My WRX is at the dealer for a complete clutch replacement. Without warning the clutch went out. The car has less than 12,000 miles. I'm old and drive carefully. I take the car to the Track but have never abused it and if you know about tracks, except for a few, you rarely go over 100mph. Shifting on the track was not an issue, I had the short shifter installed to make it that much easier. The clutch just stopped working. At the Dealer I was told there is now a heavy duty clutch for the WRX and it will be installed for free. I hope this is true, when I get the car back I'll let you know. I did have to pay hundreds for a Uhaul Rental Truck and Trailer plus extra gas and food as I was out of town when it happened. Placing this complaint to warn other drivers.

Update from Jun 28, 2018: OK, Shout out to Subaru of Fresno Calif. They replaced the clutch assembly including pedals with a heavy duty set-up. They explained this was a one time only free repair, there was a bulletin out on the WRX clutch. I'm not worried as I don't abused the car, I've never needed or wanted to pop the clutch!!! Not sure of performance yet but can tell its much heftier than the original.

My complaint pertains to my 2016 Subaru WRX clutch. The clutch stopped working after approximately 14,000 miles and 15 months of ownership. The dealership and Subaru of America have judged this to be regular user wear and tear and are not covering it under warranty. I was told by the service manager and the SoA that this is not an unusual occurrence.

The clutch failed without warning in December 2016 while I was traveling on the highway at about 60 MPH. I had put the vehicle in neutral while coasting down a hill. When I tried to re-enter gear at the base of the hill I found the gear box resisted entering all gears. I was unable to put the car back into gear and was forced to make an emergency exit from the flow of traffic to the shoulder. My car only reengaged into gear when I turned it off, put the car into gear (with some struggle), and then restarted the car. I immediately took the car to a service station. I was exceptionally lucky that I was able to perform the emergency exit from traffic without getting into a crash.

Some additional notes on issue. First, the car had undergone regularly scheduled maintenance less than 2 months prior. That maintenance schedule includes an inspection of the vehicles transmission. The authorized Subaru dealership that performed the maintenance reported no problems with the transmission. Second, the vehicle is primarily used as a highway commuter. It has not been used for any motorsport, track racing, extreme driving. I purchased the car as a "safe" car to transport my child in. Third, for what it’s worth – I know how to drive a manual transmission car. This is my 6th manual transmission car in 15 years and this is my first-ever clutch issue.

For a vehicle to fail in such a spectacular fashion with no warning so soon after regular maintenance and at such low mileage is, in my opinion, a serious hazard and unacceptable. Both the dealership and SoA stated this is "not uncommon." That is outrageous from a company that markets itself on reliability, customer satisfaction, and "the Subaru family."

I started noticing problems with the 2016 WRX lacking power, and decided to have the car towed on Monday October 17 into Heritage Subaru for a maintenance check, since I had no one to drive me back. They told me on Oct 18 that after repairing the turbo charger due to a recall, the car was having clutch issues, and the total cost was $2200. I was very confused because I cannot fathom how a clutch failed under a year, with only 16000. I called my mechanic and he agreed with me that it is highly unlikely that a clutch would fail after only a year., and told me to call Subaru of America.

I called Subaru of America on Thursday Oct 20 Thursday and asked them about this problem and the price of $2200 and they (Subaru of America) would look into this issue by calling the dealer to get more information. After a few days the dealer calls to tell me that they never heard from Subaru of America, so clearly some sort of disconnect I say ok that’s fine, I followed up with Subaru of America and was assigned a new case manager, Danielle.

Danielle told me that the she was having difficulty with getting information out of the dealer and had to elevate the case. She also told me she did not understand the push back since the clutch was under warranty as a specific wear item for 3 years 36,000. The flywheel is covered under power train warranty for 60,000. I was told that the clutch was under warranty by Danielle since the car is only 1 year old has 16000 on it.

You told me that if I have this problem again in a year, I will have to take it back to the dealer to get the car re-evaluated. That is ridiculous that I am supposed to plan for the clutch to fail after only 1 year of driving. When buying the car I made it a point to ask about clutch failure, the dealer told me that usually after 3 years is when I needs to be replaced. Taking this into account I went ahead and purchased the vehicle expecting to replace the clutch after the 3 years period. Now to hear that this item failed after a year I am very disappointed with my purchase. After doing a bunch of research online I have found that this is a recurring issue for the 4th generation vehicle.

I do not believe that the clutch failed due to driver error. From what I can tell online multiple people are having the EXACT same issue with the 4th generation WRX. It is statistically impossible that all of these drivers are aggressively driving. Now what is even more ridiculous is being told Sam (senior warranty rep for Subaru of America) that since the WRX is primarily for young drivers the car in all of these online cases were being driven aggressively. Driver failure due to alleged over revving the vehicle to me is not enough evidence to indicate driver error. It is much more likely that the clutch is failing due to engineering design error.

After almost 3 weeks of back and forth, I have decided to get the vehicle repaired by Heritage Subaru. They extended the loaner car till the vehicle is repaired.

Dealership replaced under their good will policy and said that I was driving aggressively. I didn't really care for their accusation specially since if you drive aggressively your tires and brakes would show heavy or odd wear.

Update from Apr 17, 2016: I didn't give details on my issues. The Clutch did not fail. The clutch was smoking/ putting out a burning smell. I was told about the smell by co-workers when departing work. Speed limit in area is 15-30mph for 3 miles so no aggressive driving specially with heavy police presence. Few weeks after smell returned again but only lasted a few minutes. A month later it started smelling again and that's when Subaru replaced it and said I was driving aggressively and that's was the cause of my issue.

Drove that car from the Dealer Saturday morning everything seemed okay. The car seems a little tough to put into reverse, but thought nothing of it since the car had 10miles when bought. I figured needs time to break in. Few days later same issue with the transmission, then leaving work clutch pedal sinks to ground and doesn't come back up while trying to hop on the highway. Stranded on the side of entrance ramp cant get the car into any gear. All I smell clutch at this point and I cant move the car, so I called Subaru road side.

Dealer gets that car and says Clutch is totally gone, metal on metal. The car at this point only has 210 miles and owned the car for a whooping total of 6 days. Like everyone was accused of abusing the car or not driving standard, The car I traded the same dealer was a 2013 fiat Abarth 5 speed which ive had for 2 years. So the clutch was replaced free "one time Goodwill" from Subaru. Im assuming after reading other complaints on the 2015 models with same issue, this seems to be a common problem with this generation WRX. Im scared that this problem will happen again. Buyer Beware. Come on Subaru!! My first Subaru and So far its been a nightmare in the 200 miles/ 6 days ive owned it.

2016 Subaru WRX was purchased in August 2015 and had the clutch replaced 2 times in the span of 2 1/2 months. Dealership and Subaru of America said it's "under the good will " and they will replace it and then clutch blew out again and they charged over $1400 to replace it ... With them stating "driver's habits/ racing the vehicle and not properly using the clutch. They willingly accepted a large sum of cash down when vehicle was purchased along with talking one in to purchasing the extended warranty for an extra $2000 stating everything would be covered. Come to find out nothing is covered. Very disappointed with Subaru of America

Had to pay the $1400 fix to get car out of shop (they kept it for 3 weeks stating they are waiting for parts and kept changing their story every time the were spoken with. Service from Subaru of America was very unprofessional