2012 Subaru Outback - worth fixing the CVT?

Dealer indicated CVT transmission is slipping. They need $8K to fix it, car has 155K miles, great shape otherwise. Teenage driver, but shouldn’t need it much the next 3 years due to college - maybe (COVID, failout) Worth the repair? I’m leaning to No. Any fixes to have it limp along? Car will run fine until trans warms up, then gets squirrely

Dunno where you are but they’re going for $8300-11000 in the St. Louis area. I wouldn’t put $8k into one. That will get you another car or serve as a down payment on one. You can get a quote from a reputable independent transmission shop for a used transmission but it won’t be cheap either. Maybe they can suggest something.

At 155kmi you might be at perhaps half the wear out life of the engine and other major items. If you’ve owned yours a while and its service history is up to snuff, it might work out on a cost per mile basis - or something big could happen the week you get it back and you’d be kicking yourself. $8,000 seems like a lot to put at risk, but if you could get a low mileage used transmission with a mechanics warranty installed for half of that, or less, it might be worth considering. In other Subaru forums members believe periodic fluid changes improve CVT life and are recommending 60kmi intervals, sooner for towing, etc.

The very first and the most important question: was the transmission fluid REGULARLY replaced (if ever)?

CVTs are very picky of fluid quality and if it ran fro 155K miles on the original fluid, it had to be replaced at least once or better more often. check the “severe” maintenance schedule and it is something like 30K miles for that.

If you never replaced fluid before, it’s a fair game to try flushing it and hope for the best, as it can give your transmission some extra lifetime.

Other than that, I would not go to the dealer with car that old, I would go to the independent shop and check if transmission swap to the used (but working) transmission is an option - it will likely cut the bill more than in half.

$8k to fix the transmission? What exactly is the “fix”? A brand new, never-been-used transmission coming from the factory in Japan? A rebuilt or remanufactured transmission? Even for new, $8k is high, and is certainly too much to put into this vehicle.

I would suggest to shop around, and get other estimates to repair or replace your transmission. If you can’t get your existing transmission repaired for less than $3k, or replaced with a remanufactured unit–not a junkyard unit–for less than $4k, I’d sell the car “as-is” or trade it in toward something else. I wouldn’t put $8k into any out-of-warranty vehicle, which might then have other costly problems far exceeding its value.

I’d say no way on 8 grand on this car. A remanufactured transmission would be a better better bet depending upon price.
A used trans is always a coin flip but there are JDM units on eBay that are comparatively cheap at roughly a grand and with low miles.
As mentioned, changing the fluid may buy some time. However, I would not want my kid heading off to college for 3 years with an iffy transmission unless college was local.

Too bad your car has 155k miles. Subaru extended the warranty on the CVTs in these to 100k miles so you’re out of luck on that angle.

Get at least two more estimates for a job this large, and get them before the transmission goes completely. They independent garages, especially a transmission shop. Avoid chain transmission shops.

You all rock! Thanks for the advise and feedback. We will give a few options a go and see what turn up as our best option.


I don’t believe anyone is rebuilding CVTs so your only option in new or used if I am correct.

I would call the Subaru Customer Service number listed in yur owners manual. They may offer some help.

A little rant and rave here, I have seen a YouTube video on one of these disassembled and rebuilt. They are dead simple and have exponentially fewer parts than a geared transmission. I cannot see how these outrageous prices can be justified for a rebuilt or even a brand new transmission.

they might, although the best deal I would imagine will be “split 50/50” and it will lend @Dee55 right where the ballpark for the remanufactured unit (installed!) should be… still, worth asking…

Won’t hurt to ask I guess but I would not hold my breath waiting for a positive answer.

A Subaru came in once with a grenaded automatic transmission. The owner bought it new, the car had 30k miles on it and was about 3 months out of warranty. The failure was due to an internal seal leak and there was no fault on the owner’s part. I argued on the phone for 20 minutes with the regional office about taking care of this guy and they would not budge. Out of warranty, end of discussion, and that was the last Subaru that guy would ever buy.

Even if Subaru paid “half” the reality is that the owner will be footing the entire bill. Subaru won’t spend a dime as the customer “half” will cover it all.

I agree with you and @ok4450, but paying $4k is better than paying $8k.

Sure they do. I know at least 2 shops that rebuild them.

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Reach out to Subaru of America.

I don’t know about your generations of Outback but later ones got 10Years/100K miles extended warranties as Subaru claims fluid to be lifetime and known issues with those trannies.

You can get the mechanic to pull CVT out of a junked outback and replace it with that, or check if https://ahparts.com/ have the transmission that you need and the cost so that you have some idea about the costs.

The OP already told us…


Interesting! The common wisdom on this site is that the JATCO CVTs are replaced and not rebuilt. I guess that wisdom isn’t so wise after all.

at some point I entertained rebuilding CVT as a learning project, even found a place to source replacement pulleys and belt…

BTW, if you compare what you see on Subaru CVT and Nissan CVT on these videos, the pulleys design is better on Subaru: they came for multiple splines where Nissan wanted to get away with 3 roller balls, yet they use “real chain” design, which potentially wears faster to compare to Nissan’ “million blades” take… both seem to have some better design features and some questionable ones… it would be interesting to see Honda’s and Toyota’s take from inside…

It probably was at one point because tranny shops didn’t have the knowledge or expertise to work on them. I’ll bet a lot of them still just remove and replace. One shop I know of rebuilds the CVT’s for the local Nissan dealers.


The known issue with those trannies is a defective solenoid in the valve body. The solenoid cannot be replaced by itself so Subaru just replaces the whole valve body. If your transmission is one with the defective solenoid, it will generally fail at around 60k miles, seems like most often at 62k to 63k miles. It has nothing to do with the lifetime ATF.