[sloheim]

In Summary...

"The largest vehicle Subaru has ever produced, manufactured at the U.S. plant in Lafayette, Indiana, is already being recalled. The all-new 2019 Subaru Ascent 3-Row family hauler is being recalled for major structural defects caused by missing spot welds on, or around, the B-Pillar, compromising vehicle strength. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says there are 80 possible missing body welds in the new family vehicle.

The NHTSA report says if these spot welds were missed, the strength of the vehicle’s body may be reduced, potentially increasing the risk of injury in the event of a crash. A total of 293 U.S. Ascent vehicles are affected by this recall and had July 13-21 production dates."

Full story here:

https://www.torquenews.com/1084/new-subaru-ascent-recalled-major-structural-defects

 

[norway]

This thread has gone into it a bit already.
https://www.ascentforums.com/#/topics/2717?page=8

The bulletin doesn't mention 80 welds, so not sure where that came from, and the bulletin and Forbes say the vehicles will be replaced and destroyed, they can't be fixed.

 

[lazydaze$$]

This recall was posted in another thread yesterday...Subaru Recall....with extensive discussion...including these comments
by Carl..

“
Carl Abrams
Senior Member

Join Date: Feb 2018
Location: Oklahoma City
Posts: 569
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparkland View Post
Very interesting. At least Subaru is not attempting to coverup the problem. 293 vehicles affected with insufficient welds around the "B" pillar. " The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says there are 80 possible missing body welds in the new family vehicle."

That robot is going to be seriously reprimanded, up to and including termination.

Evidently, some people were misinformed. From the above referenced article:

"The problem can’t be fixed, so the automaker will give the owners a new vehicle…The problem affects some models built between July 16th and the 25th."

There is no way for the owner to ascertain whether their Ascent is affected because the manufacturing date only states the month, not the week.
I don't see on the NHTSA recall that there were 80 welds missing, only that there are SOME missing spot welds. Since we're talking B-pillar here, that's a bad thing, because that's 7 layers of steel welded together with a boron steel rod running down the middle. But this does show, again, how Subaru is pro-active about this. We at the dealership level knew there was a recall and stop sale a while ago. We didn't know WHY or how bad it was - but here's the thing. The three cars total that are part of my stop sale / recall never made it here. They were in transit when the stop sale hit, and are sitting at the railhead still yet waiting on the inspection.

So, since these are ALL cars that were built after shutdown - and we're also only talking about 293 TOTAL cars potentially affected - unless your car WAS built after shutdown and then actually made it to you, I wouldn't worry about it. All those made prior to shutdown are fine. And all those made after they figured out there was a problem are fine.

In case anyone wonders why this is a big deal ...



Report this image


That's the inside of your B-pillar. Just the outside piece, which runs from the sill plate to the roof, is heavy as heck. (I've slung enough of those.)”

 

[sloheim]

This thread has gone into it a bit already.
https://www.ascentforums.com/#/topics/2717?page=8

Up until yesterday morning, that thread was 7 pages of discussion around a handful of Ascents that had a problem with missing bolts. I stopped following that a ways back because it did not seem applicable to me. It appears that someone decided to add a link to a similar story to that thread. Seems to me like this was worthy of its own thread / announcement.

 

[jacket4256]

I feel like this horse has been beat to death on this topic and haven't we already had multiple threads about this ??

 

[Trey T]

still haven't gotten the Ascent yet ... very good news for me

 

[pashi266]

I checked my Ascent VIN (ETA this week) and there are no recalls yet.
But, is there any way to find out when was it manufactured? the dates?

 

[Carl Abrams]

I checked my Ascent VIN (ETA this week) and there are no recalls yet.
But, is there any way to find out when was it manufactured? the dates?

For you as the customer? No.

Your salesman and/or service writers? Sure. You can ask them, and they'll be able to tell you the day your car came off the end of the line. All they have to do is a vehicle inquiry in SubieNet. Note that if your car WAS on the recall list - it's a violation of Federal Law for that car to be sold, and Subaru considers it a violation of their retailer agreement so the dealership could lose their franchise over doing so. Which basically means you're not buying a car with an open recall.

If they still do the same thing now they did when I was there, certain parts are sub-assembled in advance of production, then stored on a rack in the warehouse until needed. Since cars are not built in VIN order, that would explain how they ended up with two shifts worth of cars that had bad welds made over a one week period.

 

[Ey31]

so what happened? Did someone just forgot to turn on that station from the 16th to the 25th? Someone went on vacation and left the post abandoned? How is this even possible. The question is how did they start noticing it or do they have a log of when it was last used correctly or making assumptions based on inspection.


"The problem affects some models built between July 16th and the 25th."

 

[Robert.Mauro]

For those wondering...

Description of the issue: There is a possibility that some spot welds were missed around the B-pillar. Therefore, the strength of the vehicle’s body may be reduced.

⇩⇩⇩⇩⇩⇩⇩⇩
-The basis for how the recall population was determined: The recall population is based on the operation records of the welding robots.
⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧

Short version is, they have an exact number and know the exact vehicles because the robots' records were able to indicate which vehicles were welded incorrectly.

In other words, they know EXACTLY which vehicles may not have been welded correctly, AND, for those wondering what happens next, those owners will be getting BRAND NEW vehicles with the proper welds. As Carl and norway pointed out, the affected vehicles will be DESTROYED. If you got an affected car, you'll get a new one. If you ordered a car that was affected but haven't taken delivery of it, you'll never see the affected car, and a new one will be built for you.

Less than 1% of vehicles was affected.

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2018/RCLRPT-18V508-8422.PDF

 

[Robert.Mauro]

I wanted to post my thoughts on this, as well as a more detailed summary, and have it where people could easily see it (by it being the first post in the topic), so, here's my thoughts and some details and numbers:

https://www.ascentforums.com/forum/...vehicles-faulty-b-pillar-welds.html#post43275

 

[Gueromeister]

I feel like this horse has been beat to death on this topic and haven't we already had multiple threads about this ??

And what a dramatic title.....:tango_face_wink:

 

[Robert.Mauro]

And what a dramatic title.....:tango_face_wink:

Yep. Some of the articles out there are absurd, so, I guess I understand the title? lain: