I had an oil change in our
I had an oil change in our 2013 Crosstrek in May, by the beginning of Augusta the oil light came on. I have owned several Subarus and this has never happened. I used full synthetic before Subaru standardized on it and I never burned oil sufficiently that I had an oil light come on between oil changes. I was on a trip at the time, so I stopped immediately, verified the oil was low and added sufficient oil to bring it halfway between full and low marks. I didn't want to overfill.
I was just about to schedule an oil change about 10 days later and the oil light came on again, meaning it lost a half quart in 10 days.
When I reported the problem to my dealer, they looked at me with disbelief, saying that's weird. After having them check for some leak they said everything looked good and that burning a quart of oil per 1200 miles is within spec. I said, since when! I have had clunkers that blew oil smoke out the exhaust pipe that burned at that rate, no way for a 2013 Crosstrek that has been serviced by the dealer, every time!
They agreed to do an oil consumption test. I take the car home and something was just bothering about the problem. I thought they may have failed to actually change my oil in May, or didn't put in sufficient oil. I mean, why else would it be so low. So I went and checked the oil level and to my shock it was over full. It oil was beyond the full mark significantly, about the width of my index finger or about a 1/2 inch. I took it right back to the dealer and they confirmed it was overfull.
I then checked the oil before I left the second time. So how does a dealer overfill oil in any vehicle, even more troubling, even if accidents happen, you wouldn't think it could happen on a vehicle that is being staged for an oil consumption report. I mean that is beyond incompetence or worse, an attempt to defraud a Subaru customer.
So per my dealer, I now have to go through three 1200 mile oil consumption tests, before any request for work can be even submitted. I have no doubt that the 1/2 quart of oil burned in about 10 days means our Crosstrek will need what Subaru calls a short block replacement, but it looks like I will have to jump through bureaucratic hoops while they attempt to avoid/delay fixing what they know is broke.
And while we are on the Subject of poor engineering design, the air conditioning compressor they used in the 2013 Crosstrek is an obnoxious torque slamming device. I have never had a car where the compressor cycles every 30-40 seconds at 65 mph, and in each case their is a loud click, a momentary loss of speed, and a vibration in the gas pedal. I spoke to the dealer and they said that Subaru knows about the issue and has changed out the compressor mechanism. Lot of good that does me, unless there is a recall!
Yeah, I am not happy, and I love Subaru!