Issues/Problems for early adopters

[Cloven]

Originally Posted by Frost

UPDATE: Got my pan dropped and dealer did state they agreed that there was more RTV on the edge than expected and found some RTV in the pan but none in my pickup tube. They took a photo of it and put it in the report. Resealed the pan and away I went. Sure I just paid for a service that shouldn't have been necessary but there's a difference between necessary maintenance and preventative maintenance.

Now, I just keep sending her and I will likely, for science purposes, drop the pan again at the beginning of next season to see if there's any RTV again or until Subayota come up with an explanation and/or TSB. If have two oil pan drops in a row with nothing in the screen, I will have to give more credence that I will likely not see RTV in the next drop so I will start having to justify spending money on the pan drops. Hey, look... problem solving!

People are also forgetting this is a 5 sided screen, all the photos so far are just one out of the five sides. Something to consider.

FYI, taking this route may well pose more risk than leaving the factory application. Removal of the pan obviously requires it to be resealed, by the same dealer techs that caused all the issues for MY13 owners. The track record is not strong for this service. Just a word of caution for others considering this.

[soundman98]

Originally Posted by Cloven

FYI, taking this route may well pose more risk than leaving the factory application. Removal of the pan obviously requires it to be resealed, by the same dealer techs that caused all the issues for MY13 owners. The track record is not strong for this service. Just a word of caution for others considering this.

yea, i don't get it either.

so now he has to go back to the dealer for them to remove the pan again to check the previous tech's work, and reseal the pan again, which leads to needing to be checked again, which leads to another reseal job that could fail again...repeated until the end of time where one is re-mortgaging their house to pay for the repair bills....

[Thatllbuffout]

Originally Posted by soundman98

yea, i don't get it either.

so now he has to go back to the dealer for them to remove the pan again to check the previous tech's work, and reseal the pan again, which leads to needing to be checked again, which leads to another reseal job that could fail again...repeated until the end of time where one is re-mortgaging their house to pay for the repair bills....

I personal would not be doing this but I do really appreciate people like him doing it. These are all data points that will eventually lead to a TSB if needed. Meanwhile i'm just gonna be sending it lol.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Cloven

FYI, taking this route may well pose more risk than leaving the factory application. Removal of the pan obviously requires it to be resealed, by the same dealer techs that caused all the issues for MY13 owners. The track record is not strong for this service. Just a word of caution for others considering this.

You have a valid point. Each time you drop the pan for this type of work, you introduce risk but at the same time, the risk of that work being shoddy versus the factory over application is also a risk to weigh out. In my personal case, some peace of mind and continuous monitoring will satiate my curiosity.

That said, the "previous tech" - do we know if the RTV all over the engine spots (not just the pan) is done by a human or a robot? Doing basic risk analysis, one case scenario, each spot is done by a unique robot which means there are that many more vectors for error possibility but it is possible that all the robots were programmed incorrectly or just one. Another case, is that all RTV is applied by ONE robot with it being incapable of maintaining tolerances reliably. That to me is the worst because you could have some perfectly fine cars and some shitty ones. All from the same damn line.

The latter sounds like a high plausibility based on what we currently know but that is also HEAVILY tainted with confirmation bias.

Originally Posted by Thatllbuffout

I personal would not be doing this but I do really appreciate people like him doing it. These are all data points that will eventually lead to a TSB if needed. Meanwhile i'm just gonna be sending it lol.

I honestly considered not giving a shit but I was legit more curious than scared. On one hand, it is a 5 sided screen and no one so far has dropped the intake tube to fully look at the shape of the screen within the tube to determine the fluid flow affects of which side getting clogged makes it worse. Also, we do not know the performance curve of the oil pump so we have no idea what pressures on the suction will cause cavitation or even starvation. No one who has blown an engine so far has had oil pressure logging, let alone have shared any data. I know of at least 3-4 BRZ/GR86s that are tracked heavily that have oil pressure loggers and they've been near silent throughout this.

I also live in a condo and do not consider myself qualified to do this work so I sent it to the one place where I can pit corp HQ versus dealer and both have a lose-lose situation on an owner who is doing proactive preventative maintenance. Am I burning money? Absolutely. But that is the price to pay for what I do with the car.

[Petah78]

I ,too, appreciate all the data that has been shared up until now, all great datapoints. Couple things to note:

- I have hypothesized that the new 5-sided pick up is suby's solution to deal with a partial blocked pick up that was observed in their previous engines. I will repeat it again, this is not Suby's first rodeo with RTV issues but without using enough of it, their engines will leak (like most other subies). While the solution seems primitive, i am sure suby engineers have contraints to work within, mainly cost. Better solutions can be derived but this could be the most cost effective one. I think the theory is plausible, but again, just my opinion.

- There is a crap load of these cars tearing up race tracks around the world without issues, is this really just a RTV issue for the odd one that "kaboomed"?

- Just because you cleaned up all the RTV now doesn't mean more RTV can't land in the pan/pick up in the future. Either from shotty dealer mechanics or the factory assembly have more to give (like the gift that keeps on giving) so unless you you plan on dropping the pan on every oil change, it's hard to guage when the problem will clear (or in the case of the shotty mechanic, you could introduce problems).

What i am trying to say is that until we have more info on the issue, it's hard to say what actions are right or wrong atm, too many unknowns. For myself, i am going endoscope my pan seal and send my oil out to get it analyzed at every oil change. I think that might be the better solution as i am actually monitoring my bearing's health without dropping the pan. A partial blocked pick up is not an issue if i am not finding excess amounts of bearing materials in my oil. Again, just my opinion.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Frost

You have a valid point. Each time you drop the pan for this type of work, you introduce risk but at the same time, the risk of that work being shoddy versus the factory over application is also a risk to weigh out. In my personal case, some peace of mind and continuous monitoring will satiate my curiosity.

That said, the "previous tech" - do we know if the RTV all over the engine spots (not just the pan) is done by a human or a robot? Doing basic risk analysis, one case scenario, each spot is done by a unique robot which means there are that many more vectors for error possibility but it is possible that all the robots were programmed incorrectly or just one. Another case, is that all RTV is applied by ONE robot with it being incapable of maintaining tolerances reliably. That to me is the worst because you could have some perfectly fine cars and some shitty ones. All from the same damn line.

The latter sounds like a high plausibility based on what we currently know but that is also HEAVILY tainted with confirmation bias.



I honestly considered not giving a shit but I was legit more curious than scared. On one hand, it is a 5 sided screen and no one so far has dropped the intake tube to fully look at the shape of the screen within the tube to determine the fluid flow affects of which side getting clogged makes it worse. Also, we do not know the performance curve of the oil pump so we have no idea what pressures on the suction will cause cavitation or even starvation. No one who has blown an engine so far has had oil pressure logging, let alone have shared any data. I know of at least 3-4 BRZ/GR86s that are tracked heavily that have oil pressure loggers and they've been near silent throughout this.

I also live in a condo and do not consider myself qualified to do this work so I sent it to the one place where I can pit corp HQ versus dealer and both have a lose-lose situation on an owner who is doing proactive preventative maintenance. Am I burning money? Absolutely. But that is the price to pay for what I do with the car.

Of course we don't know for sure but having been in several engine build plants over the decades I would say with about 98% confidence that it is done by a single robot.
Their are so many variables that could go into this being misapplied that there is no way that anybody can armchair quarterback and say with any degree of confidence "this is what happened". All I know is that robots can and do screw up more often than many would ever believe.
Since it is summer and things are slow at work I have spent an exuberant amount of time looking at this issue. Not because it will affect me in any way since I will never buy a second gen but because it simply interests me. It helps that I do not have any emotional or personal investment into the situation and can look in from the sidelines.

With the VERY limited data that we have I have have the following opinions on the subject. These may (and have) changed as more data becomes available but as of this moment these are my thoughts.
Everybody can take them as they wish.

"Excessive" sealant - From looking at many pictures of different oil pans I would say that the bead is within the normal spec. All Subaru pans that use sealant on the oil pan show a bead inside about the same. What is different is they are all still fully intact. There is either something about the FA24D that makes it break off (i.e. a smaller surface contact area, over torqueing the bolts and pinching off the bead) or there was something wrong with the sealant or it's application other than how much was used (i.e. it didn't cure properly, it was to hard or soft). Of course there is also the extenuating circumstance of harder use on a track but all in all if it is going to break off under those conditions it is eventually going to break off during "regular" driving as well. I do not believe that "excessive" oil pan sealant is the true issue.

Blocked pickup - This is the obvious in your face symptom but there are a few things that make me believe it is not the direct cause of the failures. So far (with the limited data) all the failures have been a single bearing. An overall drop in oil pressure would mean damage to all the bearings not just one. Of course one would fail first they wouldn't all go at the exact same time but there would be clear indications of oil starvation across the board. A drop in overall pressure that great would also turn on the idiot light. Yes, it would be too late but it would most certainly come on. There have only been two reports of the light coming on at any point before failure. The blocked pickup however is most certainly going to impact the oil flow to some extent but as pointed out by many there is ample surface area left that by itself it should be fine.

Timing cover/other sealed components - The focus has been so heavy on the oil pan that other potential sources of contamination have been forgotten or just totally disregarded. The FA20D post recall failures were more often than not the result of techs sealing off oil channels when reapplying the sealant or contamination of the whole oil system by improper cleanup of the old crap not big chunks breaking off. Yes, again there was sealant in the pickups but the amount was tiny in comparison to what we are seeing now and could not possibly have reduced flow to any significant level. I don't think I have seen any good pictures of the timing cover sealant (have looked as so so many) to fully grasp if it is a possible contributor. There are however a couple of pictures floating around that show at least three different colours of sealant in the pickup. The big question there is where did they come from and how much of the engine did they travel through to get there? Or the even bigger question may be how much DIDN'T make it to the pan and filter? Blocked channels (not the pickup) was the main reason for both pre and post recall work on the FA20D. There is plenty of evidence to support that.

FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) - So what do we know right now with the limited data at hand?
1) All the reported failures involved spinning a single bearing. No thrown rods, failed oil pumps, clogged filters, two or more bearings, nothing else.
2) All the spun bearing engines had sealant in the pickup.
3) Not all the engines with sealant in the pickup have spun a bearing
4) There are very limited reports of a low oil pressure waring prior to failure
5) There are pictures showing more than one type of sealant in the pickup.
6) All reported failures involved cars under heavier than "normal" usage. The past failures that did not involve heavy usage all occurred between 1,000 and around 15,000 miles (with some outliers at 20,000 or even 30,000 but those are rare). Of course many of the 22s haven't reached the upper end of that yet so failures due to time may not be seen for a bit.

When these things are put together and looked at a complete system instead of just looking at one individual symptom a picture starts to emerge. It would be my educated GUESS that small pieces of sealant are making it into and partially blocking an individual channel in the block. This can happen during filter bypass at cold start or by being introduced to the engine after the filter but before the pickup. This blockage by it's self does not produce Imeadiate catastrophic failure but does increase wear on an individual bearing. Under heavy usage (or eventually just enough time at normal use) the partially blocked passage reduces the pressure to the point that oil is no longer able to pass through the affected channel resulting in starvation and failure to that single point. I propose that you need the combination of ALL three of these things (Blocked channel + partially blocked pickup + heavy use/time) to get to the failure mode. Remove any one of these three and failure is unlikely.

So What Can Be Done? - The root cause, whatever that is, will be up to Subaru to fix. They are obviously well aware of the concerns and will address it.
Removing the oil pan and inspecting/cleaning the pickup will remove one of the possible factors. If done properly the resealing should not recreate the issue especially if it was a product quality or assembly process problem to start with. By ensuring full flow volume and pressure it may even be possible that if there is a small blockage in a channel it will blow it out.
A blocked channel is of course much, much harder to diagnose. If there is a question to whether a channel is blocked the only way I can think of to have any clue at all would be to check the oil filter closely. If clear of any small bits it is not probable that any made it through during startup bypass. Of course that does not help if dome was introduced after the filter but even then if there was enough to bock a passage at least something would have made it to the filter! This check of course does not help anybody that has already changed and thrown away the original filter. Not normally something I would recommend but another action would be to use one of the better engine flush chemical (after cleaning the pickup of course) as it may manage to dislodge anything that the normal oil would not touch. The whole denial warranty by "altering" or "tampering" with the engine thing could come into play depending on how big a d1ck any individual dealership wants to be so that has to be kept in mid before touching a single bolt!
There is not a whole lot that can be done about the heavy use or time aspects I am afraid. You could drive the car like a grandma, keep you fingers crossed for 30,000 miles and then inspect the bearings for abnormal wear but if the other two possibilities are eliminated all should be good anyway.


OK, well that is it until we either get more data or Subaru/Toyota actually make a statement (don't hold your breath on that one.

WOW THAT WAS LONG!

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Petah78

- I have hypothesized that the new 5-sided pick up is suby's solution to deal with a partial blocked pick up that was observed in their previous engines. I will repeat it again, this is not Suby's first rodeo with RTV issues but without using enough of it, their engines will leak (like most other subies). While the solution seems primitive, i am sure suby engineers have contraints to work within, mainly cost. Better solutions can be derived but this could be the most cost effective one. I think the theory is plausible, but again, just my opinion.

And I will repeat again that this is in no way, shape, or form how a design engineer would ever approach this issue. The whole idea that they would say "Oh we had RTV in a few engines so let's make a big basket so it can catch it" may be something the Bubba School of Engineering may consider but not the team of hundreds of very qualified engineers that Subaru employs. For one thing it adds costs and that will be completely against any mission statement they have!
The new pickup is in all probability there to simply improve flow all the time not to strain out wayward sealant. I have wondered if they had oil temperature issues so they added the increased air flow, oil cooler and bigger pickup to address that.

[Petah78]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

And I will repeat again that this is in no way, shape, or form how a design engineer would ever approach this issue. The whole idea that they would say "Oh we had RTV in a few engines so let's make a big basket so it can catch it" may be something the Bubba School of Engineering may consider but not the team of hundreds of very qualified engineers that Subaru employs. For one thing it adds costs and that will be completely against any mission statement they have!
The new pickup is in all probability there to simply improve flow all the time not to strain out wayward sealant. I have wondered if they had oil temperature issues so they added the increased air flow, oil cooler and bigger pickup to address that.

Not suggesting what you are saying is incorrect, but if Suby engineers are so good, it wouldn't have taken decades to resolve head gaskets issues! Oh, and it took a total redesign to do it.

We can both agree that they redesigned the pick up for a reason but like you suggested, both you and I are just hacks and we will never know the real reason.

[joemysterio]

I did my oil change earlier and scoped out the inside, this is how mine looks like. I did find a little bit of debris on the dipstick before starting. Looks like too much to me.

[DeadGoon]

Can anybody use voice commands to play particular songs off their phone? (mp3s, not streaming apps).
I try use the "Play song <song>" or "Play artist <artist>" commands, but it keeps saying "No media device connected". I've tried whilst being connected via bluetooth and also Android Auto. I am able to play music fine through both, it's just the voice command not working.

Voice commands work for other things e.g. maps.


I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S10e with Bluetooth v5.0

[Desertnate]

I've noticed my passenger side wiper doesn't seem to be making good contact with the glass. Anyone else seeing this?

Driver side works great and clears the glass very well. The passenger side seems to be streaking like it isn't pressing down hard enough.

[soundman98]

both directions?

i re-bent /tweaked my wiper arms to fix a similar issue a while back.

[Desertnate]

Originally Posted by soundman98

both directions?

i re-bent /tweaked my wiper arms to fix a similar issue a while back.

Yes, in both directions.

At first I thought it was an aerodynamic problem and the wiper was being lifted off the glass at speed, but the problem happens when stationary too. This time of year is bad in my area for pollen and dust from agricultural fields. If I try to clean my windshield on the go I end up with one side being perfectly clear and the other a streaky mess that makes visibility worse, not better.

How far up the arm did you bend them?

[Interceptor777]

Did we reach a final conclusion on the hyperflash? I have another data point to add.

It used to do it a few times a week during winter but it stopped completely when the weather got warmer. Now that the weather has gotten colder here again, it did it again for the first time in six months. It's definitely related to temperatures, at least on my car.