Subaru Repair in Duluth, MN From a Shop That Knows the Engine

There are a lot of Subarus up here, and the reason is obvious the first time you try to get up a Duluth hill in February. Symmetrical all-wheel drive works. What is less obvious is that the same system which makes the car so good in snow is also the part most often ruined by an honest mistake.

Here is the mistake. You pick up a nail, the tire shop replaces one tire, and the new tire has more tread depth than the other three. On a Subaru, a difference of about a quarter of an inch in rolling circumference is enough to make the center differential or the transfer clutch work constantly to make up the difference. It does not fail that day. It fails months later, and the repair costs many times what four matched tires would have.

This is why we will not sell you one tire for a Subaru without telling you what it does. Sometimes the answer is to shave the new tire down to match, sometimes it is to replace all four, and sometimes the wear difference is small enough that it genuinely does not matter. We measure the tread depth on all four tires first and decide from the numbers, rather than guessing. Mounting is done on a Hunter Revolution, which handles the rims most shops will not touch.

The engines have their own history. The EJ25 head gasket problem is real and well documented, and if you own an older Outback or Forester you have probably heard about it. The newer FB engines traded that for an appetite for oil in certain model years. Both are known quantities. Neither is a reason to avoid the car. They are a reason to have somebody look at it who has seen a hundred of them rather than one.