I have a 2004 wrx wagon. I had vishnu remap the ecu at about 43k miles. I'm at about 46k. The car is otherwise stock. Yesterday, I ran through the gears, all the way through 4th. After I let off, I noticed a loss of power. I turned the music off and heard a loud tapping/knocking noise. The noise almost goes away at idle, but I raise the rpm above 1000 it gets pretty loud.

Will subaru be able to tell if I had the ecu remapped? I'm sure it will void the warrenty because the rev-limiter is up a couple hundred rpm. I have the 100k extended warrenty.

What should I do? Should I just take it to them as is? have vishnu re-flash to stock?

Does anyone know of a dealership that is leanient on warrenty work??

This sucks, I'm afraid I'll have to pay for it, when it's either VISHNU's fault or SUBARU's!!!!

What warranty does your car have?

Check your warranty.

I have a 2004 wrx wagon. I had vishnu remap the ecu at about 43k miles. I'm at about 46k. The car is otherwise stock. Yesterday, I ran through the gears, all the way through 4th. After I let off, I noticed a loss of power. I turned the music off and heard a loud tapping/knocking noise. The noise almost goes away at idle, but I raise the rpm above 1000 it gets pretty loud.

Will subaru be able to tell if I had the ecu remapped? I'm sure it will void the warrenty because the rev-limiter is up a couple hundred rpm. I have the 100k extended warrenty.

What should I do? Should I just take it to them as is? have vishnu re-flash to stock?

Does anyone know of a dealership that is leanient on warrenty work??

This sucks, I'm afraid I'll have to pay for it, when it's either VISHNU's fault or SUBARU's!!!!


ooh no, god forbid you take responsibility! Who would want that? To think, you knew you were doing something potentially hazardous to your car, did it anyway, and now when something bad happens you say, how can I put all the $$$ it will cost to fix it on someone else, b/c even though I did it, I'm too chicken shit to face up and fix it myself. Boo hooo. I hope your warranty gets denied and you are stuck w/ a large repair bill. DOUCHE

I agree with 2turbo, Vishnu aren't responsible, they didn't force their remap on you, you paid them to do so.
Subaru should deny your warranty, and they will be able to tell you remapped your engine.

What you're doing is the same as me blaming Subaru because my car scrapes over speedbumps even though it was me that lowered it....

Figure out what's wrong with it first.

So it's MY fault the motor blew? VISHNU Tuneed the car STATING STOCK DRIVABILITY AND RELIABILITY. I have my car remapped and I have to pay for my motor going?

2turboimports- I could see if I wildly modified my car-why do you think I kept it reletivly stock? SO I COULD HAVE A WARRENTY!! THIS CAR SHOULD LAST AT LEAST 120k DRIVEN VERY HARD. You don't know what your talking about, this isn't some import garage hack job. BUT I DID IT I'm the one who personally tuned the car, not shiv, saying that it is perfecltly reliable. IF YOU PAID SOMEONE $600 to tune your car and it blew up how would you feel?? TOO CHICKEN SHIT TO FIX IT MYSELF? I have a job to go to, I bought a WRX so I wouldn't have to work on some old rx-7 or whatever.

FREAKRAY- I'm not trying to have vishnu pay for it, but they do state that it keeps stock reliability and drivability, SO IT SHOULDN'T have caused it. Dude you lowered your car and it scraped the ground, and you complained, you are an idiot!!!! and you say I did the same thing as you??????

Damn, some of you stupid forum guys think you know everything and want to shoot your mouth off at any given moment. Put yourself in my position, this car should last its a 2004, especially if vishnu stands behind what they do? Do they advertise that it could blow your motor????? NO! Was it vishnu's fault, probably not, it is probably just a lemon, BUT I AINT PAYING FOR IT!!!

You guys are rediculous!!!!!!
I wanted vishnu to custom tune my car for a bit more power than SOA can do because they have to tune it for a wide range of drivers over the entire US.

Thanks for your help!

No, Subaru tunes the WRX (and the STi) to the limits of performance AND reliability. If you change the tuning (especially to raise the rev limit), you significantly change the reliability. The WRX is warranted with the stock setup because nobody at SOA tested more performance-oriented setups as thoroughly. Or, if they did, they found those setups to be less reliable. Hence, when you re-map and your engine blows, your warranty is void. You are worried about it because you know there's a possibility it would be void. You weighed the risks and decided that a re-map was worth the risk of a blown engine. You lost the gamble. Vishnu only warrants that the re-map will indeed raise the boost, raise the rev limit, etc. There is no warranty that your engine will handle said setup. Nor does Subaru warrant that after-market maps will work flawlessly. Therefore, you're SOL.

This is why many of us either keep stock parts around or hold off modifying difficult-to-change parts until after the warranty expires.

"So it's MY fault the motor blew? VISHNU Tuneed the car STATING STOCK DRIVABILITY AND RELIABILITY. I have my car remapped and I have to pay for my motor going?"
Hey, what did you make a thread for then? Do you want everyone in the online subaru community to hold hands and sing kumbya every time someone mods their suby, blows it and then wants full warranted work?

I have a job to go to, I bought a WRX so I wouldn't have to work on some old rx-7 or whatever.
Oh, please explain to me what this magic 'job' of yours is. I have never had any clue or respobsibility, so what is this job you speak of? If it was so goddamn important you should have thought about your actions before you commited yourself to the remap.

Yes, that sucks, but when all is said and done, you are the jackass, not me, not freakray, not sabreKhan, you. None of us are on the internet crying about how we should screw over SOA.

I agree, but my trust was with Shiv, and it still is. I believe it was just a lemon. I just got off the phone with vishnu and they agreed to take a look at the car, which is great- at least they stand by their product, and are not giving me some b.s. I must say, vishnu's customer sevice is excellent, much better than I expected.

Thanks for the opinion guys, I know that I was taking a risk, but the risk was trusting vishnus tuning experience and being able to keep a car runnung at it potential for a long time. I don't, like I said, in any way blame vishnu. I believe I just got a lemon and was driving my lemon hard!!!

Dude you lowered your car and it scraped the ground, and you complained, you are an idiot!!!! and you say I did the same thing as you??????


No, you're an idiot, because you can't comprehend written English.

I said what you're doing would be the same as if I had complained, which I haven't nor ever will - I just avoid speedbumps. :smooch:

I am pretty upset with SUBARU. This is my second subaru and the first one broke at 110,000 miles, without anything done to it- the oil pump failed. now this. (1999 forester)

My 1983 toyota pickup with 330,000 miles on it and it has a 4 speed and sits at 5,000 rpm on the freeway for an hour cause I'm doing 75+ is still going!!! and I rev it out every shift. I beat on the truck sooo bad, and I was so nice to the subaru.

Wait........I can see the replies coming.... oh a weak toyota motor that puts out 95 hp, how is that going to break? Well if my car is 20 years newer, it should be able to make 2.5 times the power and not break........I'm done with subaru, my expierence is that there motors are built to be driven by old people.(hence 2 motors gone)-that should of lasted 200k+ especially with the kind of maintence that I do, the car has no bottom end power, the brakes suck, the steering is too slow, the tranny syncros are slow, the paint is worthless. And the tranny won't support more than 300hp.

I bet if I posted all of this in a forum other than a subaru forum, I would be getting alot more support and people that actually want to help others instead of trying to point out mistakes, which the only mistake I made was buying a wrx over an STI. (wouldn't have to modify that)(or buying a subaru for that matter)

So go ahead guys, pic everything out of this post that you possibly can to try to say it was my fault and try and make me look bad, but the only thing that is looking bad is SUBARU!!

FU-freakray

Fu-2turboimports

SabreKhan is cool,

I'm out!

but the only thing that is looking bad is SUBARU!!

Not from where we're standing.


FU-freakray



Hmmm.....bye-bye :loser:

I try to write up a post for suggestions/comments on my situation and all you can do is nag and try to make it look like everything is my fault not subarus or vishnus. If you took your car and had it tuned and it blew up, how would you feel? What would you do if your subie, which you bought new, did all current maintence to , blew up for no apparent reason, and you just happened to go to vishnu for a remapp because you wanted to do a low-risk modification to what seemed to be a reliable car?

My very uneducated guess is that you over-revved and either broke a rod or spun a bearing. If it's either, and Subaru figures out you had your redline upped, you're gonna be hosed. What's the factory drivetrain warranty anyway?

Frankly, you're lucky Vishnu is willing to look at it again. Maybe they'll have some good advice for you. I'd be curious to know what it is.

Look on the brightside: When you get stuck with the repair bill, it'll probably be cost effective to just upgrade to the 2.5L STI shortblock.

If I did have remapped the engine and it developed an issue related to running higher revs, I certainly wouldn't be screaming about Subaru's product, I would be kicking myself for remapping the engine.

You asked if we though Subaru would cover your modded engine under warranty, did you really expect a 'yes'?
You need to research the warranty, if you remap the engine the warranty is voided, whether you like it or not you did it and now you have the consequences to deal with.

Neither Subaru not Vishnu made you get the engine remapped.
Subaru had an engine map on the computer with which the engine was designed to operate with, you increased the rev band of the engine amongst other things (by your own confession), engines don't have redlines on the tach for a change of color, they're there to warn you that you're exceeding the engines limits. If you increased the high end of the rev operating range and now have developed an issue when the revs are in mid range, does that not indicate to you what's happened?

Did you consider that rev limiters serve a purpose? Even F1 and Nascar engines have rev limiters, you exceed the limit and they break!

You've created a problem with a remap and instead of taking responsibility for your actions and accepting the consequence, you're claiming it's Subaru's product which is inferior.

The Impreza is a reliable car, unfortunately not every Impreza gets the treatment it deserves.

The car was at 5k when I shifted right when the problem started and I never let it go beyond 7k. When I originally got the remap, I was concerned with the rpm limit and was going to take it back to Shiv and have him lower it back to stock, instead, I was just really carefull not to let it exceed 7k. I think the remap only goes to 7200 or 7300. Stock redline is 7k. If the stock redline is 7k, you would think the motor could handle at least 7500 on stock internals. But I guess its what makes a subaru a subaru.

so granted some ppl have been idiots, but remember (and I know you know this) but if somone came up to you and said they had remapped their ecu and their motor blew up you would most likely say the same thing that all of us did, you tell us to get into your shoes, well remember what it looks like to us, and see what your response would be in the same situation. Also remember that most modern engines are made to be able to handle a specific air fuel ratio a specific redline specific spark timing and when these get changes you are operating outside of what SOA has deemed reliable for the mass market. Another thing to remember is that different engines are tuned and built differently the Supra 2JZ for example can take 900 rwhp on the stock bottom end and i have seen a sunfire with mild mods crack the block, in the end it comes down to research and other peoples experince, make sure you talk to lots of people, and that you hear everything, not just what you want to hear, SOA builds awesome cars and there are always a few lemons, and always a few ringers, but good luck man

Thanks JAY and mr_tw for the constructive feedback. I didn't want to come out and whine about the car blowing up, but I really expected it to be able to handle more and at least last past 100k. If the problem is related to the bottom end and IF decide to keep the car, I will definately get the 2.5 shortblock, that will help the lack of bottom end, I wonder if that would be cost effective if I was going to sell it.....

I guess the reliability issue I have with subaru could just be bad luck, but you have to understand that my car just blew, so I'm definitely set back on subaru.

If I had a brand new 2.5l bottom end, quiker ratio steering rack, better brakes, all I'd have to complain about would be the slow synchros in the tranny and the paint! Then I might actually like the car! It would pretty much make it comparible to a 06?

mr-tw I know what you mean with the supras, I've heard stories of stock bottom ends handling 30+ pounds of boost.

well the first thing that you gotta do is see what has actually failed, (from what i understand) the WRX is protected from overboost by retarding the timing and the ECU would have a preset limit for this (to prevent "ping" or "knocking") and your aftermarket chip will have ether changed these safety settings or completely removed them in order for the raised boost and possibly changed timing but it sounds like knocking may be what you're experincing in which case that can ruin your engine very quickly (holes in pistons) I would reccoment taking the car in asap and getting the work done, you could avoid allot of repair bills and if you have to dig into the engine and do work on the bottom end, then you can just build the bottom end while you're in there

Also it's not the boost pressure but the airflow that produces big hp numbers a bigger turbo with the same or sometimes lower boost can produce bigger hp numbers than a stock turbo can at stock boost

If I had a brand new 2.5l bottom end, quiker ratio steering rack, better brakes, all I'd have to complain about would be the slow synchros in the tranny and the paint!

mr-tw I know what you mean with the supras, I've heard stories of stock bottom ends handling 30+ pounds of boost.

My friend in Waco has an Audi S4 running 48lbs of boost all the time. It's crazy. He does occasionally (OK, often) blow out a pipe connection, but the internals have always held up great.

As for the synchros, they do indeed take awhile. I have learned that a little bit of driver skill goes a long way. Learn to heel-toe. It will make you a FAR better driver, and you'll never notice the synchros again. And as an added bonus, your transmission will basically last forever (barring massive destructive force). The synchs in a WRX transmission are designed to be slow so people can't force it into gear way too early. The AWD and the relatively large quantity of power can, if worked incorrectly, play havoc on a transmission, so Subaru built in a safety mechanism -- in this case, slow synchs. Also, straight-cut gears add to the "problem." All of this makes it a difficult car to drive in traffic, but a rocket on the racetrack (which, by the way, is where everyone should learn to drive).

I do sympathize with the thread starter some because the car died 3000 miles after the mod, that's pretty suspect especially if he never over-reved it. There's also a big difference between an obvious issue like bottoming out with a lowered car and a mild ecu reflash completely destroying the engine. That would be like me buying a header and the car catches fire a week later...obvious it's in the realm of possibilities, but it's not something I expect to happen after installing the item on my car.

You do take a chance everytime you upgrade stuff, but some of you are acting like it was bound to happen. That's like me buying a brand new car and then having it break after 20k miles and everyone saying "you knew the car might break after buying it so you are an idiot for buying it." I understand all mods put more strain on an engine, but the engine shouldn't die so quickly.

Good luck with Subaru's customer service, I heard it sucks. That's the reason I'm not looking at a WRX for my next car.

I do sympathize with the thread starter some because the car died 3000 miles after the mod, that's pretty suspect especially if he never over-reved it. There's also a big difference between an obvious issue like bottoming out with a lowered car and a mild ecu reflash completely destroying the engine. That would be like me buying a header and the car catches fire a week later...obvious it's in the realm of possibilities, but it's not something I expect to happen after installing the item on my car.

You do take a chance everytime you upgrade stuff, but some of you are acting like it was bound to happen. That's like me buying a brand new car and then having it break after 20k miles and everyone saying "you knew the car might break after buying it so you are an idiot for buying it." I understand all mods put more strain on an engine, but the engine shouldn't die so quickly.

Good luck with Subaru's customer service, I heard it sucks. That's the reason I'm not looking at a WRX for my next car.

Please read every post in a thread before you post an essay of assumptions.

Nobody said it was bound to happen, what was said was regarding expecting Subaru to cover an engine mod under warranty.

As for Subaru service, never had a problem with it myself and I've owned 4 Subarus in 3 states.

My friend in Waco has an Audi S4 running 48lbs of boost all the time. It's crazy. He does occasionally (OK, often) blow out a pipe connection, but the internals have always held up great.

As for the synchros, they do indeed take awhile. I have learned that a little bit of driver skill goes a long way. Learn to heel-toe. It will make you a FAR better driver, and you'll never notice the synchros again. And as an added bonus, your transmission will basically last forever (barring massive destructive force). The synchs in a WRX transmission are designed to be slow so people can't force it into gear way too early. The AWD and the relatively large quantity of power can, if worked incorrectly, play havoc on a transmission, so Subaru built in a safety mechanism -- in this case, slow synchs. Also, straight-cut gears add to the "problem." All of this makes it a difficult car to drive in traffic, but a rocket on the racetrack (which, by the way, is where everyone should learn to drive).

48? One of my friends had an s4 with a few mods. It was pretty fast and was no where near 48. I couldn't imagine driving a car with that much boost, that is insane!

I agree with you on the heal-toe downshifting. I couldn't do it when I first picked up my car, the pedal positioning felt awkward. Then I talked to a few guys and said that they didn't have a problem so I practiced in my toyota pickup and was able to get it down. Seems it makes a big difference when your driving hard and you know what the corner is like, but in tight back roads and traffic when there is alot of on-off throttle there is no getting around(without mods) the lack of throttle response. Also, in the long sweepe rs when you don't want to let the revs hang at 5500+rpm but you don't want to shift because it's not going to pull at all. It just doesn't have that bottom-end grunt to ease into out of the corner, it's either on or off. I could get around eveything else, but this is my main gripe about the car. I bet it would be tons of fun on the track, just as long as your easy on the brakes! Do you run aftermarket? I just picked up some hawk pads, but unfortunatly never got a chance to install them. I've never looked into track driving, I think I'd bankrupt myself after getting addicted. :evillol:

I just picked up some hawk pads, but unfortunatly never got a chance to install them. I've never looked into track driving, I think I'd bankrupt myself after getting addicted. :evillol:

I installed some kind of aftermarket pads w/ stock rotors and I dunno if I didn't prep them correctly, or got grease on them, b/c from day 1 they were shiiitaaay. I lived w/ the brake fade for awhile and then got EBC pads, some new stock rotors and it was like night and day better.

the crappy pads you describe, something i have had a few of my friends do was go out and buy some "Racing" brake pads and install them, only to realize that they don't reall work untill operating temp, which is usually 4 to 5 laps of HARD driving, now they are always sure that their pads are good for road use as well, road use pads are designed to work in a wider range of temps. aka daily driving

also a quick question, are there mods that subaru does warranty like with a focus you could buy (so i hear) ford racing parts that don't void your warranty, does subaru do the same thing?

Throttle response is only an issue from a dead stop, really. Once you've revved the motor up to operating speed, you're pretty much in the horsepower from gear to gear. My turbo is usually fully spooled by 3500rpm; if you're getting a lack of throttle response, it's because you're driving in the N/A section of the rpm band (nice for gas mileage, not so much for power).

also a quick question, are there mods that subaru does warranty like with a focus you could buy (so i hear) ford racing parts that don't void your warranty, does subaru do the same thing?
Subaru offers its SPT brand and some STI parts through the parts dept. and they are warranty-friendly if installed in a Subaru service department.

And most of them are pretty high-quality parts. Not the top-of-the line edgy track stuff, but great for "spirited" street driving.