— A Subaru fuel pump lawsuit alleges a recall of 188,000 vehicles didn't include all the vehicles affected by Denso fuel pumps that can fail and cause the engines to stall.
According to the class action lawsuit, Subaru should reimburse customers the purchase prices of all models equipped with the low-pressure fuel pumps, including pumps with the part number prefix 42022.
Subaru recalled its 2019 Subaru Impreza, Outback, Legacy and Ascent vehicles in April to replace fuel pumps with impellers that can absorb fuel and cause damage to the pumps. But the Subaru fuel pump lawsuit alleges the automaker failed to recall all the vehicles equipped with the defective low-pressure pumps.
According to the Subaru owner who filed the class action, defective fuel pumps have existed in vehicles since at least 2013 and continues to the present.
Owners and lessees alleged paid for vehicles that aren't worth what they should be because of fuel pump problems, and customers allegedly have faced out-of-pocket expenses to repair or replace the pumps.
The Subaru vehicles use low-pressure fuel pumps in the tanks and high-pressure pumps in-line. The low-pressure fuel pump sends fuel from the fuel tank to the engine by pushing fuel to the fuel injection system. The impeller is a plastic disk that rotates and draws in fuel and impels it up through the pump.
According to the fuel pump recall, if "the lower density impeller is exposed to solvent drying for longer periods of time, it may develop fine cracks. Those cracks may lead to excessive fuel absorption, resulting in impeller deformation."
Although the Subaru fuel pump recall included 2019 models, no earlier or later model years were part of the recall. The class action says many customers are driving vehicles that should have been recalled because they are equipped with the same defective Denso pumps.
The fuel pump lawsuit alleges Denso admitted in 2016 that the pumps had plastic impellers that “may be swelled due to the fuel and water contained in the fuel, [and] therefore a rotation of the impeller may be stopped when the impeller is swelled and comes in contact with the [fuel pump] housing.”
The Subaru fuel pump lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey: Adnan, et al., v. Subaru Corporation, et al.
The plaintiff is represented by Seeger Weiss LLP.
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