First visit - dealership says no problem - that's how it works .

Second visit - it's definitely hotter on the passenger side - but it's intermittent - they find a blend door gear mangled inside.

Replaced the blend door - said it's fixed.

Now on the third visit - same problem and they are replacing the airbox - it's the entire assembly for the blower motor. Sounds like they're throwing parts in the hope of fixing it. It's also a 10 hour job to replace the entire assembly for the blower motor.

 

Sounds like they have no way or intention to try and troubleshoot the root cause, so just replacing the entire assembly...bummer. I am sure they basically have to pull the entire dash/console to replace the airbox...that would be a long, ugly job for sure.

My former '06 Legacy had a clogged heater core due to a bad batch of coolant from the factory and they had to pull almost the entire front interior out to gain access to the heater core (i.e.- seats, steering column, console, dash, etc). I remember looking through the shop manual on the procedure and stopped after 10 pages...yikes! One thing I did find funny on the Subie process for reassembly was in regards to the plastic snap locks for the main dash pad. They are ball and socket style snap locks and the manual notes to cut a 25x25mm piece of 10# cloth, place it over the ball, then insert the ball into the socket(?!?). I am guessing the socket opens up a bit during disassembly and the cloth makes up the slack in the joint when reassembled. Creative solution/instruction for sure!

 

A nightmare. I have not encountered almost such a problem. True, there was a case when I lost the key and had to call locksmiths. I'm sorry for you, I hope you've solved your problem. After the problem with the keys, they did something with the doors and I also went to them again. After the repair I was angry the problem with the doors came back and my colleague at work advised the service https://www.ezlocksmiths.com it is better than that one and they solved my problem. I hope this helps. I hate that it is difficult to find good specialists.

 

It got fixed - they had the car for about a week. Replaced the entire assembly in the center of the car behind the radio - it looked brutal. Wish I could upload the pics up here. Good news is the work was done well and no rattles and squeeks.