I was at the dealer for an unrelated issue and mentioned it to the service writer. He claimed he’d never heard of that happening before, which I highly doubt. I replied that I have the 100k warranty and was still covered however his witty reply was that if a warranty claim was made, it wouldn’t be covered because it’s a wear and tear item, like a lightbulb or brake pads.
So I have the tears and now I’m going to try some cheap tape for this from Amazon. I don’t expect much but it’s better looking than the tears, which came about from just normal entry and exit from the car.
This started showing up on the forum, IIRC, starting with Gen 5 cars and I see that perhaps the same suspect vinyl is used for the Gen 6 but I don’t know.
In the end I’ll either pay an upholstery shop to put on an OEM replacement or fork over the big bucks for the Katzskin covers. All leather and we won’t have this problem again.
My sense is that Subaru knows too well that this a problem and is pushing it off as wear and tear that isn’t covered by any warranty. It really leaves a sour taste in my mouth with my suspicion that this concern didn’t catch Subie by surprise.
