The "good" news is that the valve issue is common enough that you most likely will be covered without any trouble. Might as well ride out the warranty.
Also, don't be surprised if they take the head off and decide that it needs a new short block as well.
The Following User Says Thank You to bluedeuce For This Useful Post:
A 2011 Subaru WRX shouldn't need an entirely new short block due to low compression in multiple cylinders either, but my colleague's car did. The engine was completely unmodified and the car is only used for commuting.
If I were to form blanket conclusion regarding the Subaru EJ255's reliability based solely on this information, I'd come away with a very skewed perspective that doesn't accurately reflect what the majority of the tens of thousands of WRX owners experience.
Here's a write up on Subarus with burnt valve problems. This particular service center feels that it's a fuel injector problem:
I have to go here on the number of similar incidents reported in this forum. I have not been keeping count, but I believe that I've read about five or six, all on cars less than four years old and engines with low mileage. Seems abnormally high to me. These people are also being quoted for the repairs close to 50% of the street value of the car. Also seems abnormally high.
The Following User Says Thank You to jamarimutt For This Useful Post:
On my colleague's car, the issue was with the bottom end (hence the new short block). The head was fine, and was actually reused when the repair was performed.
The Following User Says Thank You to Padawan For This Useful Post:
I beg to differ. The number of valve problems seems unusually high for me. This should not happen to any 2009 car with 22,000 or 122,000 miles. I like my 2011 smart and will probably keep it for the length of the two year warranty. Then, if I still like it, I'll trade it for a new one with the 4-year warranty.
We've heard of how many valve problems now, must be 8-10 at this point?
Looking at major engine trouble in general, most of those reporting it hadn't been active posters here before the report. The number of people reporting when this happens is obviously far greater than the number of active posters here.
If you look at the few active posters here vs. the 50,000 smarts in the country, it looks like we've only seen a tiny fraction of the problems, but we don't really care how many are active posters - we want to know how many would report here if they ran into trouble.
That number isn't easy to find out, and it's largely up to personal opinion (guesses) at the moment. I'll guess 2000, putting the failure rate at 0.4~0.5%. Feel free to think that's a high or low guess... it is just a guess.
Half a percent isn't a great failure rate, but it's not a terrible one either. It would be nice if it was zero, but this is a car we're talking about... a very complex piece of machinery that just is going to break down now and then. Now if there were a couple dozen different half-percent failure rates in the engine, that would be bad, but there aren't, and I don't see the single one as out of the ordinary at all.
The Following User Says Thank You to deepblueQ For This Useful Post:
Half a percent isn't a great failure rate, but it's not a terrible one either. It would be nice if it was zero, but this is a car we're talking about... a very complex piece of machinery that just is going to break down now and then. Now if there were a couple dozen different half-percent failure rates in the engine, that would be bad, but there aren't, and I don't see the single one as out of the ordinary at all.
It's probably not that high -- that would be huge, for one single item of failure. Imagine how many cars that would be if it were on something like a Camry or something! It' would be crazy and all over the news. Now if total quality issues including EVERYTHING, that would actually be pretty good.
The Following User Says Thank You to kennyrayandersen For This Useful Post:
The problem here is we will never know how common valve failure really is. MB is not going to tell us, that's for sure.
There also appears to be a great mystery involved in the 60k valve adjust. Some dealers say it's not necessary. Few reports on MB dealer valve adjust reports have appeared on this forum.
MB's diagnostic history's on Smart car problems is dismal at best, and their shop charges are outrageous. 6k for a valve job. Com'on.
We are again in our "Mushroom" mode with this car. A2Jack
The Following User Says Thank You to a2jack For This Useful Post:
It's probably not that high -- that would be huge, for one single item of failure. Imagine how many cars that would be if it were on something like a Camry or something! It' would be crazy and all over the news. Now if total quality issues including EVERYTHING, that would actually be pretty good.
0.5% on one part is bad, but it doesn't ruin a car's reliability all on its own. If there were a dozen parts with that failure rate that were similarly disabling and required similarly expensive repair, that would be terrible... but there aren't.
As far as problems in this seriousness bracket go (basically just the engine or gearbox grenading), we've got burned valves, bad valve guides, catastrophic overheating via improper coolant filling, and an excessively whiny, suspected to be dying gearbox. 8-10 cases burned valves, 3-4 cases valve guides, 2-3 cases overheating, 1 dead gearbox (all IIRC). 14-18 overall problems of this seriousness, by my previous logic, is <1% of cars with a problem.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be great if the number were lower, but there are also plenty of cars out there that do worse than that. It's certainly not a reliability spec that's going to make me decide it's a bad car, which is what the original comment along this line was about.
The Following User Says Thank You to deepblueQ For This Useful Post:
I'm attributing most of the frustration with out-of-warranty repairs on the smart fortwo to a couple of unique factors.
1 - The problems are confined to a small group of issues which continue to occur without acknowledgment or consideration from the manufacturer.
2- In the case of valve failure the repair is 25% - 45% of the car's purchase price.
I love the car, but we shouldn't tolerate failures on a car that's less than 5-years old which cost almost half it's value. That's not a model for success.
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$6000 for a valve job on a 3 cylinder engine is criminal. These aren't Mercedes Benz's. Mercedes can almost guarantee doom for the brand at that kind of repair cost.
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