2003 VDC Front Differential

[lgadallah]

My wife's '03 VDC spewed differential fluid out of the front
differential, thankfully only 20 miles into her cross country trip. She
took it to a nearby lube outfit who were able to tell her that the
transmission fluid was OK, but the differential was down. They topped
it up enough to allow her to hobble home. Now we need to take it to our
dealer, and I'm wondering if anyone here has any experience with this
kind of problem? The vehicle has about 48K miles on it, and I don't
know of any prior transmission/CV/differential problems with it. We've
had it since it had about 28K miles, so we have some history with the
vehicle.

We had a '98 that had the bad CV grease problem, which was misdiagnosed
by (another) dealer as bad seals, so they replaced the seals and
somehow managed to trash the entire transmission. Subaru paid for that
screw-up, so naturally we are a bit nervous to take the vehicle to
Subaru for assistance. Our current dealer took 3 or 4 tries to diagnose
an electrical problem that was causing problems with the fuel injection
under some conditions, so I think we are justifiably anxious about
trusting them to resolve this problem prior to a major trip across
country. Is there a better place than a Subaru dealer to work with?

Thanks in advance,

 

[Dmitriy]

My wife's '03 VDC spewed differential fluid out of the front
differential, thankfully only 20 miles into her cross country trip. She
took it to a nearby lube outfit who were able to tell her that the
transmission fluid was OK, but the differential was down. They topped
it up enough to allow her to hobble home. Now we need to take it to our
dealer, and I'm wondering if anyone here has any experience with this
kind of problem? The vehicle has about 48K miles on it, and I don't
know of any prior transmission/CV/differential problems with it. We've
had it since it had about 28K miles, so we have some history with the
vehicle.

We had a '98 that had the bad CV grease problem, which was misdiagnosed
by (another) dealer as bad seals, so they replaced the seals and
somehow managed to trash the entire transmission. Subaru paid for that
screw-up, so naturally we are a bit nervous to take the vehicle to
Subaru for assistance. Our current dealer took 3 or 4 tries to diagnose
an electrical problem that was causing problems with the fuel injection
under some conditions, so I think we are justifiably anxious about
trusting them to resolve this problem prior to a major trip across
country. Is there a better place than a Subaru dealer to work with?

Thanks in advance,

I'd try a different Subaru dealer.

 

[nobody]

My wife's '03 VDC spewed differential fluid out of the front
differential, thankfully only 20 miles into her cross country trip. She
took it to a nearby lube outfit who were able to tell her that the
transmission fluid was OK, but the differential was down. They topped
it up enough to allow her to hobble home. Now we need to take it to our
dealer, and I'm wondering if anyone here has any experience with this
kind of problem? The vehicle has about 48K miles on it, and I don't
know of any prior transmission/CV/differential problems with it. We've
had it since it had about 28K miles, so we have some history with the
vehicle.

We had a '98 that had the bad CV grease problem, which was misdiagnosed
by (another) dealer as bad seals, so they replaced the seals and
somehow managed to trash the entire transmission. Subaru paid for that
screw-up, so naturally we are a bit nervous to take the vehicle to
Subaru for assistance. Our current dealer took 3 or 4 tries to diagnose
an electrical problem that was causing problems with the fuel injection
under some conditions, so I think we are justifiably anxious about
trusting them to resolve this problem prior to a major trip across
country. Is there a better place than a Subaru dealer to work with?

Thanks in advance,

With 48K miles; you are tied to a Subaru dealer if you want work done
under warranty.

From
http://www.subaru.com/servlet/DealerSearch?dealerSearchString=98043&includeMap=true&bestFit=true
( or http://makeashorterlink.com/?D23C5248D )
You have 3 close dealers. I don't know which one gave you problems (if
you had the previous work done locally). You have two more to try.

I've had reasonably decent service done by Carter in Shoreline WA. I
didn't like the price but that's just the usual grouch I have with *any*
repair I couldn't do myself.


If you would rather have it done by an independent shop, the Seattle
area has many. I don't have any experience with them but someone else
may and will share their experience.