It's 11 months old. Maybe 12.

No one knows.

 

asked and answered. = ....the best place is on the Ascent forum looking for high mileage folks like using them for work, pounding the miles on them.

 

check ascentforums.com

 

I've checked the ascent forums. No mass amounts of engine failures. Main problems are the large HU and the CVT. Most of the CVT stuff appears to be from early build 19s. One poor girl has had two buybacks of ascents due to the CVT. I"m going on faith that these problems are history now for the 2020 outback.

 

The Oil dilution appears to appear more on smaller displacement engines, under 2 liters, than larger ones. I don't recall hearing a lot of 2.0XT forester owners complaining about oil dilution issues. Nor dor I see Crosstrek owners jumping up and down over it, and my experience with my wife or step-daughter's FB20 DI haven't had any issues. (Sample size 2 of course, but a good sign, here in NJ).

Subaru supposedly uses a unique design to help prevent the carbon build-up issues on their DI engines, but only time will tell. Apparently on the FA20, one of their first DI engines, there's a carbon buildup valve/tube, which can be removed and cleaned and/or replaced. I've also seen the turbo guys install a PCV bypass or something that supposedly helps prevent any problems. Given the 2.4 is based off of that engine, no reason to expect it doesn't have some measures to help prevent it.

 

Subaru supposedly uses a unique design to help prevent the carbon build-up issues on their DI engines,

shhh dont tell the posters in that 3.6 owner thread, as its gonna blow their whole narrative.

 

Oils can help mitigate that to a degree but what really works is a small supplemental fuel injection on the back of the valves.

 

Wow. That’s two posts collecting hopeful rumors and wishful thinking. You all “heard” Subaru had a design to prevent DI carbon buildup? ( not you Rub, you get it).

They do, it’s on the BRZ DI engine jointly developed with Toyota. It combines port and direct injection but it’s not found on any other Subaru DI engine because it’s a Toyota design. The rest with DI make carbon and need periodic intake de carbonization.

Unlike your small sample size, my FXT 2.0 DIT sample of one was very prone to carbon, suffering at about 30,000 miles. Probably because of many short trips.

In any case, carbon problems are not a 100% certainty with DI, but still common.

PS
The device is called a catch can.

EJ

 

Simple solution. Rather than needless speculation, can one the Subie Ambassadors ask for a technical explanation regarding how Subaru has responded to the issue? Seems obvious that by now they have addressed it as at least some of the other manufacturers have, and would not be marketing new DI engines if they were unable to address the issue.

 

Yea, I'd like to know this as well. My wife's Forester XT goes in for a 30,000 mile service soon. I'll be asking them this question, but given my service department, I'm sure I won't get a straight answer.

 

A response from Subaru was posted in the other thread...I forget the post number at this point.

 

Here's one Subaru response for an internal air-oil-separator. I believe it was incorporated in the 2014 FXT but it bears checking. It was a hot button topic over there about 5 years ago. I don't know if its the most current solution or included in the 2.4L.

 

Here's one Subaru response for an internal air-oil-separator. I believe it was incorporated in the 2014 FXT but it bears checking. It was a hot button topic over there about 5 years ago. I don't know if its the most current solution or included in the 2.4L.

Thanks for posting that. I’ve looked for it a few times since I originally saw it posted on nasioc but couldn’t find it.

 

Rotating sooner shouldn't have any ill effects and doing at the same time as oil changes makes it easy to remember. 6K is only just shy of the 7.5K-10K interval you mention anyway. With the Grand Cherokee I previously drove, the oil change interval was 8K and I did the rotations simultaneously, too.

We now return you to Turbo reliability....

 

I agree doing it sooner doesn't hurt any thing. I'll change back to every 5k miles.

 

As long as we're off-topic, if in doubt about your rotation interval, get a cheap depth gauge and rotate when the numbers start to change front to rear. Subarus tend to be picky about tire circumference, so a little extra vigilance isn't a bad thing. I do mine every 3500 miles and they are (and remain) perfect front to back. Then again, I have a jack, garage, and torque wrench.

 

Easy way to address this issue: Lease the car. That's my plan. Then I have the option to get out no problem in three years and any issues become Subaru's problem. If its running perfectly and there aren't widespread problems, maybe I'll buy the car. I've leased my last three cars and was VERY happy about it every time. I can live with an extra $1200-1600 in ownership costs for the peace of mind. Especially with a first-year model.

 

hard to lease when you drive 25K miles a year.

 

Not all that hard to lease with those miles, but expensive to lease putting on those miles. ?

 

Most of the CVT issues on the Ascent were on vehicles manufactured in a specific short time period and the actual percentage of folks with problems relative to total sales is reportedly very low. The CVT unit being used isn't new, either...it's been around for a long time. Forums are not the best place to get a statistically correct view because human nature makes for people with issues more likely to post about them and people with no issues more likely not to pose because they are out enjoying their vehicle. Over 90,000 Ascents have been built and the majority are great vehicles...including mine.

 

Just purchased yesterday a 2020 touring xt, love it so far of course but heard so much about QC issues that I really hope these are unfounded.
The oil dilution problem is an issue that 35 years ago when I was doing my mechanical engineering degree was well known and German cars already implemented it brilliantly in non normally aspirated engines, I would assume the outback turbo engine should have none of these issues. I will stay monitoring the forum