By the time I can bring my Subaru into the shop to replace a set of recalled valve springs, the 2020 presidential election will be over.

Subaru of America issued a recall affecting the 2012-2014 Impreza and the 2013 BRZ and XV Crosstrek last December.

"The valve springs located inside the engine of your vehicle may fracture, which may cause an abnormal noise or engine malfunction," read the letter sent to owners of affected cars nationwide. "This may result in the engine stalling during driving and you may be unable to restart your vehicle. An engine stall while driving could increase the risk of a crash."

The letter urged drivers to contact their Subaru dealer immediately to have the valve springs replaced with more durable ones.

So I did. I scheduled the next available appointment with Burlington Subaru to get the defect fixed: Nov. 30, 2020.

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There are 818 affected vehicles in Burlington Subaru's area of responsibility, said Bill Hunter, the service director at the Shelburne Road shop.

Subaru cars are common sights on Vermont roads. They're often hailed as the "unofficial car of Vermont." Their champion racing team just moved its headquarters to Milton after two decades of being based in Colchester. There are more than 60,000 Subaru registrations in the state, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Each fix could take between 7 and 13 hours to complete, said Hunter. But they have yet to start making the repairs.

"We’re still waiting on training which won’t be available to us until February 12th and, due to a limited supply of special tools needed to perform this recall, we only have the ability to perform one of these recalls per day," Hunter wrote in an email.

"We’re hoping we can get additional tools in the future so we can perform more than one a day," he added.

Subaru of America is "actively working on getting the tools out there," said Dominick Infante, the car company's director of communications.

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According to the safety report filed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there are potentially 165,534 cars affected.

Infante estimated the number is closer to 140,000. But, he said, the valve springs actually failing is a very rare occurrence.

When they issued the recall in December, they had only 11 reports of the springs actually failing.

"We do feel that it’s a very low incident rate," he said.

Meanwhile, Hunter predicted his shop will be inundated with recall repairs over the next few years, as Subaru has several other recalls in the pipeline.

Contact Jess Aloe at 802-660-1874 or jaloe@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @jess_aloe