| Components - Details | |
|---|---|
| NHTSA Complaint Number: 004026201 | Incident Date: May, 14 2004 |
| Consumer's City: BERKELEY | Consumer's State: CA |
| Vehicle Transmission Type: AUTO | Manufacturers Name: Subaru of America, Inc. |
| Model Name: OUTBACK | Model Year: 1998 |
| Vehicle Involved in a Crash: No | Component's Description: Power train:automatic transmission |
| Vehicle Involved in a Fire: No | Persons Injured: 0 |
| Vehicle's VIN#: 4S3BG6852W7 | Date added to File: May, 23 2021 |
| Date Complaint Received: Jun, 26 2005 | Complaint Type: IVOQ |
| Incident Reported To Police: No | Purchase Date: Sep, 08 1997 |
| Was Original Owner: Yes | Anti-lock Brakes: Yes |
| Number of Cylinders: 4 | Date of Manufacturer: - |
| Was Vehicle Towed: - | Description of the Complaints: The automatic transmission failed with just 61,000 easy miles. the failure was in the clutch assembly (it would not decelerate when taking pressure off the gas pedal). i took it to the dealer and the manager told me that the drive train was technically out of warranty and that i would be responsible for a new transmission. (before 60,000 i had the dealer check out the whole car and they could find nothing. when the transmission failed i took it in again and the mechanic told me "nothing is wrong"... i am not kidding; they were not competent enough to know that the transmission was not performing properly!!). after that experience there was no way i was going to replace the transmission with another subaru product. i took it to aamco for a rebuild. the mechanic there told me that the factory settings for the clutch assembly were set at 50 thousandths and should have been set at 15 thousandths or less. in other words, the factory built the transmission to self-destruct. when i approached takao saito, president of subaru about this problem, he had linda fouch contact me by telephone. she promised to help out with the repair bill because the failure was so close to the warranty. when she discovered that i was not interested in litigaton, she promptly forgot her promise and failed to respond to any further correspondence! if subaru is to keep its loyal customer base, it needs to aggressively address the problem of quality control and mend the bad experiences of its patronage. |
