[jschue22]

I've only had my outback for a little over a year and been on this board slightly longer. I've learned TONS about my wagon and common problems- head gaskets, CV joints, weak rear struts...

One thing that hardly comes up are transmission problems. Is there something about them? I know a lot of people with VW's and they're ALWAYS complaining about their transmissions. Are Subaru transmissions bulletproof?

 

[rasterman]

The Subaru 5MT, 4EAT and 5EAT transmissions are extremely durable. We do see failure reports, but they are nearly always on 15 year old cars hitting their 4th owners, so nobody knows what prior treatment or maintenance those examples received.

The new CVT transmissions are widely expected to be less durable, but so far so good. Seems to be a low failure rate so far.

Edit:

Also it's kind of institutional that VW has trouble with automatic transmissions. This dates back to 1967. The Manual gearboxes they buy from ZF seem to be bulletproofed, but whenever they try something fancy or automated it ends in tears on the side of the highway.

 

[1 Lucky Texan]

setting aside the MTs that get 'abused' in wrxes and stis, and torque bind problems in the autos(often from abuse or just age) then yeah, from what I've read, trannies and diffs seem fairly tough.

 

[nipper]

As long as you don't abuse the subaru transmissions and service them, they are basically trouble free. the AWD parts are very sensitive and should always have matching tires for this reason. Even when the auto AWD wears out, it is usually from lots and lots of miles, and doesnt require a tranny replacement.

CVT's it is still too early to tel, but on other mfgs they are reaching over 100K now. What kills them is the failure to come to a complete stop before chainging directions.

 

[KCe46]

Keep in mind no matter the reputation there will always be exceptions. My wife and I baby our cars, our Outback has had its transmission fluid changed every 30k and at 73k the transmission had to be replaced. Even cars that have the most reliable track records can still have failures here and there.

 

[1 Lucky Texan]

I think I read at Wikipedia that, other than Toyota and Honda(?), the other Japanese cars have transmissions made by JATCO.