Hello all,
I have a 2002 WRX and had some tranny problems about a month ago. I talked to Rennick Subaru in Fullerton( Great service by Rennick) and they replaced my clutch for me. Shortly after 2nd gear would grind on occasion. I talked to the service advisor and she said to come in as soon as possible. A couple days later I was driving and when i put it in 2nd gear I heard a loud crunch and 2nd was gone. I talked to Cristina in service and brought the car in as soon as possible. The techs at Rennick knew about my problem and said they would cover the repair as a "1 time repair" I thanked them and they started the tear down the next day.

Then my problems begin....
A Regional service manager named Charles Lamereaux walked by my car took a couple pictures and stated it was abuse and DENIED MY WARRANTY!!!! I got a call from Cristina and she said to discuss the decision with SOA.

Basically I played phone tag with SOA and their managers and this is their conclusion.

My exhaust and air filter are modifications and caused the transmission to fail.
(I have a HKS exhaust and a greddy filter)

The buttons in the car are suspicious and could be the cause of the transmission failure
(Buttons to operate my MP3 player)

There is another car at Rennick with the same problem (2nd Gear) and Charles Lamereaux approved the warranty work on that car.

SOA told me that Phil (service manager at Rennick) said he thinks the modifications on the car caused the failure

Later I find that Phil never said that and in fact Phil disagreed with Charles about denying my warranty.

I'm still waiting for a call back from Charles Lamereaux so we can discuss this furthur as SOA has no way of appealing a Regional service managers decision. according to SOA the Regional Manager has the final say and there is NO WAY it can be disputed.

So basically SOA is telling me that the Techs and Service consultants at Rennick are incompetant and don't know anything about transmissions.

Sorry about the rant, but I dont know what to do from this point on.

Should I call the FTC (federal trade commision), BBB or anyone else??

Should we start to see if this is a trend and start a class action lawsuit? I see that there are many other on the board that have transmission problems.

Thanks,
Christian Acedillo

 

good luck man, I'm taking them to small claims. It seems that SOA doesnt like to give out names/addresses of regional offices so it makes it harder to serve them. I figured that they are playing the odds...out of so many denials of warranty, only a select few would sue them so Subaru wins either way. I have talked 5 people out of buying a wrx because of warranty problems. that totals about $130,000 that Subaru has lost because of my denial of warranty work.

if you take them to court they have to prove that you abused it or those parts directly affected the transmission break. If they cant prove it beyond 50% then you win. the only problem is that small claims is not in front of a judge, its more of a mediated meeting between SOA, a lawyer and yourself. search I-club, there are a few threads relating to class action lawsuits started up by a few people. Jon Jacobs is the name of a lawyer that I was in contact with for a while in Sacramento. He is involved in one of the class action suits and has plenty of info to help you. consumers have rights, and SOA is violating those rights by pooling us (the victims of poor construction and quality control) with moron kids that like to dump the clutch and blow up transmissions.

I'm 23 and look like a kid, but I've owned 3 new cars/trucks and none of them have ever broken like this. I baby my automobiles and I'm still in shock that somebody had the ***** to tell me I abused my car and am now responsible for $4000 worth of parts and labor. Dont get me wrong, I love my wrx and wouldnt trade it for any other car, if I had to buy again I would still by a wrx. I would just like Subaru to accept fault and liability when poor craftsmanship and weak design is the issue. Like you said, sorry for the rant.

check out www.deniedmywarranty.org a site created specifically for our problem with subaru and their blatant disregard for consumer rights.

 

I'm taling with the service manager and hopefully we can work something out.

 

more or less

 

There was some nothchiness and Rennick replaced the clutch for me. Then it started to gring occasionally. After a while it grinded more and more often. Then suddenly there was a loud crunch and 2nd was gone.

 

Can you spell T O A S T?

You're it.