Question is in response to these developments, two Subaru class action lawsuits in the span of two months:
We all probably heard before that there is some oiling deficiency to the rod bearing area in the turbo engines.
Is there a cure for this, perhaps? Unfortunately, I have a similar engine in my car, 2013 Forester XT.
Basia
There's a similar lawsuit that seems to be brewing for the Ford Focus RS, except in their case, the problems developed within 1 year, so it's still within the warranty period of most of these cars! Interesting thing about this video is that they actually used the example of a Subaru STI engine as how to design that Ford engine properly! In the case of the Focus RS engine, it seems that they sacrificed cooling performance for engine rigidity.
Sounds like an exact repeat of the Subaru headgasket problem with the non-turbo ej25 engine, also an open deck design. Quality of modern engineering is definitively lacking. Subaru has never resolved the true fault.
The newest Subaru lawsuit alleges massive fraud. Subaru new perfectly well about the problem but concealed the defective nature of these engines from the public and unloaded a known faulty product on the American public.
I tend to agree. There have been numerous cases of well documented early engine failures of completely unmodified well maintained cars.
This time around the plaintiffs demand punitive damages not only recovery of costs. If such damages are awarded we'll see some action, if not then Subaru will just expense the lawsuit and do nothing. This recipe has worked for them in the past.
Here's a link to text of the lawsuit, see bottom of page.
Subaru is not saying anything which is very disappointing! I hope the judge forces Subaru to disclose information.
Basia
Maybe both, ...to thin oil that needs to be delivered at higher volume, but is not.
Who knows. I am anxious to learn anything in hopes of preventing a failure in my own car.
Basia
I can't wait for us to be over and done with this internal combustion engine shit, and move on to electric engines. The level of complexity of the ICE pretty much guarantees that something must go wrong with it very soon: moving cranks, moving pistons, moving valves, gaskets, coolants, etc. And then let's not even speak about the complexity of the transmission system, even a basic manual transmission is way too complicated for its own good. Compare that to the simplicity of pretty much just a stator and a rotor, and that's your entire electric engine. I can't believe we've put up with this shit for the past 100 to 150 years!
I'm agnostic on whether powering it should be batteries or fuel cells, but in both cases it's using an electric motor. You can even make fuel cells for gasoline or diesel, rather than hydrogen or alcohol, and you can maintain your entire existing fueling infrastructure.
Yousuf Khan
Just imagine what would happen to the economy if most of the garages where to close down tomorrow.
No more engine repair shops, no more transmisssion shops, no more emissions and fuel system repair and testing facilities. No more engine oil and tranny fluid change industry. No more bulky crude oil transport- pipelines, tankers at ocean, no more refinery and storage facilities, no more tank trucks on highways hauling fuel. No more big retail gas stations where fuel is securely stored and dispensed where milions upon milions find employment.
The entire economy would utterly collapse.
Automotive industry is the king of industries employing the most people. Up-keep, maintenance, repairs and fueling the of the combustion engine consist of major part of this industry.
Did I mention the retail stores selling parts? Oh my, millions of parts stores!
A simple and reliable electric motor fueled from an in-wall electric socket at home, or some plug-in ATM type self-service dispenser would be a nightmare for the economy.
Certain economic depression would ensue, as billions upon billions of past investment would be made suddenly unproductive, obsolete and bancrupt.
Instant unemployment in the 20, 30 percentage rate, perahps much higher.
Of course such transition would be gradual and I am exaggerating here purposefully just to illustrate that progress doesn't come easy even if marvelous technology exists and even if government where to mandate such transition.
Basia
Of course people would transfer their productivity into other industries; would stop wasting untold amounts of time, energy and resources on an obsolete and super high maintenance item such as the Internal Combustion engine.
It will happen... the gradual transition has already begun.
Basia
With fuel cell technology, there would still be a fuel industry, slightly different fuels, of course. The mechanism for converting fuel into work, would be a lot simpler in fuel cells than internal combustion engines.
As for engine repair shops, you could say that's already happened, you don't see as many shops specialized in radiator and cooling system repairs anymore, for example. Even specialized muffler and exhaust system shops are not as prevalent anymore. Same goes for brakes. These have all become part of a more generalized repair shops now. That's probably because these parts no longer fail as often anymore.
I'm sure there will still be lots to repair on a car even after the conversion to electric engines. But like the type of shops I described above, a lot of specialized shops will go away.
Power still needs to be paid for, electricity is a big business.
Horse-buggy repair shops were replaced by car repair shops, 100 years ago. We'll replace our current horse-buggies with something more modern, and they will still need to be repaired.
Yousuf Khan
Fuel cells with gasoline or diesel makes some sense but of course the current environmental movement would oppose it.
The government nuts in my blue state declared natural gas exempt from fossil fuel regulations in the state to bring in manufacturing Bloom engineering fuel cells as an environmentally friendly source of electricity. Of course, us taxpayers got hosed.
Yeah, batteries are made from their own variety of environmental toxins. A hybrid battery/fuel cell technology will make the most long term sense, as batteries can't be made much more energy dense without making them seriously more dangerous at the same time.
But either case, electric engines are the best way to go into the future. Goodbye bangers!
Yousuf Khan
The good thing is that electric cars would free untold millions of people from essentially wasting their productive time on servicing and maintaining an over-complex machine. The bad thing is that this over-complex piece of machinery, the Internal Combustion engine, allows untold millions to earn a living.
The buggy bisness was not that developed, its dissapearnce did not inconvienience many people.
The automobile manufacture and servicing/maintenace related business is the king of all businesses. Two decades ago 1 in 5 jobs in the US. economy use to directly or indirectly arise from the auto industry.
Of course Electric would not kill all these jobs, but more than half would be in danger.
Basia
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