Subaru Recalls 2023 Solterra EV over Wheels, Says Don’t Drive until Fixed

• Subaru has announced a recall for 1182 units of its 2023 Solterra SUV over the same darn wheel hub bolt issue that plagued the company’s first all-electric vehicle last year.
• Subaru and Toyota developed the Solterra and the Toyota version of the EV, called the bZ4x, together. Only Solterras are affected this time around because the problems were caused by contractor teams who only worked on the Subaru models.
• If you have an affected Solterra, Subaru said you should not drive it. Instead, call your local Subaru dealer to have it towed and repaired at no cost to the owner.

Subaru has issued a recall for more than 1000 model year 2023 Solterra SUVs over a hub bolt issue that the automaker supposedly fixed last year. The all-electric SUVs were repaired—sorry, were supposed to have been repaired—alongside hundreds of Toyota bZ4X EVs. Toyota and Subaru developed these vehicles together, which ended up visually different and mechanically similar.

Before too many bZ4X EVs were sold (258, to be exact), Toyota issued a recall over the possibility that the wheels could fall off. Subaru did the same for the Solterra, but at that time, none had been delivered to customers.

The two automakers developed a repair remedy that involved updating the wheels and replacing the hub bolts with a new hub-bolt-with-washer design.That’s usually the end of the story as far as recalls go. But late last week, Subaru announced that the repair work on some of the Solterras hadn’t been completed correctly.

Subaru said it knows the affected vehicles came through one of two port locations and that the teams the company contracted to do the work “did not properly complete the repair procedure resulting in the potential for significantly undertorqued bolts.”

Subaru didn’t say how many vehicles were worked on by the specific teams, but “out of an abundance of caution, Subaru is recalling all vehicles repaired at all port locations supported by the third-party contractor.” That means that a total of 1182 Solterras are being recalled.

Subaru said that Solterra vehicles without the original hub bolt concern and vehicles repaired at other facilities are not affected. For the record, through the end of January, Solterra had sold a total of 1418 Solterras.

The fix, as it was before, sounds easy enough. First off, Subaru said no one should drive an affected Solterra because, again, there’s a chance the wheels could come loose or fall off. Instead, Solterra owners should call their local dealer to have it towed in and inspected and, if necessary, to have the hub bolts retorqued to the correct specification. The towing and repair costs will not be the responsibility of the customer.

Owners can look up their Solterra’s VIN to see if it is included in the recall by visiting the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recalls website or by calling the Vehicle Safety Hotline at 888–327–4236.

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