Where is this Subaru dealer to warn other Subaru owners?
The dealer needs to be reported to Subaru.
You can get a set of injectors pretty cheap on the web, they are easy to install on some vehicles(your cars symptoms sound like a bad injector) done it myself on a Focus-car ran like new afterwards.I think the plug and wire deal are as to Dealers,like Fries and soft drinks are to fast food restraunts ,cash cows(had a kid tell me that my cars computer wasnt reading the brand new aftermarket plugs I had installed in the car-Kevin
Just replace the one injector and be done with it. If the valve lash hadn’t been checked in the last 30k miles, that was well spent money. Same with the spark plugs. New wires were a waste of money unless the mechanic damaged one when removing it. The dealer is over priced and incompetent AFAIC.
This almost certainly has to boil down to a major league fishing expedition in which a mechanic, or plural of that, did not think things through before plowing ahead. The part about one injector going bad because of another and an induction cleaning makes it even more suspect.
Thanks for everyone’s input. Follow-up on this story:
Talked to the service director. He talked to the tech’s and got back to me. Service director claims Subaru recommends valve job at 105K miles, so he’s sticking behind his techs on what they did. He indicated injectors would be one of the later things he would check, and really believes the valve adjustment I had done was necessary due to my “tight” valves on one side and “loose” ones on the other.
I called my old dealer and one other dealer I’ve had my Subaru serviced at. One of them indicated his diagnosis on misfires is: (1) Ignition (coil, plugs, wires), (2) Injectors/fuel, (3) engine. That dealer indicated that they for sure would do a compression test and leak down test early on, as well as swapping injectors. He also indicated that he rarely does valve adjustments since it is so labor intensive and particularly difficult on Subaru’s. He confirmed that Subaru does NOT have a recommended interval for valve adjustments - only when needed. This dealer thought the valve job was unnecessary and didn’t agree with doing a valve job so early.
Second dealer as well confirmed Subaru does not have valve adjustment as part of maintenance schedule. He indicated that while he has done a few valve adjustments on Subaru’s with turbos, he in all his years doing Subaru’s has only done 1 without a turbo and that valve adjustments should be rare. He did say a valve job isn’t out of the question, but does agree that it would have made a lot more sense to do a compression test, leak down, swap injectors first. He seemed puzzled as to why the dealer was pushing me to do the valve adjustment so soon, and thinks that age/mileage is not sufficient reason to do it alone (which is what the original dealer told me).
Right now the service director is strongly recommending I do all four injectors and the cleaning. To be honest at this point I’m just inclined to do the one, do my own in-the-tank cleaner and be done with this - and take the risk of later injectors failing.
The service dealer said what he can do is 10% off the whole bill. While I appreciate the willingness to work with me, I do feel like that in the end I was pushed to do something that really wasn’t necessary and could have been avoided and thus the bill is still unfair in my direction. Thus I feel at this point I should elevate this a level higher and potentially get Subaru of America involved.
Thoughts? Would you agree on doing just 1 injector and my own in the tank cleaner? Do you feel that I have some case to elevate this further?
It may help to get a Subaru rep involved. If you do pursue the issue I suggest you write a letter stating what you were told by the shop and what the other places told you. State all the facts clearly.
I would replace the suspect injector and then see how things go. Before doing my own injector cleaning I would want some proof it even is necessary, like poor gas mileage. I have never needed to clean the fuel systems in any of my vehicles. I think most of those jobs just make more money for the shop and don’t help the customer one bit.
To me, this still come back to knowing if there was actually a tight valve lash problem and the actual compression readings. A shop that does not write this stuff down is lax in my opinion and you should have a copy of it.
I think there’s some misinterpretation of service manager 1 although there is a degree of misguided on both of them.
Subaru recommends a valve lash check at 105k miles, not a valve job. With service manager 2, he is also misguided with that “only when needed” premise. The purpose of regular checks is to make sure that by the time “when needed” appears that it does not appear hand in hand with an expensive valve job looming.
Subaur of America is badly misguided with their 105k miles recommendation and the factory does not always know best. From a PR standpoint they might; from a purely mechanical, best for your engine standpoint they do not. SOA also has other bogus recommendations and unfortunately, many sevice managers and even mechanics buy into that bogus info without thinking.
It’s difficult for me to say go ahead with this injector work because the valve lash and compression thing keeps coming back. It will not be pleasant to do this injector work and immediately afterwards, or within a few thousand miles, be told that your engine needs a valve job at great expense.
For what it’s worth, very few service managers or writers have worked as mechanics. They do not want the customer to think of them as mechanically inept so they often put on a facade. The non-mechanically minded customer is not aware that much of what they relate is misguided at best and utter BS at worst.
There are a few good ones but they’re in the very distinct minority.
Are there any Subaru specialists in the area?
My local dealer seems to go on these boon doggles with folks and I suggest a local independent specialist and he fixes right away for considerably less. The good thing about Subaru engines in terms of mechanical knowledge is there is little difference between 1990-present with them. They also are pretty easy to work on.
The 2.5L engines non turbo’s have some serious faults (headgaskets) but again little difference between 1996 and 2012.
Do the one injector, get the car running and get it out of that shop… ONLY THEN should you go fight the dealership, after all right now you still need to get your car running. PS 10% is a drop in the bucket and basically “a shut up and go away” discount… I think the bottom line is that the dealership you are at right now tech did things backwards, it is totally possible you needed a valve adjustment, but the miss should have been addressed first by dealing with the simple things. How much was JUST the valve adjustment??
Ok, follow up now. Thought this was all behind me but apparently not. After negotiating with the service director, he went 50/50 on the valve job. Only replaced 1 injector. Car running smoothly and got it back.
However, I am not noticing a very small gasoline smell from the car. Sniffing around it’s coming from under the hood (haven’t popped it yet). Not strong at highway speeds, but local roads smell is very strong. Is not related to ventilation (i.e. turning heat or AC on or fan speed has no affect). Gas mileage does not seem to be affected (at least drastically), but I DEFINITELY smell gas very strong.
Jobs done on my car were valve adjustment, #2/#4 injector swap with #4 being replaced, 30K maintenance per Subaru recommendations.
Is the dealer to blame for this? Help…
It’s possible when they swapped & replaced the fuel injector they disturbed a fitting or didn’t replace a gasket or o-ring that they should have, resulting in a slow fuel leak.
This kind of thing can lead to a fire, so get it checked out ASAP.
Well, I’m going to bring it back to the dealer to have it looked at. It is reasonable to assume they did something wrong. When I dropped it off no fuel smell. After all their work strong fuel smell. Again coming from under the hood, not from the gas tank area.
In my opinion anyway, if an injector is replaced all of the injector seals should be replaced at the same time. Those rubber seals are 12 years old and likely gasoline hardened. Tweaking around with the fuel rail can easily disturb or damage a seal that is not even on the injector being replaced and considering this is a serious fire hazard as mentioned no chances should be taken with injector seals. Do them all.
Just curious about something though. You say the dealer went halfsies on the valve job. Does this mean an actual remove the cylinder heads/sevice the valves and seats repair or adjustment of the valve lash?
Valve lash and valve job are 2 entirely different things.
If it’s the latter, and reiterating that if tight lash existed on an exhaust valve, then any engine performance improvement could be short lived; all depending.