Subaru Sales: August 2022

I'm sure we're looking at a combination of factors, but still... damn. I really hope the new model year will have some subtle changes, like at least offer painted fender flares as a factory option.

I'd say production down 41% rather than sales. There was a gap between the old & new versions where they didn't sell any for a couple months. After launch it felt like they were selling everything they could make.

For various reasons, I went to the dealer almost every weekend of June & July. Each time they had a fresh batch of 10-15 VBs on the lot, all with sold stickers. Only the GTs seemed to hang around for a while.

I'm still torn on the fender flares. I see a few of them in person here and there and sometimes it's ok and other time it doesn't work for me. That orange has grown on me a little but it's still very bold and the fenders are a little odd.

It's probably a combination of new model year and production issues. Because of contractual obligations we are still humping production at work but our deliveries are down, and our stock is really high. We just finished running about 30 sets of tooling for one line and that's near full capacity usage for that business unit for about 2 months.

We haven't had any customer visits recently so I haven't been able to dig into what's going on broader. Ford had a local race track packed with vehicles waiting on parts from elsewhere to finish production. I haven't heard of they have emptied it yet.

Similar situation at my work. Many products go to auto OEMs and we haven't made roughly 1/3rd of those in over a year because of raw material shortage. The supply from mines & primary producers is improving now but by the time it works it's way through the supply chain, it will be another 6 months at least, maybe longer.

silver_scooby said:

Similar situation at my work. Many products go to auto OEMs and we haven't made roughly 1/3rd of those in over a year because of raw material shortage. The supply from mines & primary producers is improving now but by the time it works it's way through the supply chain, it will be another 6 months at least, maybe longer.

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Yeah we have a few tools we make that have over a year lead time on the steel. It's been getting worse the last 4 or so years.

I'm waiting to see how these companies deal with the stock they contract us to make. There is no way they can make use of it any time soon. Even if production hits 100% tomorrow.

XJman said:

Yeah we have a few tools we make that have over a year lead time on the steel. It's been getting worse the last 4 or so years.

I'm waiting to see how these companies deal with the stock they contract us to make. There is no way they can make use of it any time soon. Even if production hits 100% tomorrow.

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Lol 1 year is extreme, haven't dealt with anything that bad yet. The most recent curveball was sunflower seeds, apparently ukraine & russia are the biggest producers and many of the chemicals we use are synthesized from those seeds.

silver_scooby said:

Lol 1 year is extreme, haven't dealt with anything that bad yet. The most recent curveball was sunflower seeds, apparently ukraine & russia are the biggest producers and many of the chemicals we use are synthesized from those seeds.

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We are a steel manufacturing company.

Chassis, springs, hose clamps, pulleys, tensioners, steering, cams and cranks, chassis, axle housings yadda yadda.

Most of our product materials are easy to source, the material for us at the tool shop not so much. It's hard to believe but there are foreign steel alloys that shit on anything made stateside and we use a lot of it.

XJman said:

We are a steel manufacturing company.

Chassis, springs, hose clamps, pulleys, tensioners, steering, cams and cranks, chassis, axle housings yadda yadda.

Most of our product materials are easy to source, the material for us at the tool shop not so much. It's hard to believe but there are foreign steel alloys that shit on anything made stateside and we use a lot of it.

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That's a wide range of products. I thought chassis and steering racks were made in-house? Some mfrs (2 german, 1 japanese) had press shops, die-casting machines and forges at the plants I visited through school.

Not hard to believe after some of the "quality control" and extreme resistance to change I've seen at plants on the gulf coast. Every minor change to machines or processes is met with weeks of pushback, especially from maintenance, even when it reduces workload.

silver_scooby said:

That's a wide range of products. I thought chassis and steering racks were made in-house? Some mfrs (2 german, 1 japanese) had press shops, die-casting machines and forges at the plants I visited through school.

Not hard to believe after some of the "quality control" and extreme resistance to change I've seen at plants on the gulf coast. Every minor change to machines or processes is met with weeks of pushback, especially from maintenance, even when it reduces workload.

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Yeah. They say a lot of stuff is.

Like when Chrysler started the pentastar and they had that we make them at our engine plant.

They were actually being made by an outfit up the road from my company that also was doing other engine blocks and heads.

Lol, the whole engine? That's bold.

silver_scooby said:

Lol, the whole engine? That's bold.

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I don't know what all they assembled but they were finished at minimum.

josnroh said:

WRX: 2304
Other Models:
CROSSTREK: 15,126
OUTBACK: 10,928
FORESTER: 10,477
ASCENT: 5638
IMPREZA: 3449
LEGACY: 1896
BRZ: 308
** WRX sales are down 41.2% compared to last year's total.**

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Economy sucks right now and interest rates are up as well.

I’ve been watching the local dealers and they have all sold every wrx that has been on the lot rather quickly.