$10K For A New Transmission
For the past few months, I started to notice a clunking sensation when making tight right and left turns. I thought it could have been alignment issues from a summer of mild off roading adventures. Then came a squealing sound from the engine. It was like a high pitched sound you'd hear when your windshield wipers hit dry glass. Would last about a second at most but also shot the RPMs up by a factor of a 1K or so and then drive like normal. Very intermittent, only noticed during highway speeds.
I finally had time to take it into Subaru last week and got a pretty grim diagnosis: the center differential is binding which could be due to oil leak, it doesn't have enough pressure. One solution is repairing the center differential to the tune of $1500 and/or a "front pump reseal" to the tune of $2100. But service advisor at Subaru said it's not guaranteed. Only guarantee fix would be for a new transmission assembly that includes center diff to the tune of $10,000+
I'm more than a bit flabbergasted to say the least. While I have close to 94,000 miles on her so far, I've serviced her regularly and on schedule for the most part. I knew CVTs could be problematic but didn't think it could happen to me.
My options are:
- swallow cost and hope everything else works out in the long term (had hoped to keep her for 200K+ miles, I do love most everything else about this car)
- call Subaru of America for financial assistance
- get a second opinion at a non-dealer shop (I do have one I'd gone to in the past who are pretty honest)
- trade it in while it's still under 100,000 miles for either a used/new Outback (I had been keen on the Wilderness edition) or a new compact SUV, preferably a hybrid
Would love to hear your thoughts, especially if you've gone through something similar.
ps - unfortunately, this is not a CVT chain recall in the transmission which WOULD have been covered under 100K miles. Bummer.
EDIT: so after spending all day on the phones and doing some internet research, this issue did fall under the WRK-21 CVT Chain Recall - they did a TCM Reprogramming of it back in October of 2022 before there were any known issues as a preemptive measure. So this is why my VIN didn't come up on the recall list. But now, everything seems to be consistent with the CVT chain slip issue (sounds EXACTLY like this). Called Subaru of America to explain everything, was able to submit a case #. To be continued...
1/15 UPDATE: so my dealer called me and told me that SoA contacted him, said they're willing to cover $6,000 of a full transmission replacement which would put my balance around $4,500. My local auto shop already told me they'd do it for about half the original $10,500 warranty cost...but it wouldn't come with a one-year warranty on the CVT that I'd get from my dealer.
What would you do if you were me - should I contact SoA again and demand they cover the full cost or ask for a bit more? Or call it good that I'm getting this much even?
I'm currently sitting at just a tick over 94,000 miles on my 2020 Onyx XT. I love her to death but this CVT issue (combined with my milesage) has me looking in another direction.
Namely, I more or less decided in my head that I'm going to look to upgrade to either a newer Wilderness or look into a Honda CRV Hybrid Sport L.
Current Carvana/Carfax value has my car listed around $15K. Car is fully paid off.
