Subject: subie sux
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 20:12:52 +0000 (GMT)

The car itself is fine; it's some of the *people* surrounding
the brand that are turning out to be evil.

The recently-acquired car has a radiator leak, easily reproduced
by topping up the radiator and overflow tank properly, and warming
up from cold.  Or using a pressure-tester tool -- a simple hand
pump that connects over the radiator cap fitting and pushes air
into the radiator.  Either way, green cat-killer goo starts dribbling
out of the bottom of the radiator, and does so until the pressure
goes down enough to stabilize.  As the system cools down, one of two
things happens:

	the system depressurizes and then winds up at a slight
	vacuum, evidenced by the sides of the upper hose
	collapsing inward, after which it doesn't leak anymore
	because the warm-up pressure rise doesn't get over the
	leak threshold  [old condition]

	the system depressurizes and draws coolant out of the
	reserve tank back into the radiator, returning to the
	normal state of 0 psi above atmospheric, whereupon it
	will piss more fluid on the next warm-up  [new condition]

This condition change is because the one-way coolant return valve
in the radiator cap was stuck closed, and not letting the system
re-equalize downward.

So I took it back to the dealership at Wakefield Subaru, hoping to
get this fixed under 90-day "lemon law" warranty, because while
the leak doesn't lose all the fluid and overheat the engine right
*now*, it will eventually and I really don't want to be scattering
ethylene glycol all over the environment anyways.  I wrote up a
small paragraph about my observations and test procedure and printed
it out nicely for them, which should have made it obvious that
there's a pressure-related problem, etc etc.  Handed it off yesterday
and bicycled home in the rain.

They called around mid-day today, claiming that they pressure-
tested the cooling system and can't find any leaks at all.  Now
I was wondering which of us was on crack.  I bloody well know
I didn't *dream* about driving as far as the town hall to drop
off some mail, and then crouching down watching the green puddle
expand underneath.  I told them to re-read my instructions and
repeat the test.  They said they'd have the actual mechanic
doing the car call me back, and that's the last I heard.

Late in the day I called them, and talked to Larry.  I don't know his
last name, but he's definitely a stooge.  Larry is a fat, overbearing,
won't-shut-up arrogant know-it-all who evidently views anyone
demonstrating even a little knowledge/curiosity about the inner workings
of cars as a threat.  He's the same guy who told me that Subaru service
manuals were all "proprietary" and not available to the general public,
after which a short call to Publications at 866-428-2278 and handing
them a card number proved Larry a liar since I now own about half of
said manual set, i.e. the sections that currently interest me such as
electrics and OBDII.  [It's actually a third-party company called Service
Technical Publications.]

Anyway, Larry assured me that they had pressure-tested the radiator
up to 14psi above atmospheric, and no leaks.  I told him again what
I had observed and that I had *not* spilled antifreeze down the side
of the filler and it didn't begin leaking until a mile or two of
driving anyways, but he wasn't listening.  I determined that at least
I could pick up the car, and took advantage of the really beautiful
afternoon for a slightly more roundabout, scenic bike ride that ended
up in their driveway.  Found the car, loaded the bike into the back,
and went to chat with the Big Boss, the owner of the whole place.  Asked
him about some fine points in the warranty-paperwork wording that really
didn't mention $100 deductibles, and then touched on my conversations
with Larry and mentioned that I really felt like I was getting a runaround.
Scott the meta-boss expressed great concern at this, and led me back toward
Service where it turned out that Larry was gone but he asked the guy there
to bring my car around and stick it up on the lift for another look.  Big
show of "instilling customer confidence", or something.  By now I just
wanted to get the hell out of there, really, but I would let them play
their game for a while.

Before the service-guy-on-duty started the car to do this, I showed
him the "top hose inflation" trick by removing the radiator cap and
letting him watch it self-inflate for himself.  The earliest glimmers
of Dawn began to break over Marblehead.

Enter Joe.  Joe is their Clue Boy, their best mechanic, and has that
sort of casual-but-competent swing in his actions, like he's done
these things a thousand times before.  Joe hoisted the lift into the
air and I showed him and Scott the line of ex-drip patterns right
along under the radiator bracket, and pointed out that no, I couldn't
see exactly where it was leaking from since it was up in the fins
someplace and hidden by the fans.  There were even a few wet drips
here and there on other parts.   We lowered it back down and then Joe
performed his first brilliant 30 seconds -- he took off the cap and
went into the nearby bathroom, where he banged the cap repeatedly against
the side of the sink and washed it out a lot.  This was to un-stick the
return valve and generally remove a lot of the built-up "rust inhibitor"
goo that Subaru tends to overload their special name-brand coolant with.
Then he came back and laid the cap aside, and as Act II he simply
pressure-tested the system with the little pump tool.  It immediately
began pissing a tall cow onto the garage floor, and suddenly everyone
was finally convinced.  Joe said very matter-of-factly "well, you need
a radiator," and wandered off toward Parts to put in an order for it.
A short but brilliant performance, that knocked three other peoples'
worth of Management Function on its ass and proved them all totally
worthless.  Yay Joe!

Joe then came back with a gallon jug of coolant and an almost-empty
jug of windshield fluid, the latter of which he emptied into my
washer tank.  He then split the coolant into both jugs and topped
both up with water, giving me 2 gallons of pre-mix coolant to
hold me over until the new radiator can be installed next week.
"Better that than you blowing up your engine, right?" he said.  He
tried to find a box I could put these containers in to stabilize
them for transport, but the Parts guy didn't have any around.  But
in general, Joe emitted a constant stream of Doing The Right Thing,
and was much more candid with me about various Subaru nits than
anyone had previously.  *Joe* at least appreciates when someone
wants to know more about his own car -- even asked me if I was
intending to do all my own work on it.  Basics yes, I answered,
but I certainly wasn't anything like as tooled up as they are to
deal with the bigger stuff.

Watching him bang the cap on the sink as the Official Way To Fix
That Problem, thus transitioning from Old Condition above to New
Condition, totally made my day.  He suggests making at least a
yearly ritual of this, since it's a common problem.

I finally got out of there about an hour after arriving, and we
did *not* wrap up any paperwork yet, and Larry is hopefully in a
heap of trouble for lying to me on what are now several occasions.
I hope this will take care of it and that I won't have to bring
the Subaru of America Guidos down on them, because that ain't
gonna be pretty once they find out that a dealership is out there
actively trashing community goodwill and all.

While I was waiting around for a bit before all this I was leafing
through the "transmission" section of their manual set, which isn't
one of the ones I bought.  The other paper-pusher in Service said
that I was the *only* person who has ever come through there that
wanted to look at that stuff.  This really surprises me, since there
seems to be a certain community of Subaru enthusiasts and modifiers
floating around the net.  Maybe they just drive the things until
the "check engine" light goes on, dunno.

Side note for Mass. used car purchasers: the "lemon law" wording
on my paperwork is really vague, and implies that the dealer will
cover 100% parts and labor for items fixed thereunder, except that
there's this variable deductible clause [which isn't even *filled out*
on my stuff] up to $100, and I'm still trying to find out if that's
per component, per subsystem, per vehicle, per visit, or what.  It
leaves open a lot of slop for dealers to still chisel you for a
hundred bucks here, a hundred bucks there, and just weasel-word
their way out of it saying "we don't write this -- the state does!"

The nature of the problem has led to a couple of interesting
discussions.  The current hypothesis is that some piece of radiator
tubing has a hairline crack in it, so small and edge-matched that
it seals tight unless there's a lot of pressure behind it to expand
it outwards.  There's no other real explanation for the system
going back into vacuum and remaining that way for such a long
time -- almost like some other hidden one-way valve was at play,
but the fact that the leak stopped entirely after a while makes
it more interesting.  Maybe the truth will emerge once the old
radiator is taken out next week.

_H*