Fuel Pump Recall for 2,409 2018 & 2019 BRZ's
 

UPDATES: WRG-21 Fuel Pump Impeller Failure Safety Recall
Subaru of America, Inc. (Subaru) is initiating a new safety recall for certain 2019-2020 model year
Ascent, 2018-2019 model year BRZ, 2018 model year Forester (turbo), 2018-2020 model year Impreza,
2018-2020 model year Legacy, 2018-2020 model year Outback, and 2018-2019 model year WRX vehicles
in which the fuel pump may become inoperative.
Description of the Defect and Safety Risk
The affected vehicles may be equipped with a low pressure fuel pump produced during a specific
timeframe that may include an impeller which has been manufactured with a lower density. Under
certain conditions, the lower density fuel pump impeller may deform and interfere with the body of the
fuel pump, potentially causing the low pressure fuel pump to become inoperative.
If the low pressure fuel pump becomes inoperative, the check engine warning light or malfunction
indicator light may illuminate, and/or the engine may run rough. In the worst case, an inoperative fuel
pump may result in the engine stalling without the ability to restart the vehicle, increasing the risk of a
crash.
Affected Vehicles
A total of 172,308 U.S. vehicles will be affected by this recall, as listed below:
Model Year Carline Production Date Range Affected vehicle count
2019-2020 Ascent January 14, 2019 – May 20, 2019 22,831
2018-2019 BRZ April 6, 2018 – November 6, 2018 2,409
2018 Forester (turbo) April 20, 2018 – August 7, 2018 2,010
2018-2020 Impreza May 3, 2018 – May 31, 2019 28,105
2018-2020 Legacy June 25, 2018 – October 18, 2019 17,487
2018-2020 Outback June 25, 2018 – October 18, 2019 88,860
2018-2019 WRX April 20, 2018 – November 1, 2018 10,606
Not all vehicles in the production ranges listed above are affected by this recall. Coverage must be
confirmed by using the Vehicle Coverage Inquiry function on subarunet.com prior to repair. This
information is currently available. The status of this recall will display as “Open – Limited Parts
Available” to allow repairs to begin if affected vehicles are presented for other services prior to owner
notification.
Service, Parts, and Claim Instructions
Sufficient remedy parts supply is expected to be available prior to owner notification. The remedy parts
must be ordered through PRIME. Please refer to ‘Recalls & Campaigns/PRIME Max Quantities’ on
subarunet for the orderable quantities.
For detailed service, parts, and claim information, please refer to the WRG-21 Product Campaign
Bulletin which is now available on STIS.
Retailer Responsibility
Please be advised that it is a violation of Federal law for a dealer to deliver a new motor vehicle
covered by a recall under a sale or lease until the defect is remedied. Therefore, any Authorized Subaru
Retailer failing to perform the applicable service procedures to correct all affected vehicles in their
inventory prior to the vehicle being placed in service may be subject to civil penalties of up to $21,000
per violation (i.e., for each vehicle), as provided in 49 CFR §578.6 and will also be in breach of the
Subaru Dealer Agreement.
Any vehicles listed in any recall/campaign that are in retailer stock must be:
▪ Immediately identified
▪ Tagged or otherwise marked to prevent their delivery or use prior to repair
▪ Repaired in accordance with the repair procedures outlined in the Product Campaign Bulletin
Once the remedy kits specific to this recall are available, retailers are to promptly perform the applicable
service procedures, to correct all affected vehicles in their inventory (used, demo & SSLP). Whenever a
vehicle subject to this recall is taken into retailer inventory necessary steps should be taken to ensure
the recall correction has been made before selling or releasing the vehicle.
Owner Notification
Subaru will notify affected vehicle owners by first class mail on or before September 27, 2021. Retailers
will be advised when the notification is scheduled

Yep.. I got my letter.

Fresh fuel pump for freeeee :)

Absolutely, apparently my local Subaru dealership had no heads up about it, so they'll probably need to order the parts or start getting ready for any local owners with the affected years.

Has anyone gotten this recall fixed yet?

Just called my local dealership and getting the pump might take a while, I'm scheduled to bring the vehicle in November 4th.



I probably already know the answer to this, but is there a way Subaru can blame the faulty pump on modifications and tune?

My wife is still waiting on the final instructions on getting her Outback done. They say it could be spring before they are ready so I doubt that the rest of the affected cars are ready yet.

They wouldn’t even try to argue mods when it is a published recall. There would be zero point to it.

You're back!

No you are just imagining things.

I gotta lay off the peyote

Just dropped the BRZ at the dealership. They were kind enough to loan me a brand new, fully loaded, Forester. I'll be reporting how my experience went post-repairs.

First update. Called before leaving work to make sure the car would be ready. I was told it was. No problem.
Show up to the dealership and wait for a little to be told “Yours is the first BRZ we have ever worked on, we just pulled the car in a little ago. Our technician didn’t know where the fuel pump was.”
So yeah, the car is still being worked on. Which is fine, less miles I put in. I just hope their inexperience, which I find very, very hard to believe, on the BRZ, doesn’t end up going bad in the future.


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Good luck, it sounds like you'll need it. Maybe you should have pulled the left rear seat to give the "tech" a clue as to where the fuel pump is located.

No kidding. The front desk guy was super nice about it, but the “The tech didn’t know where the fuel pump was, she was looking for it somewhere else” got me. Then I saw her coming out of the shop looking kind of mad.
But its cool, at least any further repairs won’t cost me a cent. I can also use this thread to inform people on what to watch out for, for example, make sure the dealership you’re going to has seen a BRZ before…..


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Personally, I'd prefer to remove the defective one and trade it for the new one and replace it myself, but I know that won't happen.

If anything it gives me a good excuse to order a better fuel pump, I haven't ordered something for the car in a while LoL.

Vehicle is fixed. Haven't run into any complications or issues. But the car feels different. Throttle response is a little quicker, develops speed a little easier too. Trying to get that figured out with Steve99 and see if there's anything that can be measured in the data logs before and after the pump.

Funny this didn't affect the FR-S of the same year...

Of course it does (although obviously as the Toyota 86) - https://www.usatoday.com/recalls/aut...SA-21V587000/:

Quick update. Had to refuel the car since I got the recall done. I had a little above 1/4 tank, per the dashboard. Filled up, I like to press the trigger twice to make sure the tank is indeed full. Turn on the car and see my fuel gauge, it says 3/4 full. I know it is impossible that it is 3/4 full because I just put in about 11 gal in. No fuel smell.
Called the dealership and ask if maybe they fucked up, and they said that it possible they did. Now I have to drive around to half tank and bring it over. Now I’m really getting pissed off. One of the easiest cars to work on, and can’t even do a fuel pump replacement right.


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Holy.. It's been a month since I encountered the issue. I had to wait almost a full month before I could bring the vehicle over so the dealer can hopefully fix the tank level indicator. Lets see how it goes. I really could've done it myself, but its cold, and why risk it when its free, and I get a nice loaner vehicle.



Moral of the story is, write down how much gas you brought the vehicle with, and you should have the same once you pick it up. Which should be 1/2 tank in order to bring it in. Refuel immediately, check fuel gauge level, if its not full, bring that car back in. Else you risk possibly running out of gas, even if the gauge reads 1/4 tank or more.

Got mine done today. No problems at all. There was a 2022 there and I can confirm they are ugly. Ugly front, ugly ridge under the doors and ugly ass, well compared to mine anyway. I did like the wheels. ;)

Dropped the car off yesterday, it looks like they're are going to have to replace to whole thing. Fine by me. I still can't believe that mine is the first BRZ they have ever worked on. I mean, it shows, but for a car that has been out for almost 10 years, find it hard to believe.

I saw one in my area the other day as well, which I was surprised by. But the biggest thing I realized after seeing it was it did not spark anything... All these claims of it being better looking in person, and I just did not see that. Granted, the best view I got was about 25 yard away, it still looked exactly like the photos... meh.

Got my recall done this morning, filled up the car to full and fulel gauge only shows around half.

Called the dealer, they said try to disconnect the battery to reset the gauge and come over if that doesn't help. Disconnected and reconnected, gauge still shows low but appears to be slightly higher then before. Fingers crossed it will resolve itself over time/with the next fill up (I can gauge the amount of fuel by miles driven since the last fill up).

Did they replace the entire pump assembly again to fix the fuel gauge? My dealer said the float might snag on a rubber seal, but judging by this video (around 2:35 mark) it doesn't look like the float could have such an issue.

If it's just a matter of making sure the float is moving freely I'd prefer to take the fuel pump out myself and wiggle the float around to check for any obstructions.

this video

That is exactly what mine did too, except when I "Filled Up" it was showing a little less than 3/4 of a tank. Then it gets tricky, it would go to 1/4, then go back to half, but it wasn't accurate either as I managed to run out of fuel with the gauge indicating 1/4 again.

They had to replace the whole assembly to fix it since whatever part they replaced, and broke, once is broken there's no going back.

They'll probably ask you to bring it in again with less than half tank, again, so you'll have to guess-timate when you reach that level of fuel.

Do you mind sharing the name of the dealer/service?
I also had a super boring experience with Subaru white plain service where they messed up the EVAP issue and replaced everything new. They called someone from another Subaru service since their tech was an idiot not knowing where part are even located.


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Valenti Subaru in Westerly, RI.

Looking like the 2nd Gen's are having this issue too now :( Mine does, just shy of 3000km.........

Updating - my fuel gauge acted exactly like @spcmafia reported - started out at half, after about 50 miles jumped up to 3/4, then continued to go down.
I filled up just now, with 300 miles driven and the gauge showed about 3/8 left. Pump stopped after 11.5 gallons. Started the car and the gauge shows full. I'll report back if it continues to misbehave or if it has corrected itself.

Sounds like it probably fixed itself. Which is good, just carry a jug in case you need to make a walking trip to the gas station if anything were to happen like it did to me.

Another update, hopefully the last one. Since the recall was done in late February the fuel gauge was acting wonky. Sometimes it would be almost fine, but eventually it would show that it isn't. Not getting up to full on a fill-up, lowering in a slower or faster rate, going suddenly up, etc.

I took it back to the dealer. They claimed that there are two fuel pumps (with a secondary one in the passenger side) and two fuel floats due to the saddle shape of the fuel tank. First time I heard this, but I guess it makes sense. They said that they verified that the floats are free to move and then did a hard reset on the fuel monitoring system. This also reset the clock and the average MPG, but didn't change the throttle response (like would happen with a battery disconnect).

After I took the car the fuel gauge looked better (with almost 300 miles since the last fill-up, it showed over a quarter left, where it should be almost empty). After a fill-up the gauge went to full (or almost full - I don't remember if fully filled up sets the needle to slightly above the top mark or at it).

Fingers crossed this will be the end of this, but the dealer tech did say that if this doesn't help they will replace the pump assembly again.

Hly sht man, You've been going at this or longer than I did. They should've just replaced the whole assembly to begin with. I just hope they don't fill the tank up with 89 like they did with mine.

Well, it was a long time on the calendar, but I only visited the dealer twice - once for the original recall work in February and once today. I always keep track of miles since fill up so the wonky fuel gauge wasn't really bothersome.

The dealer never volunteered to fill the tank, so it's all 93 by me.

That would make sense. Part of the reason why I had to drive with the gauge being defective for so long was because of service availability.

The gas issue in my case was because they wanted to make sure that the gauge worked perfectly after a full tank. I thanked them for doing that, because it was nice of them, but once I started driving I could tell something was off, so I asked and that's when I found out they used regular gas.

You guys had some serious perseverance, at that point I'd be emailing and calling SoA or the regional offices. I'm super surprised techs still don't know where everything in the car is or don't pre-read the service manuals to understand things.

Can't speak for @spcmafia, but I only visited the dealer twice and both times were fairly hassle free. I doubt SoA would have sent a Master Tech to my house with a Techstream to reset the fuel gauge. The only slight annoyance is that I live smack-dab in the middle between the two local Subaru dealers so it's a 20 minute drive to either of them.
If anything, the second visit was actually for the best as I took a 2022 BRZ for a spin while there, something which I probably wouldn't have gotten around to doing otherwise.

Reviving this thread.



The initial work for my F.P recall was lacking to say the least, the floater was damaged in the process so it triggered a complete replacement of the assembly. So that's two visits for initial work.



The next time I had fuel related work done to the car was about a year ago. Strong gasoline smell after filling up the tank. Took the car to the dealership, everything seemed fine.



Fast forward to beginning of May, 2024. I go out, I fuel up, slight gasoline smell, as always, but it doesn't go away. To add context, I parked the car on a slope with the front facing up, did some small work on the car, then parked it on a level surface. The difference this time is that I noticed a small puddle, smelled like gasoline. Outside the car also smelled like gasoline, the interior was very strong too.



Removed both rear seats, passenger side line gasket looks good. Driver side on the other hand allowed me to see the top of the F.P assembly and I could see it was wet. Reached out with my fingers and it was gasoline.



From what I understand, there are two gaskets, one for a top lid (Green) and a thicker one that surrounds the assembly (Black). Now, whenever any sort of work happens to the assembly, the top lid needs to be put back, exactly how the OEM was. Else I guess it either throws a code, or an improper seal can happen.



My initial thought is that probably one of those gaskets is deficient due to improper installation. The dealership initial observation seems to be its probably field mice damage. There was some droppings underneath the seat. Even though the fuel line gasket is intact, and so are the cables that sit on top of the fuel assembly lid.





TLDR; been dealing with strong fuel smells after a fill-up, now too strong to ignore. Fuel was found on top of F.A lid, car is back at the dealership for a 4th time. Will update as it develops.

Update; the dealership performed a pressure test on the task to see if there was air escaping from the top of the assembly. No leaks, they seem to believe that the leak is coming from another line not easily accessible. They'll probably need to drop the tank.

Wonder how much it will cost...