With the launch of the STi including the 6 speed transmission, what will happen on the warranty front regarding the 5 speed in the WRX?


If the STi proves to be reliable under all conditions with the 6 speed tranny and 300hp, it will only underline the fact that the 5 speed transmissions are either grossly underspecified or fundamentally defective. SOA has been attempting to cover that up ever since people started stripping 2nd gear on stock WRXs.

So... if the 6 speed @300hp and 300lb/ft torque is reliable, and the 5 speed at 227hp and 212lb/ft torque is unreliable, then what does that tell us? It tells me that the transmissions are flawed and that something needs to be done to remedy the situation.

Here are a few threads that support the ideas that A) the transmissions are flawed, and B) SOA is trying to cover it up.

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=254756
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=242659
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=229030
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=225664
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=184231


What do you think? Is SOA ever going to admit to their problem, or will they always be in denial on this? Of course, now they can scapegoat it and say... "Well, if you wanted to drive briskly you should have bought the STi model!" ;) :rolleyes:

-Porter

As much as I've read about the 5MT being weak and fragile, I'm pushing 300+ HP on mine now and it's doing fine. I think there's a lot of abuse disguised as defect around here. My $.02

Originally posted by ChrisF
As much as I've read about the 5MT being weak and fragile, I'm pushing 300+ HP on mine now and it's doing fine. I think there's a lot of abuse disguised as defect around here. My $.02

I agree and I believe that alot of these people are doing crazy launches like this car was built for a drag strip. As you can see now most people are concerned with 0-60 and and 1/4 mile times. IMHO that is pathetic, the car was built for rally and circuit and people wanna drag it and complain that it has a weak tranny. I have 300+ and I have had no problems with mine of course I only play in the snow and run the Highland Circuit. When people realize its not a drag car I believe that the tranny probs will drop off.
And when anyone finds out the weight I would like to know so I can compare with the JSpec Version.

I doesn't mean a thing -- different cars.


With the launch of the STi including the 6 speed transmission, what will happen on the warranty front regarding the 5 speed in the WRX?

They will continue to warrantee the 5 speed as they always have.

You do something stupid and break it, you bought it. If it fails from normal wear and tear, or a defective componet, they fix it.



If the STi proves to be reliable under all conditions with the 6 speed tranny and 300hp, it will only underline the fact that the 5 speed transmissions are either grossly underspecified or fundamentally defective. SOA has been attempting to cover that up ever since people started stripping 2nd gear on stock WRXs.



Actually it will show that Subaru is trying to bring us a better product. If you followed your logic to its obvious conclusion, any time a manufacturer improved their product they would have to upgrade all older versions still in use. I can't think of a better way to make a manufacture go out of business or stop them from making incremental improvements on products.

The 5 MT is not defective or grossly under specified!

It is just not idiot proof. It is a design that has served well for years but is reaching the end of its design life and is due for replacement.

Like any intellegent business Subaru has better things to do than to so overdesign all its products that they are unbreakable.

The transmission has its limitations -- deal with it.

I can't think of a single performance car that did not uncover some component that could use improvement during the first year of its production.

Before you say well the WRX has been in use in other parts of the world for years ----

This is the first year this car has been sold in large numbers in a culture that thrives on drag race performance and takes no responsibility for its actions.


When you drop a milk glass it usually breaks, after a while you learn not to drop them, you don't go screaming to the manufacture to make you an unbreakable glass and pay all your cleaning bills because you were too dim witted to catch on to the fact glass is not impact resistant.


In the 1960's every major manufacture used the same basic transmission design the t-10. They could be blown up, and they weren't the best shifting transmissions in the world.

When the early hot rodders blew their transmission they said " crap I blew my transmission" and went down to the dealership or the junk yard and got another one. When the manufactures came out with the Muncie, the super T-10, the Ford Top loader and the Chrysler heavy duty, they didn't demand a replacement transmission, they thanked the manufactures for producing a better tranny and bought one.

If you can't keep a 5 MT alive, buy a 6 speed.

Larry

Rock on, Larry! Couldn't have said it better myself.

Kevin

Excellent post, Larry. This is what I wanted to do, start some intelligent discussion.


What I'm trying to point out is that the USDM WRX transmission is significantly more fragile than the WRX and STi 5 speed transmissions used elsewhere in the world. The choice of low final drive and high gearing instead of the other way around like the other Subaru trannies is curious and is probably the primary reason that there have been so many gear failures.

A car with a 4.444 final drive and lower gear ratios (like the STi 5 speeds) puts less mechanical torque on each gear on the way through the rev band.

SOA's choice to use a completely new, obviously lower specification, and less developed 5 speed transmission in the WRX was a curious one. They already had a number of 5 speed transmissions available to them from other Impreza models like the WRX v5 and the STi versions 4-6. All of those vehicles use almost identical 5 speed transmissions and have proven reliable based on the balance of their gearing and engineering to support 260-280hp stock.

SOA knew this car would be driven sportingly and made a decision to compromise the overall design of the gearbox by removing the synchromesh from 1st and reverse, and changing the overall ratios of the box, presumably to either make better gas mileage or to ensure that the car would test very quickly from 0-60mph by eliminating the 2nd-3rd shift. Thus the reason for the excessively long 1st gear that causes you to drop out of boost in corners in 2nd... which causes an attempt to return to 1st while moving... which is then foiled by the lack of a synchro in 1st gear.

Anyway, the word from Scoobynet is that STi engineers refer to the US tranny as the "glass transmission" and are aware that it is a faulty design. The heat treating issue is another problem, and one that will probably never fully come to light unless Subaru steps up and admits there is a problem.


Anyway, these are just my thoughts on the issue. There is no reason why someone who buys a $25,000 vehicle that is billed as a sports car should have to baby the transmission. If I buy a BMW, this is not an issue. If I buy an Acura, this is not an issue.

If the WRX is any less reliable than any other vehicle on the road with regard to its transmission, then there is a problem and Subaru needs to address it.

This is not the 1960s. The tranny issues then occurred because people had never before put such amounts of power through a gearbox.

This is the modern automotive era. There is absolutely no reason why a stock gearbox should fail on a stock vehicle, whether the owner drives it aggressively or not. Clutch drops and mis-shifts are another matter, though a mis-shift back to 1st at speed to stay in the power band is almost inevitable due to the lack of a synchro on 1st. Thus.... it is a FAULTY DESIGN.

While there are a number of people that drag race their cars, there have been some gearbox failures that are build/install defects.


Edit :removed stuff - wrong forum.,

I would have to agree with you that I would have much prefered a different gear mix, both the lower diff ratios and better gear spread in the tranny.

Those selected in the USDM WRX, and the resulting short comings, in my opinion are more a product of CAFE legislation, and the extra weight we are hauling around due to safety legislation, than any stupidity on the part of Subaru engineers. They I suspect are geared perfectly to get the best results on the emissions and milage driving cycles. If you don't like the gear selections write your congressman and complain about stupid test standards that force manufactures into a corner. They in many cases can't legally produce the cars they should, to meet your expectations.


The alleged use of the term "glass transmission" by the engineers (assuming that is good information) is just as likely a tonge in cheek slap at the clowns that are breaking a perfectly adequate transmission by doing "accidental burnouts"

It is pretty common for service departments and engineering groups to use humor to poke fun at dumb customers. I used to work for a paper punch company, the sales force some where got the bright idea to show off how powerful the punch was by punching holes in pennys. Guess what, the customers started doing it to show off to their friends. Next thing you know we had a bunch of service calls for defective punches because of broken drive links, and sticking punch dies. It took us a while but we eventually found out the mechanical failure signiture for this form of abuse and simply stopped doing punch die replacements at our cost when we saw signs the customers were punching pennys. Did some businesses get burned because unknown to the regular punch user some stock boy was punching handfulls of pennys to give to his friends, Yup probably did.

Do some WRX transmissions fail for drivers that drive them carefully, because some car wash attendent, valet or dealership gofur did a drag launch when no one is looking, -- Yup I'm sure that's happened to. Sorry it sucks but that stuff happens.

(Edit) Do some transmissions fail on cars while the driver is just cruising down the road? Probably, failure is a progressive process, and the moment it breaks may have little to do with load. I also suspect that many of these have removed the stock crankshaft pulley, and due to driving habits cruise at an rpm that favors build up of harmonic energy. These vibrations can just beat the living daylights out of stuff when to the outside observer load seems to be low. If twice per revolution the gear teeth are being pulled apart and then slammed together by harmonic oscillations the stress on the parts goes through the roof.


Manufacturing defects happen, and should be delt with by the factory, unfortunately the water in the warranty well has been poisoned by all the fools that think they should be able to do anything they want with mechanical equipment and not take any responsibility for the results.

I also think Subaru is on a learning curve regarding customer support of performance vehicles.

Manufactures like Chrysler, Chevy, Ford, Porche have been actively selling them for decades and many have dealerships that understand and cater to the market segment that buys them. The majority of US Subaru Dealerships have never seen this customer base before and have various levels of empathy with performance drivers. There are a handful of dealerships that "get it", and more will follow, but it takes time for that transition to take place.


The lack of syncro in first, if I understand your intent is wrong, there is a syncro, it is just that it is working against a major disadvantage due to the huge gear ratio gap 2 --> 1.

I am surprised an after market manufacture has not come up with a syncro ring set for the 5 MT with skip tooth balk rings and more agressive cone clutch angles, but time will tell if that happens. It's an annoyance, not a defect, as the syncro works just fine if you give it a chance by rev matching or a slow shift cycle.

As for your assertion

This is the modern automotive era and there is no reason for a gear box to fail whether the owner drives it agressively or not!

Dream on, basic laws of economics, and the laws of physics say that is a completely unreasonable expectation. This is not Start Trek, until they start making transmissions out of Neutronium, well have to live with the fact that every mechanical device always has compromises in design and materials so the manufacture can build it cheap enough so you can afford to buy it.

If this was a $70,000-$100000 + Porche, or Viper, yes I would set a higher reliablitiy standard, but its not and I accept that reality.

Larry

Originally posted by Porter

This is the modern automotive era. There is absolutely no reason why a stock gearbox should fail on a stock vehicle, whether the owner drives it aggressively or not.

I know you are probably making a generalization, but you are aware that every single manufacturer has gearbox failures in normal driving.

I posted a while back some research I did simply by checking the forums of other car makes. S2000 forums are particularly educational. This is not an isolated problem to Subaru, it's a widespread problem among all vehicles that make enough power to be sporting, and even among vehicles that don't. Even Camaro's are not immune - except it's the rear-end that gives, not the trannies.

I'm not saying that there isn't a problem *for americans*, or that they are not going to address the problem there. But there is no need to blow it out of proportion - there's a reason that every other country in the world view's america as the "lawsuit society". Of course, I hear Australia is eagerly following in America's footsteps in that regard...

Cheers,

Paul Hansen

Hmm, Let's see, 48 total posts in the drivetrain warranty thread and not all those are tranny related. It would appear that possibly the posts in here about catastrophic tranny failure might have been by the vocal minority. If people truly want a resolution if there really is a widespread defect, they should post their info in their so that a database can be created and use it in any legal action they might want to persue. I thought that was one of the reasons behind North Ursalia starting this thread.

So far 48 posts out of 20,000 WRX sold have come forth and expressed a problem. That is a pretty low percentage even if you only include the WRX owning members in this club.

You all have excellent points. Thanks for your replies.


Another way to look at it is this:

When the WRX was first released in '94 there were lots of gearbox problems due to weak/faulty design. Over the next few years they ironed out those problems by changing the gear ratios and using different types of treating processes on the gearsets.

The early STis also had some gearbox teething problems.


All those problems were pretty much ironed out by 1998 and the STi v4/v5 series cars. The modern WRX and WRX STi in other countries has a very reliable synchro gearbox, including the non-RA tall gearset boxes that are not "hardened". They come stock in cars producing 276hp and are not known for failures.


Subaru releases a car here at 227hp and for some reason decides to either go BACK to a gearbox design that is known for problems, or decides to undo all the gearbox development that SOJ slaved over to perfect, and they just slap any old box in the car whose numbers look like it will match.

The non-RA STi gearboxes are really not much different from our gearboxes, they just have different gear ratios, and those ratios were selected specifically to relieve torque load on the lower gears.

I'm saying SOA screwed up, and the fact that they've been doing everything possible to avoid covering warranty claims, even on completely stock vehicles, stinks of the bean counters calling the shots and both customer service and product quality taking a back seat to the bottom line.

Is my point not valid?

Does anyone know a number for the amount of WRX's regardless of model sold in Japan and or the rest of the world per year?? I'm guessing it is fairly small compared to the US market with the exception of possibly Australia.

Quality control is much easier to maintain on small numbers than large. Fewer cars made, fewer parts made, easier to control the processes.

As I said before, I don't think Subaru's gearbox problems are that much widespread than anyone elses. Many of the people that posted in this forum had some self inflicted damage and others seemed legit. Unfortunately, now that there is a thread to get a real idea of the number of problems, nobody posts in it.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I never had an MT car before my WRX 02. I wanted to test drive one, so the day before, my friend let me practice in his mazda GTX. I eventually got the hang of it enough to test one out. With one day of practice under my belt, I went down to the dealer to test one, sure I did the usual herky jerky starts n stuff and I was really nervous. I ended up going to another dealer and buying a WRX. I learned to drive MT with this car, and have had no problems.

Keep in mind that I made some mistakes while learning that I'm sure weren't good (read-really bad) for the car. I red-lined it a couple of times during break in due to mis-shifting in to neutral when I thought I was in third or something. I also remember I chirped the tires and killed the engine in one fell swoop once...don't remember how. It went something like.......RRRRRRR(building revs real quick), jerk (engaged clutch), chirp (tires), jerk (killed engine). I maybe moved 2 inches during all of this. Anyway....

My point is that I believe that there could be a few bad apples out there, but most of this tranny stuff is due to abuse. Most of the other vehicles that people mention having strong trannies are NOT AWD. Thus, stress is lower under normal conditions anyway. Someone should swap a WRX tranny into an RSX-S or MRs (I know, probably not possible), something around the same size......I bet you could do all the drops you wanted with no issues.

I will admit that I would like to be able to downshift to first easier, because it's hard to get her goin from 2nd gear at 7mph. I don't know maybe I'm just not revving high enough when trying to downshift.

Peace