Quote:
Originally Posted by Tcoat
I am going to tell a little story here.
Back 2014 and 15 (long before the spring recall debacle) there were a number of mysterious engine failures due to oil starvation. I went back through older threads and managed to collect around 30 reported cases. Of the cases that actually gave detailed info there were more than 20 that included excessive sealant in the oil pickup. Of course there would have been many many more that never got reported here but with the data we had it was statistically probable that the majority of the failures were due to blocked passages and/or pickup tubes. All of the affected cars were very early 2013s
Many people wanted to ignore the sealant and stated that "there is no way there can be that much extra and it can't possibly get into the passages." Well the later failures due to bad sealant during the recall most certainly proved it could and does get into the passages and pickups if not applied correctly.
So, anybody that works in automotive manufacturing knows just how much is done by robots. In this case the sealant on the timing cover and oil pan are almost guaranteed to be put on by robot. It is exactly the sort of task that robots USUALLY do better than humans. Robots do however screw up (often because the human that taught the task did a piss poor job) on a fairly regular basis as well though. Yes these engines had been used for a short time in the Ascent but the differences in the overall construction likely means they had their own set of programing including the sealant application. Even being out by 1 millimeter or a few extra grams of material applied can give the results seen in the picture here. This type of failure is not unknown in the early production runs of anything new.
Odds are that if that was a total undisturbed stock engine there will be more than one with the same issue. Probably not many but enough to cast doubt on any of the very early production. If indeed the oil pan (as it appears to be) this time at least it is a far easier check than the timing cover. Getting the dealer to check may be difficult unless there are several failures and instructions come down from Subaru.
And people are surprised that some say to stay away from being an early adaptor of a new model car?
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This tread is getting too long to read. Just wondering do the Gen 1 Facelift (2017 to 2020) have the same issue? I see you have a 2020 Hakone model, do you have the same issue? If yes, I need to check my 2018 one too, Thanks!