The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issues a statement stating that the oil lubrication hole in the six-speed manual transmission has not been drilled on the affected vehicles, which can cause gears to break due to the gears running without oil lubrication. From the NHTSA statement:

"If the transmission gears are not properly lubricated, a groaning sound may begin to develop, alerting the driver to a problem. If this sound is ignored and no action is taken, the gears will eventually break and this condition will lead to vehicle power loss, possibly resulting in a crash."

American Subaru dealers will repair the cars free of charge by drilling the oil hole in cars with low mileage.  On cars with mileage over 6,2500 they will be replacing gears 3 – 6 as well as the main shaft.

Subaru is warning drivers that if there vehicle is damaged from this problem there will be a noticeable “groan” that gets worse over time.  Drivers experiencing this should stop driving their cars.  If the gears wear bad enough to fail, then the car will lose power and can result in a crash.

The recall will officially go into effect on August 6th, but we recommend you contact your Subaru dealer as soon as possible to get scheduled.  The Outback and Legacy are two of Subaru’s main stay models, so we’d expect the service center schedules to fill up quickly.

• Important Numbers
• Subaru Customer Support -  800-782-2783
• NHTSA’s hot line – 888-327-4236.