In April, I bought a Subaru 2004 WRX wagon. I got an unmodified, original owner, adult owned, Florida car for a good price.
It needed axles and a timing belt, and had some issues (wasn't making boost). Nobody that I use locally seemed well versed in these cars, so I ended up at a "subaru specialist" performance shop a couple of counties away from home. Replacing the boost control solenoid and the precat with a non-cat up-pipe took care of the lack of boost. I had provided all of the timing belt/water pump parts, including coolant, and ended up paying $2700 on a $1700 estimate. I left the car with them for about two weeks, so there was no rush to complete the job, and I didn't complain about the extra costs ($1000 more for a non-cat up-pipe and boost control solenoid).
The car didn't run right when I picked it up. It was surging under boost. I called the shop owner, and was told that the ECU needed to relearn how to respond to boost, and that it should smooth out, "maybe in 25 miles, maybe in 100."
When I got it home, I also found it was a bit over a quart low on oil, and over the next few days discovered that the cooling system was down about two quarts. The next week I replaced the panel filter and found that the clamp holding the mass air meter to the airbox was also loose. I hoped tightening the loose clamp would cure the boost surge, but it didn't make a difference.
I kept driving the car, taking care to stay out of boost as much as possible to avoid overboosting the engine. Max boost is supposed to be about 13.5 lbs. At just part throttle it would surge to 17 lbs pretty easily (as reported by the ECU to a scan gauge), and at one point showed a momentary reading of 27 lbs.
The last theory suggested by the shop owner was that it either lacked the boost restrictor "pill" or had the wrong sized one. He said he would order the correct one, and install it at no charge when I needed my next oil change.
It's developed a leak in the high pressure power steering hose. I started looking at a couple of youtube videos on replacing the power steering hose, and that's when I discovered the likely reason that the ECU has been having so much trouble. The "subaru specialist" shop left off half of the air intake.
Number one in the photo. Hopefully, the part's laying around the shop somewhere. They can be found used on ebay, or new for around $45 to $50.
Picture of the engine in my car the week I bought it. You can see the corner of the air inlet duct at the lower left.
The accumulation of mistakes and evidence of shoddy work makes me wonder what else could be wrong. Were the fasteners for the timing belt left finger tight like the clamp on the mass air meter? Were they installed dry, or did they have locktite used? Did they get slammed in with an air ratchet or impact? Or did they actually get torqued to spec with appropriate use of locktite?
It would be nice to get the inlet air duct and drive it, and hopefully it's solve the boost issues, but I'm really worried about having the timing assembly come apart and destroy my engine. The only way I can be confident would be to have the parts all removed and retorqued, and that's not going to be cheap.
It leaves me with three choices: drive it and hope, pay someone to remove and re-install all of the parts, or sell the car. I'll never find another original owner, unmodified car, so my dream of owning a WRX wagon would be over.
How would you recommend I approach the discussion with the shop owner? What would you ask for? There's no chance that I'm going to let them touch my car again. Trusted local shop with a 10 plus year history with me quoted about $450 for labor to remove and re-install the water pump/timing assembly.
