Last
on November 28 2011In October 2008 I bought a £21,000 Subaru Legacy RE Estate, one of the new Boxer Diesels.
Every day I wonder why!
Its spent a fair amount of time at the Heritage Leicester dealership, where they've done their very best, which frankly has been poor at best. A dealership to avoid.
The story of Cato, my Subaru Legacy Diesel Sports RE
2008 October
Took delivery of the car. Collected it from the garage, the tank was empty so filled her up with BP's finest. My wife, following in our Audi, noticed it smoked (black soot) a lot when I pulled out of junctions. Put it down to being new.
2008 October
Reported that the car was smoking excessively when accelerating, in to dealer for investigation, no fault found.
2008 November
Wrote to Subaru UK (IM Group) to voice my concern regarding the excessive soot from the exhaust pipe when accelerating.
2008 November
The first thing to fail was the Cruise control switch assembly on steering wheel, reported faulty, after the buttons started sticking.
2008 December
Subaru wrote back about the Soot problem.
2009 February
Cruise control switch replaced, it took 4 months to source a replacement switch!
2009 March
Clutch judder reported, investigated, told no fault found.
2009 Spring/Summer
Regarding the soot issue, later in 2009 the car eventually cured itself during one of its alleged 'self-calibration' moments. Now I just get two lanes of smoke if I give the car some welly after cruising, which is apparently the DPF being purged, so thats alright then clearly.
2010 July
Whilst in for a service, the tracking was adjusted (Cost of £50) to cure the car pulling to the left, which it had done since new. I also complained about a water leak, on the near side rear window, which whilst washing the car, was letting water in to the car. This was cured by reseating the window seal apparently.
2010 July
Noticed when washing the car, that there was rust, on the bodywork, above the fuel filler cap. Took it in to the dealer, and they've done nothing about it. Said they were going to photograph the area and send it to Subaru UK, but as far as I know, this never happened.
2010 July
Airconditioning faulty - Reported to Dealership, and said it would be two weeks before they could get their expert to sort this out. I called the engineer directly, and he came to my house one evening to fix it. When the system was purged, no gas found to be present. So he filled it, and it is now working 100%. Die added to refrigerant, but no leaks have since been found. I suspect that given the performance of the air conditioning today, it was never working properly from when I took delivery of the car. It was always pushing warm air in to the car no matter what the temperature was set to.
2010 August
Clutch judder reported again, investigated again, and again told no fault found. I demonstrated the fault to a technician, and the dealers then finally conceeded that there was something wrong, and said that they'd change the clutch.
2010 October
Gearbox removed, Clutch replaced, flywheel skimmed and refitted, Gearbox refitted. Dealer asked me to pay £1000 for the work and I said it was a warranty claim. After a few minutes silence, they confirmed that it was a warranty claim, and gave me back my keys. Pulling out of the forecourt it was immediately obvious that there was no improvement, so calling the dealer on the way home they agreed to try changing the flywheel and the car was booked in for the following Monday.
2010 October
Gearbox removed, Flywheel replaced, Gearbox refitted. Even the dealer admitted that the fault wasn't cured, and they'd even tried riding the clutch to see if it was a mismatch between the new flywheel and the clutch replaced the week before, but all that resulted in was a very smelly car. Agreed to change the clutch and flywheel together for new items, and the car was booked in for the following Monday.
2010 November
Gearbox removed, Flywheel and clutch replaced,Gearbox refitted - Judder cured. Its a different car now. Not even provocation can make it judder. Happy :D
2011 January
Engine refuses to start when warm/hot. Takes approx 10 attempts to coax the engine in to life. The car is booked in for investigation on February 4th 2011.
You can see a video here of the engine refusing to star!
2011 February 4th
Engine hot start problem. The car went in to the dealers today, with the description of the fault, and I even showed the Service Desk the video on my phone of it refusing to start. Their technician called to say it started ok, and asked me to describe the problem again. So I re-iterated it wouldn't do it from cold, or warm, but the engine had to be hot, ie temperature needle at 9 O'Clock. Several hours later they called to say that they'd road tested the car, and had it on the ramps, pressed all the connections from the ignition key all the way through to the starter motor, and found nothing. After 4pm I collected Cato. I spotted that the odometer had the exact same milage as when I dropped it off, so rang the dealers on the way home to complain. Fred Heritage, the owner, called me back to apologise (when I rang I got through to Stuart Hill, the franchise manager), and I explained how angry I was at being told that they'd road tested it, when the milage hadn't changed on the dashboard. Whilst speaking to Mr Heritage, I did mention that the fault only occured after the car was hot, ie it had been driven, so its most likely related to the Turbo or EGR valve getting hot, and how leaving the engine running in the workshop wasn't likely to simulate the same conditions. I also mentioned many of the previous visits, the three times that the gearbox had been removed to fix the clutch judder, the excessive soot issue, the air con issue, the steering issue. He didn't sound like the staff had completely filled him in with the history of this vehicle. After an assurance that this was extraordinary, and that he'd perform his own internal investigation, I'm expecting a call back on Monday.
Sure enough, after the journey home, I turned the engine off and tried to start it, and the first three times, encouragingly it started, but then it failed to start for the next few times until eventually bursting in to life. So the fault is still present.
This is another video taken of the fault on 31st Jauary 2011, recorded at the BP station at Ashchurch (A46/M5) on my journey down to Somerset. So the car has rested for 5 minutes after a 90 minute journey, and the fault is still present.
And this video was taken today, after the short journey home, including a quick blast along the dual carriageway, however, its not as hot as it would be after an hour on the motorway.
2011 February 7th
No phone call
2011 February 8th
Finally a call this afternoon, and the car is booked in on 18th Feb for their number one technician to investigate. So a quick blast up and down the M1 should make Cato misbehave, but you know these intermittent faults...
2011 March 8th
The Subaru was serviced today, the 36000 mile service, and she passed with no major faults.
2011 March 12th
I spotted a soft near side front tyre this morning, and inspecting the tyre for the cause of the loss of air, I managed to cut a finger on something sticking out in the inside shoulder of the tyre. I turned the wheel to full right lock, and discovered to my horror, that there was wire sticking out of the tyre. I drove over to National Tyres for them to fit two new tyres, and when they removed the front wheel, was mortified to discover a huge chunk of rubber missing from the shoulder of the tyre. This tyre was on the car at the service only 4 days earlier, and was not detected nor was it reported to me.
2011 March 14th
I took the tyre over to the main dealer in Leicester during my lunch break, to check their inspection process. They claimed to check every tyre for tread depth and overall wear and tear. I then showed them the tyre. And invited the technician who worked on the car to come out to have a look. He had a look, and then denied the tyre was like that when he serviced the car. Which he then repeated over and over again, adamant that the damage had occured between the 36000 mile service and when I noticed the fault the following Saturday. I left, with the tyre, feeling yet again that Heritage Leicester didn't care, and didn't have the competence now to even carry out something as basic as a tyre inspection. I wonder what they actually do for a service, other than claiming to change the oil and filters.
2011 May
The tyre has been sent off to Cooper Tire Ltd for inspection. The Subaru has a tendancy now to make a loud bang sound from under the passenger front seat, when I change down. Sounds like the exhaust or something else underneath is hitting the floor when the engine moves. But seeing as the gearbox has been off three times, who knows what Heritage Leicester forgot to bolt back on.
2011 June
The car went in to have the knocking noise investigated, and it turned out that an exhaust bracket was loose. The tyre was diagnosed as a Component Seperation, and Cooper Tires gave me a 30% refund on the price of a new tyre. I'll put this towards a pair of Bridgestone Tyres for the rear axle.
2011 August
The Subaru is running really well at the moment. I've made my own rear mudflaps from some tough black Nylon, and they reduce the tendancy for the rear window to get covered in rain when driving on the motorway. I managed 54mpg on one trip to Somerset, which meant slipstreaming some 40Tonne trucks, but it just shows how frugal the Legacy Diesel is if treated gently.
2011 September 9th
Fitted four new tyres on the Scooby. The rears, the original Bridgestones fitted when I bought the car, had 45,750 miles on them, and the Wanli's on the front were only fitted as a stop gap in March. So I purchased four Bridgestone Potenza S001's from www.blackcircles.co.uk in a wider 225/45ZR17 size (10mm wider than the standard 215/45ZR17's), and since they've been fitted, the car has far less road noise.
Autotrader car review
In January 2011, to try and win £1000, I entered a competition, by writing a car review on the Autotrader web site.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
SUBARU LEGACY 2.0D RE 5dr (Review date: 25th January '11)
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-reviews/subaru/legacy/41670
So I wonder where I go next?
This Subaru is such a Lemon.
Never had so many problems before with a car < 3 years old.
And to put this in to perspective, my colleagues 3 yr old BMW 3 series has 102,000 miles on the clock without a single fault!
Is it too late for trading standards to get involved?
Is the car too old now at 31 months old?
Does Subaru give two hoots?
