Dear Mr. Kilmer,
We are the same age and grew up thinking similarly. I never trusted most “Mechanics” generally were just parts changing nincompoops I bought repair manuals and taught myself most maintenance and repairs. Love your videos!
What is your opinion of the CVT in Subaru vehicles? I think it is a JATCO. Have heard you speak ill of them frequently but no problems so far with mine. Probably just lucky so far.
Keep up the good work!
Frank Savoretti, JD, MD
Welcome new member. The Subaru CVTs are produced in house. Take a look at the search bar above… there is a TON of info on this question in the archives.
They are not Jatco, Subaru builds their own CVTs. The general consensus is they are not as good as the newest Honda or Toyota CVTs but are much, much better than the Jatco units used by Nissan and some others.
Where Subaru went wrong is claiming that the the transmission is a "sealed unit" with "lifetime" fluid that never needs to be changed. This is complete nonsense. (It's only Subaru of America doing this, in other markets fluid changes are specified as regular maintenance.) You'll get more life out of any transmission with regular fluid changes.
What year do you have? Ive heard early ones aren't great, but newer ones are actually well built. I don't think the CVT's are Jatcos, conventional automatics look like they were, but not the CVT's.
