Baja breakdown

[yellowblaze]

Had an interesting experiance last week. I was so shocked I didn't even think to get pics! We were coming home for lunch, when suddenly DH turned to me and said "it died...I just lost power steering". Qucikly followed by every dash light popping on. Ok, a belt broke. Made it home (we weren't far) and popped the hood to find one belt gone, the other hanging there. Ok...this is bad. Not knowing the motor very well, we didn't realize at first what happened. Until my HD decided to mess with the lower pulley and it fell off in his hand!! The crank pulley sheered off!! Had it towed to a local subie dealer who fixed it under the extended warrantee. Said they've never seen a Subie do that before. Seems fine now-they had it fixed the same day.

[bulwnkl]

??!? Holy cow!

[speedymatt]

no joke holy cow. just be glad that its not an interference fit engine. if the belt goes on one of those the engine eats the valves and thats not good. thats the reason i sold my old miata, for the fear of crank key shear during autox as it was already starting to wear the crank key. glad your up and running again.

[yellowblaze]

From what I understand it is an interference engine. It didn't jump timing, just the drive belts got thrown. The crank was fine, the pulley itself is what sheered off. The dealer we had it taken to also sells Hyandias (SP) and said in ten years, he has seen two of those come in with the same issue, but never a Subie. It's got around 70K on it, so it's not even high mileage. Must have really been a defective part! Luckily we bought the 100K warrantee, so even the tow was covered-we just paid for the two new drive belts and the deductable.

[cyphergirl]

Holy crap!

Mine just crossed 100,000 miles, so we'll be replacing the belts soon. I guess we'll have a close look at the pulleys then, too.