Encyclopedia of engines: Subaru Boxer Diesel 2.0 D (diesel)

The first and last diesel developed by Subaru was, in a sense, created under duress, because only for the European market, when buyers directly demanded something more economical. The Japanese, however, did not want to abandon the boxer concept, since only one fits their traditional symmetrical transmission, so they did not use the services of third parties. This is how a motorcycle full of extreme sports was created.

On the one hand, it has ideal parameters, because it produces at a power of 2 liters. 147-150 HP at 3200 or 3600 rpm and 350 Nm at 1600 or 1800 rpm. So it's a classic low-revving engine that releases a lot of power at the lowest revs. The push-and-pull system made it work with an extraordinary crop without balance shafts.

On the other hand, the above caused problems shortly after purchase. Users often went to the service center with a damaged mass flywheel.. The combination of high torque with highly efficient all-wheel drive and a driving technique carried over from previously only petrol units was bound to end badly. Officially, Subaru changed the software of the engines, slightly shifting the maximum torque up in revs, so later units had slightly different characteristics.

Unfortunately, these are not all problems. With a course of about 150-200 thousand. km more and more jumped out a lot serious malfunctions of the crank system - mainly the rotation of the bushings or the appearance of axial play on the shaft, or even its fracture. True, the number of such cases is not particularly high, because there are relatively few cars with this engine compared to more popular diesels such as HDI or TDI, but since this has happened to more than one or two users, it may be a symptom of a disease of this node.

It's hard to say why, perhaps also because of the high torque at low revs, which Subaru engineers couldn't really cope with. Perhaps it's an oil service issue. However, since not all engines had such breakdowns, there are also units on the market with a mileage of 300 km. km without repair, which means that certain operations and maintenance can prevent these phenomena.

In addition, the Subaru unit does not give rise to other problems than those typical of Common Rail diesels. They are rare, which should not be surprising, because in 2008-2018, accessories sub-suppliers have already mastered the CR technique. Sometimes you have to interfere with the operation of the DPF, it becomes necessary to replace the timing chains (there are two of them), but this is nothing more than an average.

Advantages of the 2.0 Boxer Diesel engine: