Two years ago our family bought our first Subaru.  It was a used 2013 Outback and we quickly fell in love.  We became die-hard Subaru fans & told all our friends & family how much we loved our new car & even got our neighbor to trade in his Toyota for a new Subaru! We were brand loyal on a whole new level.

Just before our Outback's 2 year birthday the transmission failed.  We were devastated.  

When we bought the car, we paid for an AutoNation extended warranty - we got suckered.  It had "expired" 5,000 miles earlier even though the expiration date isn't for 2 more years in 2022.  The car had an extended warranty from Subaru because they knew the CVT transmission in our car (and 1.5 million others) were bad transmissions. Subaru issued extended warranties on their CVT transmissions in 2017 (before we ever even bought ours) in order to avoid a recall issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (the federal agency responsible for auto safety).  The CarFax didn't mention anything about the extended warranty or why the warranty was issued and AutoNation didn't disclose the known issue or anything about the extended warranty either - no one ever told us we were financing a rotten transmission for the next five years.  Of course, that extended warranty is expired now too, even though it was only issued 3 years ago.

We made use of the extended warranty we paid for just as we were told to - when the sunroof leaked we took it to the AutoNation Subaru Service Center.  When the car started consuming tons of oil, we took it to them again (this was the subject of a class action lawsuit against Subaru that we didn't learn about until recently).  We kept our repair records and oddly, each one of AutoNation's multi-point inspection reports has "NA" checked next to 'Transmission Fluid Level & Condition'. When the transmission started acting up, we didn't recognize the signs and didn't know that AutoNation was purposefully ignoring the transmission.  The lurching, shuttering, inconsistent shifting & motor stalling periodically we chocked up to bad gas.  Then, on long trips we started noticing a whining noise.  

In July 2020 we traveled for the 4th of July holiday and that's when we both heard the whine from the driver's seat and the passenger seat (until this point we couldn't always differentiate the whine from other road noises).  On August 7, 2020 a bunch of lights on the dash came on that had never illuminated before, the dash started beeping, and the message, "Check Owner's Manual" appeared.  

I called the AutoNation dealership in a panic & brought the car in immediately.  Thankfully I was only 2 miles away. We'd owned the car less than two years & paid $1,927 (plus tax & interest) for the extended warranty, so we should be covered, right? WRONG!

A week later they called to tell me the repair would be $1,950.  I called Subaru USA who offered to contribute $1,000 towards the repair.  Okay, I could swallow that, we'd have to sacrifice for a few months to make up the extra costs, but felt grateful it wasn't worse than it was.  After the repair was made the Subaru dealership called me again to say the whining noise was WORSE now that they've made the repair & they didn't know what more was wrong but the transmission was toast & I need a new one.  And it's going to cost $9,300!!!

So I got serious about my research, how could a car with only 122,000 miles that had passed multiple AutoNation inspections in the previous 24 months need a new transmission!? All of a sudden, out of no where, with no prior indication from any of our repairs or inspections that anything was wrong?? I read the class action lawyers' websites and car owner forums detailing the EXTENSIVE problems with Subaru's CVT transmissions (and oil consumption problems, and airbag problems) and about the extended warranty Subaru had issued in order to side-step a 1.5 million vehicle recall.  Such a recall would have included my car & would have replaced the transmission at Subaru's expense because they knew when they built this car that the transmission was faulty.  Subaru knew there were problems with their CVT transmission beginning in model year 2012 - a whole year before my car was made.  Subaru issued the extended warranty on the transmissions in 2017 - a year before I bought my car.  But no one ever told me that my transmission was junk and Subaru knew it was junk when it was sold to me.

Subaru of America shouldn't be allowed to side-step recalls and then stick their customers with the expense of repairs because of their negligence.  

Sign the petition to demand Subaru pay to repair my transmission & to compel the NHTSA to issue a recall on these faulty transmissions!