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EDIT/UPDATE:
The NHTSA has removed the recall notice and lists ZERO recalls for the Ascent. You may be wondering why. Well, the reason is because all nine customer cars, and all 284 other cars have been cleared and all of them have proper B-pillar welds.
In other words, this is a non-issue and non-item. There are zero affected cars, all cars have been inspected, and there are zero cars being recalled.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2019/SUBARU/ASCENT/SUV/AWD
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Hey all, I just wanted to summarize (and yes, editorialize) the Subaru Weld Recall for the Ascent. There is a LOT of misinformation floating around out there.
Here's the reality:
Here's more info in the official NHTSA filing...
>> https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2018/RCLRPT-18V508-8422.PDF
Here's my Editorializing...
But seriously, think about that for a sec. During the first year, they will have made 60,000 Ascents. This would amount to 4/10 of a percent of them. Only a tiny portion of those ever made it to buyers' hands. I'd say it's reasonable to say that only 1/10th of a percent ever made it to a purchaser? If that many? What's that? 75 people? Less? What's the chances that someone in that tiny pool of people (75 out of 60,000) would be in a sufficiently catastrophic roll-over event that would cause enough stress on the car to make the b-pillar fail? If you really think about it, it's 75 affected cars out of 2.6 million (so you can then look at rollover stats). Then, stop to think about how difficult it is to roll a Subaru compared to anything in its class due to the lower center of gravity, vehicle design and vehicle dynamics system, including our ALL wheel (2 at a time) active torque vectoring system on our Ascents.
I'm not allowed to badmouth other brands (yep, Subaru Ambassadors are held to a higher standard), so, I'll leave this commentary at this: There's case after case of other car manufacturers ignoring FAR larger issues that affect FAR larger number of cars *and people*. There's gas pedals, ignition switches, braking systems... all sorts of catastrophic issues that have caused a number of incidents across other brands where they knew about the problem and played the numbers game. I'm sure you've all heard the stories, and read about the court cases. So, I will leave it at that and not name names or call it anything other than a numbers game.
Subaru, on the other hand, proactively stopped sales, recalled the cars, and are destroying them, to be replaced with new ones. Instead of playing the numbers game, even with the most infinitesimal chance of an issue, they stepped up and did the right thing.
THAT is why I love the brand! THAT is why I felt safe in buying my Ascent before IIHS crash tests the car line. Subaru said they worked hard to make the safest 7-8 seater ever, and, it's because of events like this that I believe and *trust* them.
The NHTSA has removed the recall notice and lists ZERO recalls for the Ascent. You may be wondering why. Well, the reason is because all nine customer cars, and all 284 other cars have been cleared and all of them have proper B-pillar welds.
In other words, this is a non-issue and non-item. There are zero affected cars, all cars have been inspected, and there are zero cars being recalled.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2019/SUBARU/ASCENT/SUV/AWD
──────────────────────────────────────
Hey all, I just wanted to summarize (and yes, editorialize) the Subaru Weld Recall for the Ascent. There is a LOT of misinformation floating around out there.
Here's the reality:
- 293 cars had welds that Subaru did not think were up to their ridiculously high standards (I'm forever happy that their standards are so high, which is why I bought the Ascent sight unseen). The welds in question were in a "B-Pillar" (the pillar between the first and second row, between the doors).
. - 293 Ascents amount to less than one percent of the Ascents built so far. This happened over the period of six days or less.
. - The welds were performed by a misprogrammed robot and caught during their detailed human inspection process. The robot was obviously reprogrammed since then.
. - They know exactly which cars from having pulled the robot's logs.
. - No one would probably have ever known or noticed (more on this below), regardless, they voluntarily already stopped sale on ALL of the 293 affected cars, and notified the very few customers affected.
. - They voluntarily did the recall and stop sale within a few hours of the inspector catching the issue.
. - MOST of the cars never made it to customers, and were stopped in transit or on the dealer lots.
. - They notified the NHTSA and they (Subaru) officially already filed their own recall notice, on their own, with the NHTSA.
. - Any of the very few owners who managed to get an affected car (very small handful of the 293 vehicles) will be given a brand new car.
. - The affected cars will be *DESTROYED* - Subaru will NOT attempt to fix the welds.
Here's more info in the official NHTSA filing...
>> https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2018/RCLRPT-18V508-8422.PDF
Here's my Editorializing...
But seriously, think about that for a sec. During the first year, they will have made 60,000 Ascents. This would amount to 4/10 of a percent of them. Only a tiny portion of those ever made it to buyers' hands. I'd say it's reasonable to say that only 1/10th of a percent ever made it to a purchaser? If that many? What's that? 75 people? Less? What's the chances that someone in that tiny pool of people (75 out of 60,000) would be in a sufficiently catastrophic roll-over event that would cause enough stress on the car to make the b-pillar fail? If you really think about it, it's 75 affected cars out of 2.6 million (so you can then look at rollover stats). Then, stop to think about how difficult it is to roll a Subaru compared to anything in its class due to the lower center of gravity, vehicle design and vehicle dynamics system, including our ALL wheel (2 at a time) active torque vectoring system on our Ascents.
I'm not allowed to badmouth other brands (yep, Subaru Ambassadors are held to a higher standard), so, I'll leave this commentary at this: There's case after case of other car manufacturers ignoring FAR larger issues that affect FAR larger number of cars *and people*. There's gas pedals, ignition switches, braking systems... all sorts of catastrophic issues that have caused a number of incidents across other brands where they knew about the problem and played the numbers game. I'm sure you've all heard the stories, and read about the court cases. So, I will leave it at that and not name names or call it anything other than a numbers game.
Subaru, on the other hand, proactively stopped sales, recalled the cars, and are destroying them, to be replaced with new ones. Instead of playing the numbers game, even with the most infinitesimal chance of an issue, they stepped up and did the right thing.
THAT is why I love the brand! THAT is why I felt safe in buying my Ascent before IIHS crash tests the car line. Subaru said they worked hard to make the safest 7-8 seater ever, and, it's because of events like this that I believe and *trust* them.