Lafayette Subaru Temporarily Cuts Back Production, Overtime

Subaru is cutting back on production and overtime at its Indiana plant to free up parts for a big recall. The car-maker has to fix a steering problem in more than 50,000 new Legacies and Outbacks made in Lafayette.

Subaru has more than 4,000 workers in Lafayette, its only factory in North America. Thanks to this recall, as many as 3,000 of them may miss out on daily and Saturday overtime for the next few weeks.

Factory VP Tom Easterday says that’ll free up parts to repair steering issues in 2016 and 2017 Legacies and Outbacks — ones made at the plant between February 28 and May 6.

“So any parts that were scheduled to be used for the overtime production, those parts will now be shipped directly to the dealer to help out with our customers that would need to have the part changed,” Easterday says.

That means less production and lower inventory until mid-June, which could affect sales. But he hopes they’ll make it up — and let workers make up the overtime — later this year.

That’s when the factory plans to add more Outbacks and new Imprezas to its production lines.

Easterday says they’ve hired a thousand new workers to make those vehicles, with 200 more set to be hired in June. He doesn’t expect the recall to slow that process.