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Issues w/'17 WRX: hard start, no heat, hill hold sticking-- anyone?

4K views 7 replies 7 participants last post by  XJman 
#1 ·
Hey everyone, I've done some research but can't find much on these issues with the 2015+ WRX. I have about 19,000 miles on my 2017 WRX which I bought new last July, and it seems that my problems are becoming more prevalent.

1) Hard to start: a week or so after I bought my car it gave me a hard time when starting it one morning. It didn't happen again for a few weeks so I figured maybe it was a fluke. Since then it's continued to happen on an intermittent but unpredictable basis. All of the research I did, including asking the 2015+ WRX/STI Facebook group if anyone has had this issue, led to the battery, but upon Subaru doing a load test they found the battery to be fine.

Since they looked into this (about a month and a half ago), the issue has continued. In the last week it's happened 3 times. My faith in the car starting every time I get into it is decreasing, and I plan to have Subaru look into it when I can get the car into the dealership.

The general description of the problem is that upon pushing the start button, the car takes longer to start than it should (yes, I have the clutch fully depressed). Sometimes it doesn't crank quickly, sometimes it has to crank for an extended period of time (up to a solid 5-Mississippi-count before it fires up), sometimes it sounds like it's sputtering and not turning over as quickly as it should, sometimes it does all of this or just has difficulty getting started altogether. At times it idles poorly after the hard start, and sometimes it idles really, really high after startup for a few minutes before settling down to even 1200 RPM (which has also happened many times when the car has started fine). Weather seems to have no affect on when this happens. I'd go so far as to say the motor doesn't sound perfectly "healthy," but I'm no engine master and am only going based on the other FA motors I've heard (which seem to idle smoother and quieter). My car is stock for reference.

Has anyone seen or heard of this, or experienced any of it?

2) No heat: exactly as it says. Yesterday I had to set the temperature to 85 just to get warm air. This started happening a few weeks ago but is more frequent now. Monday, yesterday, and today I couldn't get hot or even warm air without setting the thermostat abnormally high. It's not a major problem today as it's supposed to near 70 degrees outside, but tomorrow when it's in the high 20s or low 30s it won't be great fun to have cold air blowing when I need heat. Anyone seen or heard of this?

3) Seat heater: the driver's seat heater doesn't "stay on," but rather gets warm for about 2 minutes then cools off then comes back on at its leisure about 5-10 minutes later. It's totally inconsistent and seems to have no rhyme or reason to its pattern.

4) Hill Hold sticking: I've only noticed this 3-4 times, but something seems to be weird about it. A few times when I was on flat surfaces stopped at a light, the car was reluctant to move upon my attempt to accelerate into first. Each time I noticed that it felt like the brakes were being applied even though I wasn't on them, and a loud clunk was audible as the car began to move and the system felt like it freed itself. I definitely need the parking brake adjusted (car rolls a bit with it on the first few clicks), but I'm not sure if the Hill Hold is accomplished via parking brake or the actual brakes themselves. Any input?


Thanks in advance for any help. I really do love the car for the most part, but being that it isn't even 8 months old yet these issues have become pretty frustrating, especially considering I spend 2+ hours in the car every day. I'm setting up an appointment at Subaru today to have everything looked into, but the issue I foresee is that none of the problems happen on a regular, predictable basis and I have a feeling they'll give me the "could not replicate problems" run-around. So if anyone has experienced any of this on their 2015+ WRX please chime in so I have some kind of reference point, your help is much appreciated.
 
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#2 ·
I believe you are thinking way too much into this. As unhelpful as the dealership has already been regarding this issue, they are your best option as you are still under warranty. You need to take it to them and describe to them everything you described on here and just leave it with them to figure out. Something is clearly not right.
 
#3 ·
The only one i've experienced is the seat warmers... it does the exact same thing as yours. I just chalked it up to one of those quirky Subaru things lol. It is quite annoying though and makes no sense. I've used many a dozen seat warmers and none of them do that. My GTI's seat warmer would toast your bottom for hours on end without any fluctuation in temp.
 
#4 ·
4) Hill Hold sticking: I've only noticed this 3-4 times, but something seems to be weird about it. A few times when I was on flat surfaces stopped at a light, the car was reluctant to move upon my attempt to accelerate into first. Each time I noticed that it felt like the brakes were being applied even though I wasn't on them, and a loud clunk was audible as the car began to move and the system felt like it freed itself. I definitely need the parking brake adjusted (car rolls a bit with it on the first few clicks), but I'm not sure if the Hill Hold is accomplished via parking brake or the actual brakes themselves. Any input?
I had this issue; I turned hill assist off and the issue went away.
 
#6 ·
Thanks for responses.

Just made an appointment for the car two weeks from now (soonest I could make my schedule work). Very curious to see what they say about each problem. Will report back with answers, hopefully.
 
#8 ·
I'm wondering if the starting issues are a bad ground. That can cause weak starter cranking and weak spark.

My big concern here aside from the starting is the no heat. That typically means a problem with circulation of engine coolant. Have you checked it's level? It's a sealed system so if it's low you've got a leak somewhere.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk
 
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