That reminds me of one more data point. My daughter had a '98 Legacy that blew a head gasket at 180K; I hadn’t even considered that it might be related.
This might be it. I’ve never owned a Subaru, but I’ve owned a few BMW motorcycles, which have the same boxer engine configuration as the Subaru (but with only two cylinders).
If you park a BMW on the sidestand, so the bike is leaning to the left, engine oil can leak past the rings into the left combustion chamber, so you’ll burn that oil off when you start the bike and run it for a while.
I hear the same thing can happen with BMW’s K-series engines, which aren’t boxer engines, but are lay-down flat engines. So you could have the same problem, except with three or four cylinders.
“Honestly, there’s part of the problem right there. Whether or not a car has special problems, it’s going to need to visit the dealer frequently in its first few warranty and maintenance years. Even with the compelling reasons to buy a Subaru (and there are many - I probably wouldn’t buy anything else in that class), having a dealer hundreds of miles and multiple hours away is just asking for inconvenience.”
There aren’t any other car dealers any closer. She lives out in the “boonies” and off the grid, etc. Before the Subaru, she had been driving a ten year old four wheel drive truck. It kept breaking down. Most of the time she was able to fix it herself, but it was a pain to get to a professional mechanic when she couldn’t. The idea was that a new car would be more dependable.
I was very disappointed and surprised when I heard about the excessive oil consumption for her new car. The only car I’ve owned that used more than a quart of oil between oil changes was an RX-7. But that’s expected with a rotary engine.
Thank you for that link. I have a 2012 Impreza that has burned oil since the day I got it. I put in a quart between every 5,000 mile oil change. I had them look at it and got no satisfaction.
Here is an old thread I started on the subject. The linked article above makes me think I’ll have to put in another call to the dealer.
But the consensus in that thread was basically meh.
Just out of curiosity, how many miles do you have on the car now and have you noticed any change in the consumption rate?
I did a bunch of forum-reading on the oil issues with the new motors before buying my '14 Crosstrek. It seems like in about half of the cases the oil consumption gradually got better or went away on its own. At least back then (this was late last year) it appeared that Subaru was calling about 1qt/3000 miles normal and doing the ring repair or replacing the engine on anything that burned more than that (although the vigor with which they’d pursue the problem varied greatly from dealer to dealer.) I guess fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you want to look at it, the problems don’t seem to worsen so if you’re only burning 1qt/5000 miles you’re probably stuck with it unless the lawsuit somehow changes things. But as I said in the earlier thread, 1qt/5000 is maybe a little disheartening on a brand new car, but isn’t really anything to worry about.
FWIW, my car burned about a pint of oil in the first 1000 miles (leading to much hand-wringing on my part), another pint in the next 2000, but hasn’t burned any appreciable amount since the first oil change. I’ve got around 21k on it now.
I’m going to be mostly away from the board for a bit but some might be interested in this so I’ll update.
Last week (coincidentally right after this thread popped up) my oil light went on again. This was less than 2,000 miles after my last oil change. I got on the phone with the dealer and spoke to the General Manager. I told him how the car was burning oil. I told him that this has been happening ever since I bought it. I told him I brought it in and they told me there was nothing wrong and sent me on my way. I told him I knew about the lawsuit and the internal correspondence about the problem. He of course was very apologetic. He said to come in right away and there were some tests they could run.
So I brought it in. The tests turned out to be the same oil consumption tests they did before. But since the problem is now known to be widespread they have a special form for it. They gave me a free oil change and I have to bring it back every 1200 miles. We’ll see what happens.
I’m at about 43,000 miles. It averages needing a quart between every oil change. I’ve had quite a few cars in my life and except for a beater I got when I was young, I have never needed to put oil in a car between changes. Not once. They might call it normal. I call it a design flaw. If I don’t get any satisfaction I will never buy another Subaru again.
I can’t really argue with you, but it’s not so cut and dried. I’ve never had a car that needed an oil top-up between changes, either. But every single owners manual I’ve read states that it’s normal for an engine to consume up to a quart of oil every 1,000 miles or so. So, from the manufacturer’s end, using a bit of oil is “normal”. Putting in a quart of oil once every few thousand miles costs very little.
I’ve had 3 Subaru Imprezas:
1.) 1998 Impreza with the 2.2L. Never lost oil.
2.) 2001 Impreza 2.5 RS. Never lost oil.
3.) 2008 Impreza 2.5i. Lost oil regularly, though it seemed to get better as it got older. I never got a solid answer from the Dealer about it, and at the time hadn’t heard about the oil loss issue. I traded it back in 2012 with around 95,000 miles on it. The oil light never came on and I never actually had to add oil, only noting the stick read low between changes.
Well, the oil issue that’s spurred the lawsuit and such is only on the new engine family which they started using around the 2012 model year, so your '08 wouldn’t have been affected.
Also the oil light in question that’s been coming on with the newer cars is the low oil level light that comes on when it’s about a quart low, not the oil pressure light which comes on when you’re pretty much out of oil. That’s one reason why I take complaints about oil consumption on newer cars with a bit of a grain of salt-- in a lot of cases it’s people who never check their oil between changes and so never noticed oil consumption on their previous cars, but they get a fancy new car with an oil level sensor and a long oil change interval and they start screaming bloody murder when the light comes on showing they’re a quart low at 7,000 miles into a 10,000 mile interval (or whatever).
So much for that lightly used WRX I wanted.
One of the ironies of the old Subaru head gasket issue is that they never really had any problems with their turbo fours (or H6’s). So the sorts of high performance cars you’d expect to be a little temperamental were pretty bulletproof, whereas they had all sorts of problems with their boring old grocery-getter engines.
With the new engine family, the WRX isn’t mentioned on the oil consumption lawsuit and I haven’t heard any particular complaints about them, so history may be repeating there. Of course it may also be that everyone just blames whatever problems the WRX’s have on their testosterone-addled owners.
*This thing is a beast
Value will only increase
Been negotiating turns like peace in the Middle East
There’s only three of it’s kind, they’re never easy to find
Got people waiting in line to pay me double for mine
You better make way cause I’m coming through
In my late '92 baby blue Subaru*
- Fountains of Wayne
Update for those interested. Subaru has agreed that there is a problem with oil consumption in my car. After several consumption surveys they put in a brand new engine block free of charge. 47,000 miles on the car.
There is no such thing as a lightly used WRX.
Nice! And thanks for the info. I have family now looking at Subarus. Good to see outcomes like this.
I had a 1993 subaru that the head started seeping on after I broke a fan belt and overheated the engine. I retorqued the head and the problem was gone. I suspect a lot of the heads could use retorquing.
Nice! Thanks for the update.
After the dealer replaced the rings, the engine still used excessive oil. Subaru replaced the engine with a new one. The new engine also uses excessive oil. My daughter is submitting paperwork under California’s lemon law to have Subaru buy her car back.