Read this, They are not going to fix my tranny cause I was seen driving my car at the SoloII Nationals.

http://www.i-club.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=99620

When I broke the gear, which was last Sunday. It was a month after the Nationals.

That's part of racing. You have to pay for what you break.

The SCCA doesn't call SoloII, "racing".
That and this is BS. They promote SCCA SoloII events and pay out to drivers at the SoloII National and Tour events. Plus this had nothing to do with racing.

You may not get too far with this, but remind them that Subaru is giving free SCCA memberships to WRX purchasers...I'd sure like to see them void a WRX warranty for SCCA autox.

This is BS!! How can they give out free SCC memberships to people who but the WRX and then void there warranty for useing it.. I would take them to court over this.

read the fine print here...

http://www.mypersonaldrive.com/InTheDirt.html

there's no way they will warranty a car that's been raced.. that means solo... rallyx... etc.

and 2nd gear is always the first gear to go... it's a known subaru fact... sigh... sorry to hear of your woes...

jamie
www.subiegal.com

Yeah, if you check your warantee, it says something like "warantee will be void if the vehichle is raced or used in any competition".

To me, that sounds like even a ROAD RALLY can void your warantee!!! Ouch!

--Roy

autocross is not racing. it is not a coincidence that the "R" word appears in the Solo2 rulebook exactly zero times. some people do ABUSE their cars while autocrossing, and of course abuse isn't ever covered.

read Pat's link to the MWIC discussion, it's all there. obviously I don't think he has a defensible case, but if you disagree then by all means lend him your support. or better yet, money. ;)

There are ways at looking at the gear which would suggest the cause of failure. Since it will have to be replaced anyway you ought to "shop" the gear around for opinions. Of course we all know the gear is a weakness in the car anyway 'underdesigned' but if you can prove it was failed due to a mfg weakness/flaw then I would think they would have to pay for it regardless of your solo II passions.

Then again a 'dawg-box' tranny might be a nice upgrade for your auto-x hobby. (legality?)

My Subaru Warranty and Maintenance Booklet says, in part:The car is not eligible for warranty coverage if ... the car is ever used in any race or other competitive event.I seems that if you've ever entered the car in a competitive event, even if it didn't take place on a race track or involve side-by-side racing, you've voided all of your SoA warranties. Why would anyone be surprised about that?

Originally posted by Jon [in CT]
Why would anyone be surprised about that?

Gee I wonder... Perahaps in part due to Subarus involvement in the SCCA and the fact you get a free membership when you buy a WRX? :rolleyes:

- Steve

My condolences on your tranny, though I'd have to agree that a race is a race, and competition is competition, you competed in the soloII nats, so that'd be competition, now your car doesn't have to break at the nats for it to be damaged during that type of driving and later break when you're on the street.

Again sorry...

Subaru is paying for your membership into a club.... not for your entrance fee to an event.

You realize you can be a member of the NRA and not own a gun.
You can be a republican and vote for Al Gore.
You can be gay and sleep with women.

Just because SOA is giving you a membership to the SCCA doesn't mean you can enter your car in the Pikes Peak Hill Climb and expect warantee work when your car drives off a cliff....

--Roy

Well said Roy.

warranty coverage is NOT being denied in this case exclusively due to autocross.

read the other thread...

Wow...some pretty harsh words from some folks who I venture have never autoXed competitively.

With the exception of the launch for Scoobies and other AWD cars, AutoX is *HARDLY* tough on your tranny. Most courses are 1 upshift, occasionaly
a 2-3, with a downshift quickly after.

Regardless, there is a *SERIOUS* issue with SoA potentially denying warranty claims based off of SCCA AutoX. Lume, while your points are entertaining to read, they are not at all on point: quite the opposite in fact. By giving people a membership to SCCA, SoA is encouraging participation. Plain and simple: they are saying this is a good place, especially for our fine vehicles.

There is no disclaimer when they give those memberships out, correct? And we all know how quicky any major corporation is to issue disclaimers for liability: we see it all the time on TV (closed course: professional driver only. Please drive safely within the legal speed limits, etc...)

That being said, I agree with ColinL: you are going to have a fight on your hands because the dealership now has something to sink their teeth into with your ACT. You altered the OEM powertrain. The powertrain broke. SoA does not have to stand by their warranty for the powertrain anymore. They don't need any other reason then the ACT. :(

I know it sucks....and I do feel for you. But for these reasons, many people choose not to alter their drive/powertrains. It would be easy to replace the turbo in the WRX with a nice BB unit, and even if I run the same 1 bar boost as stock, and let the ECU taper boost, if something breaks in the engine or powertrain, I would not expect SoA to fix it.

Good news to hear you found some replacements for a fair dollar though. If the dealership continues to stand by the 'you were racing line', then I would try to get that in writing, and persue it with SoA. You may get a goodwill repair out of it, if they are ignoring the clutch. One thing in your favor with the clutch: you had a dealership put it in. Its almost a bit of informed consent, that the dealer was fine with the part. But that is a matter for legal debate.

Good luck,

- b

Originally posted by LUME

You can be gay and sleep with women.
--Roy

No roy.. sorry at that point you would no longer be gay, then you would be Bisexual. at least that's the way I read the sexual handbook

oh and to stay on topic, I'm suprised a soloII driver will blow second gear, I know several subaru's that autocross locally and one driver powershifts second with sticky hoosiers (hi rock)

I can see Drag racing where the car gets stupid grip on a launch.. ok and rally does strange things to cars. but autocross is fairly benign.

I !!!_personally_!!! feel subaru made a mistake with the transmission and should fix it. YES I know it says in the warranty you are not covered, but there is no excuse for a billion dollar companay like Subaru to sell products that are that fragile, not at least when they continue to show on their comercials how strong their cars are to be "rally champions"

come to think of it Audi uses a similar BASIC design to subaru for their quattro transmissons.. lemme see how many I've known to blow trannies..... oh None. and I've see a track audi quattro runing the torque of a Corvette V8 without breakage.. I guess that's what you get for twice the price.

Jeff

Let me just say what has been said before, but try to neaten it up.

When you buy a car with warranty that warranty is for street use. Subaru is giving you the SCCA membership just as a membership. If you choose to use your WRX with that membership then you have just turned your car in the eyes of subaru from a street car to track car.

Ferrari suggests that the 360 Competition to be used for racing events, but don't expect ferrari's nice 3 year unlimited mile warranty to hold up after you do.

Subaru also encourages you to drive your AWD car offroad by showing you pictures of their rally cars.... does that mean they will support you when you drive off a cliff? NO!

Bottom line is autox IS tough on your car. I've let Jeff drive my car at an autox.... I know (not to mention that 4 years of autox experience and 1 year of track experience).

And jeff, there is nothing wrong with the subaru transmission. When was the last time you saw someone trash one at an autox??? Oh yeah, never.


--Roy

Hold on a mo' here.

Let's look at the situation. The original poster (KC_Topdog) NO LONGER had the stock clutch. Regardless of Solo II use, I think SoA has a point in denying tranny warranty coverage if a more aggressive clutch was in the car.

Second, I know of at leat one case where a competitor at a Rocky Mountian / Continental Divide region event developed serious engine trouble DURING a Solo II event. The car was towed directly from the event to a local dealer, who replaced the engine, UNDER WARRANTY.

The difference? Without knowing all the specifics, I'd say (1) The engine problems probably couldn't be attributed to a mod of some kind, and (2) Good relationships with a local dealer who supports the enthusiast community.

TopDog: I'm sorry to hear about your tranny difficulties. What class were you running at Nats? Hopefully, I'll see you there next August.

Regards,
Joe

What's really funny about the way Subaru states their rule on warranty coverage is they could get out of fixing your car even if it was in a car show competition at anytime.

They don't ellaborate on "competitive event" in their official statement. So someone who entered their car at Nopi Nationals would be out of luck if there cup holder broke. You know how tough a competition can be on a cup holder. :rolleyes:

This is a similar situation.

If you were to get an insurance policy for your health and with that policy was a membership into a sky diving club. However, if you were to ever get hurt sky diving you would not be covered under your insurance.

I bet this is the kind of case that would eventually win in court if you had a ton of money. However, since the owner of the car in question changed the clutch in the car too I would bet he doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Since we're are all smart enough to drive around and talk on a board like this we should be smart enough to know that Subaru isn't going to sponser each and everyone of us in the racing world through warranty coverage.

A few things should be said here:
1. Oh, they wrote that in the manual? That's nice. That's also irrelevant when you start talking about court. The legality of the statements will be evaluated there, they are NOT 'law' just because someone wrote it in a book and printed it.
2. They may win in court, but they could never win in the court of public opinion. Noone may dispute the ultimate legality of their claims, but far fewer people will buy their cars if word gets out that they put a fundamentally flawed and weak transmission in a car, encouraged people to use it in autox events, and then refused warranty service.
3. There is plenty of precedence for this. Chevy showed potential C5 owners alot of race footage, etc. in their sales video and then denied warranty claims when engines started coming in dead from oil starvation after sustained high-g turns. Chevy's excuse? Well, we don't cover something thats been raced. Want to know what happened? They settled out of court with all claimants after it became painfully obvious that they were going to LOSE and BADLY.

Essentially, the issue is this. If they cannot provide witness testimony to your alleged racing, then all they can provide is secondary analysis (blued flywheel, etc.). All you have to do is provide an equal number of counter testimony showing how that can occur from normal use (foot slipping off clutch, etc.) in court, and legal precedent takes over.

Oh, btw, I don't see anything in the manual telling you that you need to use a specific gear-change procedure from 1-2 to prevent it from breaking. If they sell you something that cannot handle the stock power, and it breaks because of it (look, a powershift is simply a _completely normal shift_ albeit performed quickly) THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE, PERIOD. Your dealership can tell you whatever they want, but if you don't just cave in, you _will_ get it resolved. That may mean having to retain an attorney, etc. and threatening lawsuit and public exposure, but your personal strength determines that, not SOA.

Finally, you are essentially SOL since you put a non-OEM spec clutch in the car. Sorry.

LOL :)

Nice Essay, Very informative with a great moral....

Finally, you are essentially SOL since you put a non-OEM spec clutch in the car. Sorry.

Okay, You all got good points, Now lets get our torches and hunt down subaru's corporate structure. Look, it just seems that most of the people who are having problems with their awd and tranny and powertrain in general, tend to " abuse " their cars. Be it through racing, auto-x, rally-x, drag racing, etc. When we all moan and complain about how subaru gives scca memberships, or writes something in their warranty book, what are we doing? It seems just like we screw up, and then try to get the repairs for free.

Now about quoting subaru policies and nit picking about how they said this or didn't say that, that gets old fast. Look why not drive without using the clutch, maybe just use it for starts, but grind it like a dog box for all other gears, after all, subaru didn't say that " you absolutely had to use the clutch all the time ". It gets kind of dumb fast, arguements like this can go on forever, and well, usually do...

Look, I'm not trying to start any flames or insult anyone here, I just want to say that when we drive our cars for anything other than street use, within reason, we shouldn't complain when something goes wrong.

Interesting also that Subaru promoted the cars to the press with a rally stage, using basically stock vehicles, and that they also promoted them to the dealers with 4 different sessions on the track in Arizona (including a "pro solo" type event).

But still, the fine print is the fine print.

I'd like to see someone challenge them though. Got a lawyer?
Is it legal for a manufacturer to have a warranty exclusion like that?

Reason being: most people are harder on their drivelines on the street than they are at an autocross!

Glenn

PS of course I've never raced my car. My current car that is.

I wonder if this tranny bru ha ha has anything to do with a rumor about the 'beefier' 6spd becoming the normal WRX tranny in Aussie ville for starters?

I guess the clutch thing would depend on why it was replaced:
- stock clutch fried, needed replacing, didn't want to put the 'delicate/problematic OEM' part back in ( not saying it is, just for the potential argument sake)

- planned to be hard on the car and needed some help

- who among us will replace the OEM clutch with another OEM, I will look around for sure. Depends on how long the stock one lasts. If he had the "shuddering problem" perhaps he felt it was defective... Many have experience that. The service manager told me to ' slip the clutch more ' to help with that.

The rally types pretty routinely break these trannys - how many other teams have that problem?

I probably will not break mine, the way I drive - I will work the clutch harder than the tranny just to be safe. But if my tranny does go, there is a lot of data about the tranny being a weakness, and I would pursue it.

I have a silver 2002 WRX with 80,000 miles and I just lost 2nd gear on it Christmas day. It's been at the dealer since and Friday they told me that they most likely will not warranty it even though I paid for the extended coverage to 100K. They deemed it as abuse. I have never raced my car in any competition nor have I put any parts that were not OEM except for a K&N filter. I also completed all of my scheduled maintenence and have every single oil change receipt.

It seems to me through the various searches I have ran that this is a fairly common problem. It also seems apparent that Subaru seems to be trying to find ways not to cover it. I have also seen claims that the tranny was changed in the 2003 models. I plan to fight this until the bloody end!!!

First of all, Subaru is not the only manufacturer to put that disclaimer in their warranty booklets...all of them do. Why? because when you modify you car or use it for a purpose other than designed for, things break.

For example, I have a warranty with my phone service that if anything happens to my phone lines, in side or out, they will come out and fix it for free. (I pay about $2 a month for the service, thus making it a "membership") When I had a problem with my phone line that was later discovered to be cut by a groundhog that dug a hole and cut the wire, I had to pay for it. Why? Because it was not the wiring that the root of the problem, the ground hog was....think of your vehicle being the wiring and the groundhog being the "race or event" you are in.

Second, there is a disclaimer on the SCCA membership application, I don't know the exact wording, because i threw mine away, but I am sure someone on here has it.

Third, I am sure if there was a poll about all the people that had a problem with their transmissions, and if people were COMPLETELY HONEST, (with the poll and themselves, ) there would be a pattern. I am sure if the poll was 100% accurate (which is virtualy impossible), then 99.9% of all transmissions problems would have some pattern of abuse.

I know have transmissions that have been sent back to Subaru for testing by the people that designed and built them and it has been determined exactly what causes not only 2nd gear, but all problems with the transmissions. Will this info ever be released? Probably not because then people would try to find a way around this "evidence". (Oh and I love the way people yell and complain about the trans and its "weakness" but probably couldn't build one from scratch to save their life)

My rant is over

After speaking with the service guys at the dealer today I was told that they will be covering my trans under warranty.