Subaru Problems

Any vehicle of this age has to be approached on an individual basis. It’s likely to have covered a lot of kilometres by now, so any major (or minor) component could be well past its best.

Any Subaru transmission that doesn’t shift properly or is slow to engage a gear or shudders under acceleration needs to be either investigated further or avoided completely. Don’t forget that the Liberty was all-wheel-drive, so that places extra strain on the transmission as well as making for a more complex arrangement if it does need to be repaired or replaced.

In high-performance Subarus (such as the WRX) the transmission was something of a fuse if the driver got a bit over-enthusiastic, but in models like the Liberty, the four-speed automatic was a sound unit. When test driving the vehicle, make sure there are no thumps or vibrations when the gearbox shifts down, and try to shift gears manually. The gearbox should respond instantly to manual input, without any hesitation or noise.

Subaru’s own brochure blurb for the Crosstrek features the promise of off-roading family fun. With that in mind, the warranty will still apply even if you do get adventurous with the vehicle. That said, you might have warranty problems if it’s deemed that you’ve abused the vehicle by trying to take it places it was never designed to go. For example, while the Crosstrek is fine for finding a great mountain bike trail somewhere along a forestry road, trying to drive it up the Old Telegraph Track to Cape York through metre-deep river crossings is not within the Crosstrek’s design brief. Doubtless Subaru might argue you should have bought a high-clearance off-roader with a snorkel for such adventures.

The CVT is Subaru’s own work and design. While many other carmakers buy in transmissions from outside manufacturers, the CVT in the Crosstrek is an in-house effort. It’s generally agreed that Subaru’s CVTs are better than some other brands in terms of durability and reliability.

A car can stop in its tracks for hundreds of reasons, but in a car like yours, first suspicions would be either the fuel pump or something like the crank-angle sensor. If the problem had been a clogged fuel filter or a dud spark plug, the problem would probably have made the engine run poorly, but not stopped it dead in an instant.

Electric fuel pumps don’t last forever and, when they die, they die quickly and without notice. Same goes for crank-angle sensors, without which, the computer doesn’t know where the individual pistons are in each cylinder and, therefore, can’t inject fuel or create spark at the precise time it needs to.

Subaru currently has no plans to discontinue the Crosstrek. In fact, it is the brand's second-best-selling model in Australia to the Subaru Forester. From 2025, Subaru are likely to add a hybrid powertrain option to the Crosstrek, which is likely to arrive in the form of a 2.5-litre four-cylinder petrol 'Boxer' engine with twin electric motors.

It certainly sounds that way. The clutch’s job is to join the engine to the gearbox while still being able to disconnect them when you need to idle the car or change gears. If the clutch is worn out, you’ll find it slipping under load, allowing the revs to flare up and the vehicle not moving much. This sounds exactly like what you’re describing.

At the least, you’ll need a new clutch unit, but if it’s been slipping for some time, there’s a chance the flywheel has been damaged and will also need to be replaced or machined. I’m tipping that when you tried to reverse out of your parking spot most recently and revved the engine out with no motion from the rest of the car, there was a terrible smell a bit like the smell of brakes in a railway station when a rain pulls in. If so, that’s a clutch failure for sure.

You may have something loose or worn in the driveline – such as a driveshaft – that is causing the thump. Looseness or wear means the drive from the engine doesn’t travel smoothly to the wheels, and that’s why you hear a noise and feel a clunk when you engage a gear. A check underneath should easily spot the problem.

But you may also be dealing with a worn transmission with internal wear. The Subaru XV uses a CVT transmission which, while a very efficient design, is also known for developing wear. This isn’t just a Subaru problem, either; many makes and models with CVTs have the same issues. CVTs are definitely stronger than they used to be, but they’re not always the most robust type of transmission.

It sounds like the head unit and its Bluetooth functions have suffered a pretty major electronic failure. The good news is that you can replace the head unit for reasonable money these days, and get a better unit with more features into the bargain.

But before you rush out and replace the unit, try to find the reset button (often a small hole into which you poke a probe) to effect what is basically an Ctrl-Alt-Del reset. This will sometimes restore the unit to full functionality, so it’s definitely worth a try. You could also try disconnecting the car’s battery overnight to see if that resets things.

The noise could be from the electric motors themselves or in the gears and cogs that physically move the mirrors to their new positions. Pulling the mirror apart and lubricating these mechanisms might help reduce the noise and may even fix the one mirror’s reluctance to move through its full range of positions.

As far as warranty goes, the situation is a bit complicated in that the dealer may examine the noise and decide that it’s not abnormal. But what you should do before the warranty runs out is have the car examined and the problem logged at dealership level. That way, if anything goes wrong as a result of the problem, even if it’s beyond the warranty period, you have what’s called a pre-existing condition whereby the problems is Subaru’s to fix because it existed while the warranty was still current, even if it wasn’t fixed at that time. The point being that the dealer can’t delay a fix reported during the warranty period and then claim that the vehicle is out of warranty and refuse to fix the problem.

Your car is trying to tell you that there’s something wrong somewhere and that it has disabled its cruise-control function as a result. A flashing cruise-control light in this vehicle is often accompanied by a check engine light, so make sure that’s not lit as well. If the check engine light is illuminated, then the flashing cruise light is the car’s way of telling you you won’t be able to engage cruise-control to avoid causing a bigger problem.

But you could have a different problem with the cruise-control - perhaps a speed sensor or brake-light switch problem – that is forcing the car to disable the cruise function.

Any time the brakes (or any other system of a car) start to feel different than they have done since you bought the car, there’s probably something wrong. If it was an older car, I’d suggest a brake fluid change as the first step, but that’s unlikely to be the reason in an almost-new car. The problem sounds like there’s air in the braking system (there should only be brake fluid, and no air) but, again, that’s a wild card in such a new vehicle.

In any case, you’re doing the right thing by having the car independently tested. If the results come back suggesting a problem, you have good ammunition to get the dealership to fix this as a warranty matter. Make sure you get a written report from the mechanic detailing the braking system’s performance, and don’t be afraid to go over the dealer’s head to Subaru Australia’s customer service department.