A little while back, I posted about having my cat replaced under warranty on a 99 OBS. Shortly after the work was done (couple days), I had an exhaust leak show up toward the front of the car. I took it back to the dealership that did the cat and they said, "it's the front Y-pipe, not related to the cat job."
So next time I had it at my mechanic for an oil change, I had him look at it. He said as soon as they had it on the lift, the could see that it was NOT the Y-pipe, but rather the 2 gaskets on the front of the Y-pipe. He said it is IMPOSSIBLE to replace the cat w/o removing the Y-pipe, which means that they took the pipe off w/ the cat, took the 2 apart, put on the new cat w/ new gaskets between them. Then they put the OLD gaskets from the front of the pipe back on and put everything back together. My mechanic showed me the 2 gaskets from the front of the Y- pipe. They were CLEARLY in need of replacement. They only cost about $5 ea, but apparently the Subaru shop didn't think it was worth replacing them. Oh, and when I first brought the car back to Subaru, they said that it was gonna be about $300 to fix the non-existent leak in the y- pipe.
So not only did they half-ass the initial job, they either half-ass'd the inspection when I brought it back, or they flat lied to me about what the problem was. And of the 2 Subaru shops semi-near me, this was SUPPOSED to be the more reputable one!
Both the cars I have now are past any/all warranties, so it no longer affects me for the time being, but it sure would be nice if you could go to independent mechanics for warranty work...
-Scott