[bue car]

crap thats my car :[

compression issues and now this!

i feel like a sitting duck waiting for a knock.... pun intended

[CFar]

Ok, one or both of the "new" update/amendements is bogus. In the below listed notice it mentions that Legacy is effected, but has the "original" VIN range for the Impreza starting with 825. In the new amendment posted earlier in the post, it only mentions the new VIN range but nothing about the Legacy. In essence, something is bogus about the two "amendments" seeing as Subaru would likely have released one new amendment, and anything further would have included what was posted previously.

As for which one, or if both are junk is for time to tell I suppose.

Originally Posted by inpuressa

Saw this over at Nabisco. They claim it is legit from subarunet.
The disease seem to be spreading...

IMMEDIATE STOP SALE ORDER
TO: GLR-- MAR-- NWR-- SCR-- SDC-- SWR Dealers
FROM: Subaru of America, Inc.
DEPARTMENT: Service
DATE: 04/07/2008

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Legacy vehicles have been added to the Stop Sale

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

Model
Body Type
Chassis Number
Production Date

Forester Wagon 701045 or later 2008/01/08 or later

Legacy 2.5GT-LTD 222825 or later 2008/02/04 or later
2.5GT-B 222958 or later 2008/02/04 or later
OBK 2.5XT-LTD 353835 or later 2008/02/01 or later

Impreza Sedan 523363 or later 2008/01/08 or later
Wagon 825183 or later 2008/01/08 or later


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.

[enkidu]

66% of all STIs on the lots near San Jose, CA are affected. I see
this by doing a quick inventory search using subaru.com of the
8 closest dealers to where I'm sitting. That's 22/33 cars - for those
dealers which list VINs on their web sites. The guy who wrote
http://www.sutternow.com/sti/ could give us a better list. It
would be interesting to include all 2.5L turbos in the search.

[mofoSTI]

Originally Posted by bue car

crap thats my car :[

compression issues and now this!

i feel like a sitting duck waiting for a knock.... pun intended

I am sure you wont have to quack hard to get a new motor. Ask for the old pistons in a jar of formalahide (sp)

[ChrisKwan]

I just called my salesperson, he ran an search on mine and my STi is clean!

[bklynpanman]

Originally Posted by ChrisKwan

I just called my salesperson, he ran an search on mine and my STi is clean!

who cares

[BLACK 05 RS]

So to you people who think its the tune, why would it only affect certain vin numbers/ build dates. You think they made a change to the tune on all turbo vehicles starting from a certain vin number. I have a feeling it is a supplier issue(internal or external supplier) that sourced parts that were out of spec and causing problems. Again, this is only speculation. I just don't see a tune issue affecting the entire range of 2.5 turbo engines all with different tunes, i.e. legacy, impreza and forester.

[drdome99]

so how many cars is this affecting? Are the majority of '08s on dealers lots being put on stop sale? This could not be good for subuaru if people on the fence between a subaru and something else to go to a dealership and see a DO NOT SELL sign on the car because of an unknown mechanical issue.. or is it only a small batch?

[F1 fan]

I called my dealer and the service manager said that he heard that the problem could be fixed once the cars were at port. I don't know if this is accurate, but the dealer I go to seems to be pretty with it.

[DrPhyzx]

Originally Posted by CFar

Ok, one or both of the "new" update/amendements is bogus. In the below listed notice it mentions that Legacy is effected, but has the "original" VIN range for the Impreza starting with 825. In the new amendment posted earlier in the post, it only mentions the new VIN range but nothing about the Legacy. In essence, something is bogus about the two "amendments" seeing as Subaru would likely have released one new amendment, and anything further would have included what was posted previously.

As for which one, or if both are junk is for time to tell I suppose.

I received the exact notice you quoted from my dealer a few hours ago, so I am confident that it is real. I think the other "update" is bogus... whoever posted that one is full of it.

My car is a few hundred after the first affected number, but I've not noticed any odd sounds. Certainly there is a growl at light throttle and 2-3K RPM, but I've driven plenty of knocking cars (back in the days of carburetors and no knock sensors) and that's not knocking: sounds like an exhaust resonance. I'm running a Stage 1 tune, but even before that, with a serious paranoia of possible knocking on CA 91, there were maybe one or two moments when I thought I *might* have heard something, but never convincingly. Each time I was pretty sure it was my imagination.

Hopefully when they get to the bottom of it, their process control will be able to tell them exactly which cars got faulty parts, if it is indeed something mechanical.

[midnit]

I stopped by the dealer on the way home and they told me that this issue is only occuring in cars overseas and has yet to occur in the US. Not to say that it wont happen in the US, but that it hasn't thus far.

I think this is getting blown a bit out of proportion. If you hear excessive knock, take it into the dealer. If not, enjoy the car!

[deim]

Well, Canadian cars are definitely affected. Visited local d-ship an hour ago. Talked to the manager, he showed me a similar letter from Subaru Canada - with the exactly same VIN numbers.

Also, showed me a VIN number for my STi which I ordered - 8203xx! :-) So, looks like my sti is not affected

[ssauer2004]

Originally Posted by midnit

I stopped by the dealer on the way home and they told me that this issue is only occuring in cars overseas and has yet to occur in the US. Not to say that it wont happen in the US, but that it hasn't thus far.

I think this is getting blown a bit out of proportion. If you hear excessive knock, take it into the dealer. If not, enjoy the car!

I agree with you. There hasn't been one single problem with a U.S Spec STi. I stated earlier, all of the tuners that have beat these cars around doing countless dyno runs have never reported a problem. I'm not worried. If there is a problem, Subaru will fix it.

[inpuressa]

love how no US cars are affected "yet". Don't they come from the same factory? Or are we safe because we got the most watered down version? How ironic would that be.

Subaru issues "stop sale" on all models equipped with turbo'd 2.5-liter - Autoblog

[Rootus]

Originally Posted by inpuressa

love how no US cars are affected "yet". Don't they come from the same factory? Or are we safe because we got the most watered down version? How ironic would that be.

It may be that as they narrow the numbers down they find that the true range is quite small and there are no USDM cars affected. Or not. The advice to "not panic, worry about it when it happens" is very good avice indeed.