Good thing you could do the repair yourself. The XV is a light duty vehicle and you happen to find a breaking point with the stress put on the axle. When Subaru believes you abused the car by doing something the car wasn`t designed to preform under normal conditions it`s very difficult to get them to cover the repair. What you broke was an unusual for that type of car. It comes down to You Play You Pay. This response from Subaru is typical to WRX and STI owners who put an unsafe tune on their car and blow the turbo or worse.

 

You know I kinda agree with Subaru on this one. You were operating the vehicle off road and outside of normal driving conditions.

Sometimes you have to pay to play.

 

So very flat and smooth grass is out of the vehicles capability? Sorry ill remember to never go down a gravel road.

 

Hard luck Brian, most of the advertising for the car is off road.
Unfortunately from my experience in Australia another episode of poor Subaru service.
Thanks for sharing.

 

Hi Subie_Noob_Brian, sorry to hear your expensive break down. When you disabled the VDC did you remove the fuse completley or just the hold the VDC button for 30 seconds?

 

Sucks man... I wonder what they would have said if you were a 50 yr old woman and did NOT have the ralley lights and skid plates on. Sometimes it pays to with-hold some of the truth... Maybe a little fib about how you broke it??

 

Well, while I think the XV is perfectly capable of "wet grass" and other off roading at some level or another, obviously there are many here factors that could have caused this (weak spot in the axle metal, speed too fast, who knows). I'm not about to judge it since I freak out if I drive over 65mph. ha!

And it's not surprising Subie wouldn't cover it because there's no way they could prove it was *not* the car's fault without some major mechanical forensics, and long court battles..and blah.. it probably wouldn't be worth it anyway.

Brian is a very lucky man that he is able to fix it himself (maybe it's his confidence in that ability, which lets him head out to "wet grass"). Granny here is not so brave. LOL

What I *do* find interesting though is... the Subie Reps response of "rally lights". This is the flag comment that shows us all how the "warranty-gate-keepers" will look for ANY reason to *not* cover/pay. God forbid the door falls off and they say it's because you put a door-cup protector on.

Lights/axle....Axle/Lights. I mean really? This would be another "hard to prove" situation.

So, while I feel horrible for you Brian, that she broke, I give you credit for heading out there and testing her limits. Ok.. so you found a limit. LOL. If it wasn't you and "wet grass" on a sideway slide, one day it will be someone else, with a completely different part in another situation. The XV is still so young and I'm sure it has a lot of evolution to go through (heck, how many Imprezas were busted before they became the little screaming meanies they are now)? :-D

Hey Brian... your "broke" pics made my stomach upset, I had to go take Tums. Be sure to post us some photos of her all clean and fixed up!

 

Lol! The caked on mud and grass gave it away. You really pushed past the limits, but I don't know that having 6 front mounted lights and the skid plates mean anything.
It would have been interesting to see what Subaru said if you had cleaned her up and taken off the lights��

 

Brian, so sorry to hear what happened. Thank you for going thru all this. It's really informative to know what the car can do, and what it can't do. Any ideas on how to mod/strengthen the part, to prevent it from exploding again in future?

 

I think the problem was I disabled the traction control allowing the wheels to spin very fast and then hitting the brake to hard. I very seriously doubt this would have happened if the traction control was on. I still plan to run my car in rallyx I just don't slam brakes with the wheel full lock LOL

 

If a axle broke on me and they denied to fix under warranty, there would be lawyers waiting in line outside my door.

 

I'm totally blown away that this wasn't under warranty. Most of subarus marketing material involves terrain that is more rugged than wet grass... I'm never going to turn off VDC now LOL... That is terrifying.

 

I just realized this but if your axle snapped and the stub came out, your wheel bearing may have been damaged. I'm not sure about the specific configuration of the xv but for most subarus, the manuals tell you to torque the axle nut before putting the wheel on and down on the ground. Use the brake to keep the hub from spinning rather than torqueing the nut on the ground.

If the configuration is similar to other subarus there was nothing holding the two inner races of the bearing together while the shaft was broken, except for the press fit between the hub and the inner inner race.

this would make sense with your description of having to hammer the shaft back in to get the wheel to straighten out.

 

looking at your pictures again the shaft doesn't appear to have sheared it looks like the cage exploded and the balls took a vacation.

 

Hi Brian, I think it would be very-very difficult just to break a front axle on a Subaru. My Hyundai Getz survived rallying on Kalpower rocky dirt road. I have taken my XV to really rough territory and no problems. Is there more to the story? Cheers.

 

Wheels spinning having fun
Wheel turned full lock right
Sliding sideways
Having fun
Hit brake
SNAP

 

I agree..on wet grass..I'd think that there was some sort of metallurgic defect in the part that lead to the breaking. Unless it was damaged with the previous off-roading.. Even still, for a (essentially) few hundred dollar part, I'd think Subaru would be keen to replace it rather than risk a) having a future customer look elsewhere for a $25,000+ car and b) having word of mouth spread that you have to baby these things off-road (where they are ostensibly advertised to go..)

Anyway - bummer, and thanks for sharing the story. Something to be wary of...

BeachAV8R

 

Soobi_Noob_Brian et al : it is late for you but maybe you should have fought with them using this:

Magnuson

This issue comes up a lot with HD in the past and using their oil vs other oils.

Just a thought.

paul

 

Soobi_Noob_Brian et al : it is late for you but maybe you should have fought with them using this:

Magnuson

Just a thought.

paul

Maybe it is not too late and Brian can still try and recoup his costs.
It is true that Subaru have not disclosed their warranty as limited to paved roads and with the traction on. Why is there an off button for the traction control if you're never allowed to turn it off?

 

I'll add my .02.. The only way that axle broke is if there was a defect. On a slick surface of any kind, traction control or not, there is not enough torque being put through the axle to break it. Even at full lock there is not enough pressure being put through the shaft on the XV. That particular activity could not have broken the axle unless it was already cracked, or somehow damaged or defective. Even if you were to spin the wheel way up and then slam on the brakes, there is not enough inertia to overcome the amount of torque that axle can withstand.

I do have a question though, was the boot torn before this happened possibly? If dirt and or rocks got into the CV joint, that "could" cause this kind of failure. Another thing that could cause it is if the chassis/rack and pinion allowed the wheel to travel past the limits of the joint at full lock. But, it would have to allow a whole lot of flex for that to happen.

Were the races nicked up? What kind of shape were the balls in?

I have have an impreza that had defective inner boots with less than 5000 miles on the clock.

I can understand subaru being hesitant to fix some things when it comes to modded vehicles. But, I think they were wrong to deny this claim. Now if you were cranking out 300HP and had monster mud tires on it.. maybe. But stock power in a grass field. Subaru failed to uphold their end of the deal in my opinion.