[noori7]

@orgwizard from what I remember the transmission fluid was never changed. Aside from the regular oil changes, I have never gotten the transmission fluid changed.

 

[noori7]

is yours the turbo or NA?

yeah, if that's not the normal color of one of the two fluids, then I imagine someone may have changed it at some point...

('14-'18) - Subaru CVT Fluid Questions

I have three questions related to Subaru’s CVT fluid: 1.) What makes the Subaru orange High-Torque CVT fluid unique other than the color? In other words, what are the physical/chemical properties of HT-CVT fluid that make it suitable to the High-torque CVTs? Additive package? Friction...

www.subaruforester.org

there are plenty of stories on this site about people accidentally draining teir CVT, usually someone DIY or at those roadside oil change shops.
wonder if that happened, and someone just put in the wrong/whatever they had trans fluid?

definitely not a turbo. i guess then that is what happened when I got my oil changed. does the issue take a few months to show up? Because last oil change was around July and this issue came up in September.

 

[noori7]

yeah, that I don't know, so maybe someone smarter than me will have some thoughts.
I know subaru seems pretty particular about the process for changing it, so it could be anything from the wrong type of oil to the way they refilled it. to me it doesn't seem unreasonable that so long as it had some oil in it, if they didn't do the refill correctly or just used some incorrect oil, that it could go for a while before starting to show issues.
not sure if/how hard it would be to prove the last place you took it too did it, unless they were nice enough to have put that on your receipt.

Thanks for your response. Do you know if I should try to get this issue fixed or write off the car?