Toronto, Ontario — Subaru specialists beware, a recall has been launched in the U.S. to replace the headlights in nearly 190,000 Subaru Impreza vehicles, from the model years of 2016 to 2019, due to poor performance.
This recall follows years of investigating on the part of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), who first started looking into the Japanese automaker’s headlights in the summer of 2019, where it was found that the compact Impreza’s left front halogen assembly was underperforming, failing to properly light the road and posing a potential glare for oncoming motorists.
Subaru attempted to fix the problem by replacing mold inserts for left-hand low beam reflectors, but the NHTSA found those parts to also be defective.
The safety recall report at the time said “ During the manufacturing process, a side reflex reflector part was caught in the mold resulting in damage to the mold. Some side reflex reflectors produced after mold damage may have diminished reflective performance. At a later date, the mold used in production of the halogen low beam headlamp reflector was worn to a point where production parts may no longer meet certain data point performance requirements.”
It has since come out that Subaru attempted to put forth a Petition of Decision of Inconsequential Noncompliance to the NHTSA—a tactic recently employed by GMC to try and get out of a similar recall concerning the Terrain’s headlights.
The goal of such a petition is essentially to deem a defect not severe enough to warrant a recall, and in this case, it appears the NHTSA senses some severity.
No recall has been issued in Canada yet, however, technicians would be wise to keep an eye on how the headlights are performing on the next Impreza that rolls into the shop.
