Warning-Power steering pump bracket FAILURE

[shelly]

WARNING TO ALL OWNERS-THE POWER STEERING PUMP BRACKET IS KNOWN TO FAIL- IT CRACKS. My car has been at a dealership repair shop for over two months. Contacted Subaru customer service and told them that my p/s pump bracket was cracked, and that the one that I sourced from a salvage yard was also cracked. Asked them to consider a recall and inspection to all owners. They told me their was nothing they could do. Can only wonder if over the years any SVX owners were hurt when this part failed. Anyone know of someone getting hurt? Having to scrap the car for inability to source the part? THIS SHOULD BE A TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION AT THE 30TH MEETING, IF NOT SOONER, DON'T YOU AGREE?

[LarryIII]

Shelly,

Take the cracked bracket to a good metal mfg. shop in your area and have them make you one in heavy gage steel. Then paint it with hi-temp. exhaust paint yourself and reinstall it. It will cost you, but that's what you have to do when you have an antique car.

[shelly]

larry the real issue is that the bracket in my car cracked and the bracket i just got at the salvage yard is also cracked.
this may well be why subaru stopped making the part. they knew that it was defective.
others on the road should be made aware and get to a dealer and have theirs checked.
who knows if anyone was previously injured. who know who will be.

[Crazy_pilot]

Originally Posted by shelly

this may well be why subaru stopped making the part. they knew that it was defective.

I doubt very much that Subaru engineers had a discussion where they analyzed the lifespan of the bracket and after finding it to be ~30 years said "Oh crap, that's totally unacceptable. Let's quietly discontinue this thing."

There are thousands of us still happily running our original brackets so they aren't self-destructing left right and center. Calling it a defective part based on a handful of failures after multiple decades is a little bit of a stretch. This isn't a conspiracy.