fishman

I have a new 2 week old WRX 5 speed sedan and found a slow tranny oil leak.

The level is barely registering on the dipstick (below the low mark)

I jacked up the car and found the cross-member (that I use to jack up the car) was coated with oil and dripping a bit. It was gear oil, I think coming from 2 tranny case bolts (leaking on the passenger side of tranny case.)

Has anyone had this problem? I did a search and found one other, but no suggestions...

I will try to take it to the dealer right away. This really scares me. Is the level safe to drive the car (to the dealer)? Is there something you'd recommend the dealer do?

If anyone has any suggestions, I appreciate it. Thanks,

Kman.

OldGuy

Actually, we don't all know that.

Wife and I both have WRX's and they have been excellent to deal with.

fishman

Thanks.

I'm a bit worried about having the car towed, so I was thinking of topping up the fluid a bit and then driving it down to the dealer...

Unfortunately, I don't have any regular gear oil to top it up with. I have some Redline synthetic 75w90ns I believe. (I put it in the tranny on my RS a while ago...) But I don't think I should top it up with that. I think I'd open the door for them to complain that my synthetic oil is to blame for my leak...

I don't have any experience with dealers. I guess I might be overly concerned with how they will help...

fishman

YaZahX

just drive the car to the dealer and tell them u ahve a tranny leak, it should be covered under warranty

and btw, subaru warranty is fine, just that certain dealers dont wanna do the work

YaZahX

why not just drive the car in and use that when they need it?

fishman

Thanks for the advice from all. I will take it in to the dealer (Subaru of Dallas) Tuesday morning, and cross my fingers... I think it's safe to drive it down so I'm planning on doing that.

Once I hear what needs to be done to fix it, I'll post it to the thread.

Fishman

fishman

Okay, I went to the dealer and

- First they "forgot" I had an appointment and now they wouldn't give me a loaner car, which the salesman persisted was a great feature of this dealership, before I bought.

- They did lift the car, and they couldn't find the leak I found. I showed them, and they still wouldn't admit it was leaking. I was so pissed off I was shaking at this point. Now I had the mechanic telling me it's just the undercoating spray I was looking at. I really didn't want to hear that after the salesman and the service manager told me that.

- Anyway, I smeared gear oil all over my hands since they couldn't find any oil anywhere. They had no explanation why the tranny was reading at the low line when I received the car. They topped up the tranny and sent me on my way to monitor it if it was leaking.

Maybe it was a good thing the guy didn't do any major work.

Sorry if I'm being skeptical. This just really concerns me. The mechanic told me if it was gear oil and didn't come from the "dipstick area" it must be a cracked case. It couldn't possibly be the gasket. They "never" leak.

Any other thoughts from anyone? I'll just monitor and pray for now I guess.

Thanks,

Fishman

YaZahX

that dealer sounds shady. undercoating spray could be on the tranny it will be a yellowish color but its not oily its rather sticky.

the manual tranny does not use a gasket for the seal, it pretty much uses silicone sealer along the outer case. while it is possile to leak from there, i have never reallys een that, ive seen from the axle output shaft seals and the drainplug.

what u can do is bring the car elsewhere u are not binded to that place. if they find somthing u could call soa.

also the car should not come low on fluid, part of teh predelivery inspection is to make sure that the fluids are topped off

fishman

Thanks. (Sorry for the repeat post. I got to be more careful with the browser...)

It really looks like the bolt heads though. Everything above the bolt heads are bone dry. I had a mirror to check everything over really good. I am going to wipe it down and use the air comp. to clean the are good, and then I can better monitor where the new fluid "starts" coming from.

I will have to research this dealer for service too. I heard good things about the sales experiences. Maybe I should have checked the service dept.

Oh yeah, they also told me I wasn't supposed to use that "center connecting bracket" (or whatever the right name for it is) for jacking up the car. They told me I need to jack the front of the car by the notches in the frame under the doors. I couldn't believe it. That's when I started getting excited. I thought it was common knowledge to use that brace for jacking the front...

I will post again if I find out anything else that may be of interst...

Fishman