did a quick search and didn't see this posted yet.

 

April 7

 

Subaru of America has issued a stop sale on all models equipped with the company's 2.5L turbocharged

four-cylinder engine. The stop sale — which affects Forester, Legacy and Impreza vehicles equipped with the engine built in January and February — is due to a potential engine wear issue.

 

According to the stop sale order issued to all U.S. Subaru dealers, in markets outside of the U.S., Subaru has received complaints of an engine knock in vehicles equipped with the 2.5L turbo engine. After investigating, Subaru determined that the engine noise was due to engine wear and has since discovered which batches of vehicles are at risk of being equipped with the faulty component.

No U.S. models have been reported to have the problem, but Subaru

wants to ensure it's not selling its customers faulty vehicles.

The defect is said not to impact vehicles with the naturally aspirated version of the 2.5L or any other displacement engines.

[bulwnkl]

It actually looks like this:

 

APRIL 4, 2008

IMMEDIATE STOP SALE ORDER

ALL SUBARU DEALERS

 

We regret to inform you that we must place an immediate stop sale order on all of the 2008/2009 Subaru Impreza and Forester vehicles equipped with a 2.5L Turbo Engine produced with the beginning chassis number and later as shown below.

Model Starting Chassis Number Production Date

 

Forester 701045 2008/01/08

Impreza 523363 ( SEDAN )/825183 (HATCH)2008/01/08

 

 

 

The reason for this immediate Quality Assurance action is that there have been several reports of “Engine Knocking Noise” from other markets on vehicles produced after the production dates listed.

 

Initial investigation confirms an internal wear issue on the failed units.

 

In the interest of preventing any possibility of failures for our customers, we have chosen to isolate any potentially affected vehicles by ceasing sales of the potentially affected units until the root cause and correction can be identified.

 

All the other displacement engines and the 2.5L Natural Aspirated Engine are excluded from this action.

 

Your region/distributor will be contacting you with a detailed list of affected vehicles assigned to your dealership. However, dealer trades cannot be tracked so please be aware of the affected VIN range.

 

If you have a vehicle in inventory that falls into the affected vehicle range, please ensure that your sales and service staff are immediately notified that the unit is un-saleable until further notice from SOA or your region/distributor.

 

If any of those vehicles has an unusual engine noise, please notify the SOA Technical Helpline immediately with all of the details and submit an E-QMR.

 

Should a customer bring an affected vehicle into your service department for an unusual engine noise, please immediately arrange that they are given the use of a clean SSLP vehicle and notify the Technical Helpline and submit an E-QMR.

 

You will be contacted shortly thereafter on how to proceed.

 

We are still investigating whether any of the SIA produced Legacy Outback turbo vehicles are affected. If any action is needed on the SIA vehicles, you will be notified early next week.

[EVOthis]

wow......never seen one of these before....

[Hotshot]

I suppose its better that Subaru is admitting to it now instead of consumers finding out the hard way in a few years.

[crazyhorse001]

Kudos to Subaru, for looking out for it's customers!!!

[screwbaru2]

Guess they learned their lesson from the HG issue. Good for them.

[johnceggleston]

I suppose its better that Subaru is admitting to it now instead of consumers finding out the hard way in a few years.

 

it sounds like it would only take a few weeks to present as a problem. too bad they didn't do this with the head gaskets. oh well, live and learn.

[OB99W]

Guess they learned their lesson from the HG issue. Good for them.

I'm a bit more cynical. I believe that if this problem mostly presented outside the warranty period (like bad head gaskets and piston slap), no such action would have been taken. I don't think Subaru has learned anything, other than that they could get away with some things, but this one might bite them.