find it hard to believe that Subaru would include a inferior gearbox w/a performance car like the WRX, knowing that owners are going to drive it more aggresively than an old 1.8 liter model! (Never mind modding it...) Call me delusional but that's the way I see it. :-)
Just heard about 2 more WRX MTs one of which is a dealer blew. And these aren't chipped cars either.
The MT is known to be the weakpoint in the WRX unless you have the STi 6MT which IS a beefier version.
Believe what you will but Colin and I aren't blowing smoke up your butts. Like Colin said if driven reasonably you should be fine, but if you do significant upgrades to power, you should consider an STi 6MT swap.
"Success at the Virginia Battle of the Imports! Gregg drove the WRX to an 11.87 @113.9 during qualifying. This puts the Drivers Image Project WRX at the top as the fastest WRX in the country! "
With the base Manual Tranny with the STi shifter! Man, with the way you guys are talking, they must be on their 5th tranny by now! (sarcasm)
Sports Compact Car Mag. is also working on a Tuner WRX. From their latest magazine they seem to be using the base Manual Tranny as well. (please correct me if I am wrong). They made a comment saying that the WRX is a very stout design that can handle a great deal more power and tuning than what originally comes with it. FYI.
(edit) From http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/features/0207scc_versus/ "What's more, we really like the WRX and stand by its value as a performance car, even when modified. Our project car has taken thousands of miles of guilt-free journalist thrashing with virtually no consequence. It's proven as durable as it is blindingly fast and carries on with the daily business of hauling us around even after a punishing comparison test like this."
Not all of them will blow up. But lets face it, these car mags have only been dealing with subies for about oh maybe 3-4years tops, they know absolutely ZERO about older designs etc. In fact if you asked em what a Subaru GL was they'd look at you crosseyed.
Even if the manual tranny came from an old Ford Pinto, if it works and holds up. Who cares! What I am saying is that the MTs blowing up are ones where the drivers are severly modifying the cars and abusing the transmissions consistantly.
If I am wrong with the above statement, please correct me. All I know is I have a 5 year 60K miles warrantee on the power train.
Here's my question: who needs more than 227hp? I mean, mods are cool and all, but 350hp on public roads?
Besides, I hate it when people throw cars off balance. If you get it to 350hp, you'd better have upgraded the brakes and chassis bracing as well. And yes, the clutch and tranny too.
Put it this way, I doubt Subaru will have many warranty claims on the tranny (i.e. cars that break would be modified and therefore not covered).
Do you have facts to backup your "What I am saying is that the MTs blowing up are ones where the drivers are severly modifying the cars and abusing the transmissions consistantly. " has zero evidence.
As for the warranty thing, you could say the same thing about any car with a warranty.
Since I only hear of people blowing their trannys on iclub and from service departments. These are after modifications to the tranny and racing.
I posted two articles of magazines upgrading the car and power while leaving the original MT in the car and having no problems. After reading these two articles, it seems to me to conclude that the WRX MT is not neccessarily weak, just abused.
The warranty thing - exactly. Since the issue deals with the drive train, I am not worried.
to have a STi 6-speed switch? I was just wondering about that, maybe I can get it financed if the dealer puts it on! Yeah, and Bill Clinton "did not have sex with that woman."
I realized the whole MT thing. The reason FHI uses a rather weak pressureplate and clutch is due to the MT being on the weaker side, this helps preserve the MT which is a more expensive repair than replacing the clootch.
Like colin said you can't really beef up the tranny w/o beefing up the gears themselves, making them larger, and thus changing the case.
A professional driver + upgraded Clutch and Pressureplate = Not likely to blowup the tranny but a non-pro + upgraded pressure plate could spell problems.
With that type of combo with power upgrades and an amateur racer, I can see that spelling disaster for a MT in the WRX. I guess my point is that this is what it takes to blow the MT. If you abused it, you can kill it. Unfortunately, there are a great deal of weekend racers with WRX MTs who soup them up and do not know or are inexperienced in driving them properly. Thus, the great deal of blown MTs.
I think you guys are just going to have to agree to disagree on this whole transmission issue. I definitely believe that there are some lemon trannies on some Subies out there, but here is a personal anecdote from my own experience. one of my friends has a mt 2k3 Supercharged Nissan Xterra. He drives it about 120 miles each day to work. (round trip) He was constantly complaining of his gears (1 & 2) being crunchy, so I went for a ride with him. He didnt do anything particularly stupid, but he didnt finesse his shifting. His shifting was not to the point that he would grind gears, but he would slam the clutch in, shift, and then release the clutch quickly. I finally just told him to let me drive his truck. After I drove it, he basically said "wow, that was smooth. I was not taught to drive standard that way" can he drive a standard? yes. Is he getting his gears replaced? yes, but maybe he will not tear up the second set. I definitely think there is a difference between knowing how to drive a standard and the application of such knowledge. Note: before this becomes a flame war, I am not accusing people with broken trannies of not being able to drive, just relating some personal experience. -Rachel
I'm sure you've driven muscle cars with drum brakes, Colin. Wasn't it scary? ;-)
VTD may not be torque sensing, but even Torsens are reactive. VTD is (marketed at least as) a pro-active system. They take throttle inputs and other sensors and decide how to adjust the power even before slip occurs.
That's about 8 to 1! So if you find 1 auto failure and 7 manual tranny failures, statistically that still means the manual tranny has a lower failure rate.
Automatics will not fail as often because the gears are physically are much larger. The method of engagement is way different too, a planetary gearset adds on additional gears to change the ratio, which is a lot less shock than the layshaft's speed changes in a manual transmission.
Basically barring overheating-- which will kill an automatic in fairly short order-- or severe abuse stretching the bands, an auto should survive much longer than a manual.
Wow, I knew SoA sold more MT than AT WRXs, but I didn't think the ratio was that big! I also thought that the number of wagons would be slightly higher. In any event, 37K is way more than the original 10K that Subaru planned.
Interesting point on overheating an AT. Isn't brake-torquing the fastest way to launch an AT?
Maybe Subaru's automatic is especially robust, but I've heard of many, many auto tranny failures, and almost no manual trans failures.
Try to find a Chrysler minivan with the original auto tranny. Even Honda's Ody had lots of auto tranny failures, especially the '99s.
Overall I hear about more cases of those than I do even clutch failures. Could that be that the clutch is a wear/tear item so people don't complain if it lasts 80k miles or so?
98RS I think was around 1500 88,89,91 XT6 was roughly 4000 92-94, 96-97 SVX was rougly 15K
I guess technically the 98RS should fall into the 98-01 RS but the 98 was significantly different enough, in my eyes that it should be counted separately.
Still, I'd say they are the same car, just a slightly different variation. That would be like calling the STi and the STi RA different cars (though some do separate them).
The problem with the mini-vans is that they were using car-technology ATs to push around a significantly increased weight. This would cause overheating of the AT and thus quick failure. On the other hand the AT in the subies is based on the AT in the Mazda MPV (original MPV) and the Nissan Pathfinder (circa late 80s early 90s) so FHI did the opposite of Honda and Chrysler, they took a truck (more or less) tranny and put it down in passenger cars.
The Phase Is that I've driven always feel "lighter" up in the top end. For instance I drove my uncle's '97 OB AT back to back with my cousin's '00 OB AT on the same roads. The '00 was more comfy, quiet, and overall nicer cruiser. But on the performance side, when I pushed the '97 harder the engine just kept pulling hard. Off the line the SOHC was better but once you were rolling, different story.
Ok, well my point is there a thousands of WRX owners out there that aren't registered on the i-club. And to say so many i-clubber's blew their manuals, isn't necessarily scientific stat finding. :-)
Hey, I was near AH's house on my way back from SC. I should've rang him up and met for dinner or something. :-D [back on topic] I could've seen his WRX wagon.
75% nope, 50% possible. 75% of the total no. of WRX's sold is 26,028. 50% is 17,352. And don't forget the hundreds, if not thousands, of non-WRX owners.
There's no way your 50-75% estimate can be right. We know there are ~34000 WRX owners, and ~21000 registered i-clubbers. If every i-clubber owned a WRX you'd have 61% of WRX owners on i-club. If half the i-clubbers are WRX owners you're at 30%.
I'd bet 50% of WRX owners don't even get on the internet regularly, let alone know of or post at the i-club. (According to Nielsen Net Ratings, approximately 59% of the American population has access to the internet. Naturally WRX owners would be a different demographic than the entire US population but it sheds light on the issue nevertheless.)
Comments
Stephen
The MT is known to be the weakpoint in the WRX unless you have the STi 6MT which IS a beefier version.
Believe what you will but Colin and I aren't blowing smoke up your butts. Like Colin said if driven reasonably you should be fine, but if you do significant upgrades to power, you should consider an STi 6MT swap.
-mike
Just trying to change the topic. :-p
Jeez, I'm on vacation for two weeks and the only thing you people can do is argue about transmissions!
-Dennis
http://www.driversimage.com/p4.shtml
From the site:
http://www.driversimage.com/home.htm -
"Success at the Virginia Battle of the Imports! Gregg drove the WRX to an 11.87 @113.9 during qualifying. This puts the Drivers Image Project WRX at the top as the fastest WRX in the country! "
With the base Manual Tranny with the STi shifter! Man, with the way you guys are talking, they must be on their 5th tranny by now! (sarcasm)
(edit) From http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/features/0207scc_versus/
"What's more, we really like the WRX and stand by its value as a performance car, even when modified. Our project car has taken thousands of miles of guilt-free journalist thrashing with virtually no consequence. It's proven as durable as it is blindingly fast and carries on with the daily business of hauling us around even after a punishing comparison test like this."
-mike
If I am wrong with the above statement, please correct me. All I know is I have a 5 year 60K miles warrantee on the power train.
Besides, I hate it when people throw cars off balance. If you get it to 350hp, you'd better have upgraded the brakes and chassis bracing as well. And yes, the clutch and tranny too.
Put it this way, I doubt Subaru will have many warranty claims on the tranny (i.e. cars that break would be modified and therefore not covered).
-juice
-juice
you can very easily make use of 350HP, especially with AWD.
or at least, *I* could. ;-)
-Colin
-juice
As for the warranty thing, you could say the same thing about any car with a warranty.
-mike
I posted two articles of magazines upgrading the car and power while leaving the original MT in the car and having no problems. After reading these two articles, it seems to me to conclude that the WRX MT is not neccessarily weak, just abused.
The warranty thing - exactly. Since the issue deals with the drive train, I am not worried.
I've driven far faster cars than a 350HP WRX would be with far worse brakes.
-Colin
http://forums.i-club.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=226610
One very interesting learning point from this post is that the VTD system is not torque-sensing like many, including myself, believes.
Ken
Seth
-mike
A professional driver + upgraded Clutch and Pressureplate = Not likely to blowup the tranny but a non-pro + upgraded pressure plate could spell problems.
-mike
I guess my point is that this is what it takes to blow the MT. If you abused it, you can kill it. Unfortunately, there are a great deal of weekend racers with WRX MTs who soup them up and do not know or are inexperienced in driving them properly. Thus, the great deal of blown MTs.
I definitely believe that there are some lemon trannies on some Subies out there, but here is a personal anecdote from my own experience.
one of my friends has a mt 2k3 Supercharged Nissan Xterra. He drives it about 120 miles each day to work. (round trip) He was constantly complaining of his gears (1 & 2) being crunchy, so I went for a ride with him. He didnt do anything particularly stupid, but he didnt finesse his shifting. His shifting was not to the point that he would grind gears, but he would slam the clutch in, shift, and then release the clutch quickly. I finally just told him to let me drive his truck. After I drove it, he basically said "wow, that was smooth. I was not taught to drive standard that way" can he drive a standard? yes. Is he getting his gears replaced? yes, but maybe he will not tear up the second set. I definitely think there is a difference between knowing how to drive a standard and the application of such knowledge.
Note: before this becomes a flame war, I am not accusing people with broken trannies of not being able to drive, just relating some personal experience.
-Rachel
VTD may not be torque sensing, but even Torsens are reactive. VTD is (marketed at least as) a pro-active system. They take throttle inputs and other sensors and decide how to adjust the power even before slip occurs.
-juice
The following are the total WRX vehicles sold for the 2002 model year:
WRX sedan, manual trans. - 20377
WRX sedan, auto trans. - 2351
WRX wagon, manual trans. - 9815
WRX wagon, auto trans. - 2161
____________________________________
TOTAL: 34,704 WRX models
I hope that this information is helpful! Please let us know if we may be of
further assistance.
Best wishes,
Sandi Parente-Geiges
Internet Customer Service
Subaru of America, Inc.
That's about 8 to 1! So if you find 1 auto failure and 7 manual tranny failures, statistically that still means the manual tranny has a lower failure rate.
-juice
So now I'll have owned the 2nd most rare subie and soon to own the 3rd most rare subie
The only one more rare than the XT6 is the '98 RS IIRC.
-mike
Basically barring overheating-- which will kill an automatic in fairly short order-- or severe abuse stretching the bands, an auto should survive much longer than a manual.
-Colin
Interesting point on overheating an AT. Isn't brake-torquing the fastest way to launch an AT?
Ken
The advantage of more WRXs sold is that there should be more and less expensive parts and supplies when it comes to repairs.
-mike
Try to find a Chrysler minivan with the original auto tranny. Even Honda's Ody had lots of auto tranny failures, especially the '99s.
Overall I hear about more cases of those than I do even clutch failures. Could that be that the clutch is a wear/tear item so people don't complain if it lasts 80k miles or so?
-juice
88,89,91 XT6 was roughly 4000
92-94, 96-97 SVX was rougly 15K
I guess technically the 98RS should fall into the 98-01 RS but the 98 was significantly different enough, in my eyes that it should be counted separately.
-mike
Still, I'd say they are the same car, just a slightly different variation. That would be like calling the STi and the STi RA different cars (though some do separate them).
-juice
-mike
DOHC 2.5l engine
The engine is what does it for me, I really love the DOHC 2.5 over the SOHC.
-mike
Two of my co-workers have a Chrysler Town & Country. Both of them have had their tranny replaced twice.
mike: Phase I DOHC, yeah baby, yeah! So, what floats your boat about the Phase I? We only hear negative stuff about it. :-(
Ken
Similar feeling with the 98 v. 99-01 RSs
-mike
-Colin
-mike
-mike
That's made up of XT6, GL, Outback, Forester, etc., non-Subaru owners and folks overseas.
To put it back on-topic, the WRX wagon uses a 2.0 DOHC. :-)
-Dennis
I think it is over 21k registered members, the counter is off.
-Dave
-juice
Ken
Hey, I was near AH's house on my way back from SC. I should've rang him up and met for dinner or something. :-D [back on topic] I could've seen his WRX wagon.
-Dennis
-mike
75% of the total no. of WRX's sold is 26,028. 50% is 17,352. And don't forget the hundreds, if not thousands, of non-WRX owners.
-Dennis
There's no way your 50-75% estimate can be right. We know there are ~34000 WRX owners, and ~21000 registered i-clubbers. If every i-clubber owned a WRX you'd have 61% of WRX owners on i-club. If half the i-clubbers are WRX owners you're at 30%.
I'd bet 50% of WRX owners don't even get on the internet regularly, let alone know of or post at the i-club. (According to Nielsen Net Ratings, approximately 59% of the American population has access to the internet. Naturally WRX owners would be a different demographic than the entire US population but it sheds light on the issue nevertheless.)
-mike