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Wagons Subaru Crew Subaru Crew Problems & Solutions
18624 messages, Last post on Mar 09, 2010 at 7:34 AM
You are in the Subaru Crew Forum. Your Host is kcram
Your Community Leaders are ateixeira and rsholland.
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Replying to: robotb9 (Jun 16, 2009 2:43 pm)
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Replying to: phil2000 (Jun 17, 2009 11:40 am) You, like my older brother, drive the heck out of these things. He brings his all the way from St.Louis area to Baton Rouge area for me to pull service on a pm basis. He is currently dropping 5K a month on an 03. It is overdue for for second timing belt change and a lot of major pm. Sounds simple.....not. Class one coming. I have been watching for years since the first timing belt units came out trying to beat the auto industry at their game in making older cars self destruct if you forget to maintain something. I think you have already learned that ordeal. One past time is shopping for parts at a junk yard or deciding more recently what new car to buy, Lots of forensic info out there. I look at odometers of so many knowing the average person only does gas and maybe oil. 100K is nothing. 150k is still a piece of junk off the showroom floor. Subaru's though have always caught my attention. 170K to 200K and in the yard they go. They can be very hard to determine why they are even in the yard. I think most people just say, "its time for a new one." Wrong. There is a lot of life left in these things, if you do not mind paying the penalty at the pump. So the battle continues with OEM looking for ways to junk them out quicker while I look for ways to keep them longer. Class lesson two: This was a hard learned one!!!! Experience has taught me the best way to handle a timing belt unit is crank, cam and belt at first belt change. 2nd belt change is fun. Everything that has to do with that belt hits the trash. Belt, seals, idlers, tensioners and water pump. Any one of these as I think you have noticed fails, and you have bought at least a valve job for a headache. No leaks aloud in that area! Use a good quality belt. In fact it never pays to use cheap parts At that point, you might as well service the rest of the cooling system with new hoses and thermostat. You are in there spend a little more time for reliabilty. Oh, you may have already noticed, wheel bearings are pretty dry at this point. If you burn one of them up, you also have to replace the housing assembly. Working on a way right now not to have to pull those bearings out after 200K. Will be testing it out next half shaft change. Use only synthetic grease in those bearings. You definitely have discovered one of the best kept secrets in auto repair. Use that cruise control and limit jack rabbit starts. Keep top speed down. 60-65 makes that engine last even longer especially with a 5 speed manual. I am starting to see a few 6 speeds coming out on the market now. The lower you keep that engine rpm, the longer it lasts. Run it like a diesel keeping under 2000 rpms and 300K miles is easy to achieve! Exactly why auto makers do not want to put in six speeds. I have found 1.5 to 1.6 liter with a 5 speed tranny or better to give the best overall mpg using as much coasting I can get away with. That puts quit a punch into mpg towards the thought of a hybrid. Another good secrete is a dealer who will work with you on inside info. Since my units are higher mileage than the dealer I deal with, deals with, I pass service info back to him for his customers. One bit of such info is most likely part of your oil leak. When I bought a new crank gallery cover, which is a failure item on the original plastic ones. I wanted a new "O" ring for the other oil gallery cover. he told me, never had one fail. I told him that "O" is not worth my time to go back after if it does. He told me it is $5. I told him no problem, I want one. A week later, while waiting for parts to come in, I told him it was a good call. After cleaning the back of the engine, both that "O" ring and that gallery cover had small leaks. The rear main seal was dry as a bone. Always change that seal when you are back there! reason is, with a mineral based oil, seals dry out then they begin to cut a ridge in the shaft making a worse leakage problem when you do repair a leak. Yup, they make those redi-sleeves, but they do not last long. Take your vin to a dealer and check the rear of the engine to see if you have those covers back there. If so, I will lay big odds those are your leaks! Every one I have seen so far has done it! Oh, I had to find and use a hand held impact driver to remove the screws. As for cleaning, I use a warm engine with a bit of engine cleaner, brush and hose off with a garden hose. Try to avoid electronics. This has worked okay with the 94, 97 and a little bit has been done to the 03. proceed with caution on your 00 since I have not done much cleaning on the 03 here. I hesitate on steam cleaning for two reasons. Steam rises, sometimes into electrical parts you wish you never saw the price tag on. Hence why I say a warm, but not hot engine. Second, most steam cleaners operate at too high of a pressure causing impact damage to sensitive parts. The 97 is a Brighton wagon weighing at a truck scale at 3000lbs. It has been pulling according to my brother about 28 mpg usual to a rare best 32 mpg. I suspect the Forester to pushing better than 3500lbs. So you are doing well given the mileage and weight, but if you are like me, you are looking for a way to draw out another mpg out of it. One thought about the miss. Looking at a few junk car units in the past, I found a high voltage crack on the back side of the coil facing towards the intake manifold on a couple of 100+K units. Might pay to pull off the coil and look for flash markings and any small cracks in the case. Be nice to nail that misfire problem with that thought. Those parts are pricey, so try to get one from O'Reilly's with a lifetime warranty. Keep the receipt in a file. Class over....chuckle. Nice to have a student. Am curious if you have had any trouble with half shaft play on the inboard CV joints fitting on the output shaft coming out of the transaxle. If so, what was the remedy? We are slowly testing the current solution to see how it holds up.
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Replying to: girlcarbuilder (Jun 17, 2009 6:17 pm) You are right about replacing parts. Some item when they fail take other things with them and it can be costly. I need to replace boots and the like over the next year before they fail. I am on my second clutch/transmission (original could not go into reverse or stay in 5th - 180,000 mi. I had a inner CV boot fail on the roadside. Went to put in a half shaft by taking out the pinch bolt for the ball joint. It broke right off. A dealer suggested that method. But the one that I normally work with said that was the wrong path. They detach the strut and do a wheel alignment afterwards. I had to get a junk knuckle. And I have not noticed any play. What is "crank gallery cover"? I am not going to steam clean. It is to problematic. Also, I am happy with the mpg. It is better than some new vehicles get off the lot. If I had a second vehicle, I could spend more time on repair and doing PM's on the Forester. I keep my cars until they are beyond my ability to repair or our family out grows them. I had a1985 Chrysler Laser the had 196,000 miles before it threw a rod and was getting 24+ mpg. I overhauled that engine at 176,000. I also had a 1992 Nissan Sentra. I donated it to charity before I bought the Forester. It had 229,000 miles and no engine work getting 30+ mpg. |
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Replying to: girlcarbuilder (Jun 17, 2009 4:30 pm) Sorry, I thought this would be a good place to ask a question about Subaru transmissions. I'll try one of the Tribeca forums.
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Replying to: robotb9 (Jun 18, 2009 5:40 am) Good mechanics never assume anything when it comes to cars, but we can nail something many a time talking shop with another one. |
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Replying to: phil2000 (Jun 17, 2009 8:56 pm) Yup, another way for the dealer to make money. Do an unnecessary wheel alignment. Then again, these Yankee cars are a real pain to break either end of the ball joint loose. I think it is called rust! Even me dropping the lower control arm with the entire knuckle assembly and carefully beating that ball joint out proved to not be easy. Once that was separated, I used a 20 ton press to try to press the stud out of the lower control arm. That was not a lady like day for me. Even the 20 ton press had a bad time with that thing. Touch those bolts at the top of the strut and you are right. Alignment time. Does not matter though if it needs one. Shame to hear about the Chrysler. One of the reason I left American cars. Do a repair and it still comes apart. Some of them are really Mitshibishi. That 92 Nissan I would have drove until it blew up! No telling how far it would have gone. Every mile it went was free! Charity tends to junk those high mileage cars out for $200 because they can not get much for them. They worth more than that riding down the road for us! Just like the 86 Toyota Tercel and 89 Mazda 323. Sure beats car notes! 35+ mpg is nice also. Do keep oil leakage clean up to a degree. Otherwise if you have an engine compartment fire, that oil will make it harder to put out and easier for it to catch in the first place. Curiosity, does the a/c still work. The 03 died over a year ago.
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Replying to: girlcarbuilder (Jun 17, 2009 6:17 pm) "Experience has taught me the best way to handle a timing belt unit is crank, cam and belt at first belt change. 2nd belt change is fun. Everything that has to do with that belt hits the trash. Belt, seals, idlers, tensioners and water pump. Any one of these as I think you have noticed fails, and you have bought at least a valve job for a headache. No leaks aloud in that area! Use a good quality belt. In fact it never pays to use cheap parts." I'm fairly experienced w/ auto repair/maint. issues but I'm not following what you are saying you do at the first timing belt change. "crank, cam, and belt..."? What exactly are you replacing here: the crank? the cam? It's not clear to me what you're trying to say and it's very puzzling because all the rest makes perfect sense. I always change belt, seals, idlers, tensioners & WP on every TB change... what am I not understanding about your description of the first TB change?
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Replying to: girlcarbuilder (Jun 18, 2009 11:21 am) The Laser had problems just before the warranty ran out. Some day you will have to let me tell you the story. And it is long. The Sentra I was driving while I fixed the Laser and would alternate driving either one. When the Laser died, I needed a utility vehicle. Also, I got tired of having my daughter crawl out of the back of a two door. Plus, paying insurance on three cars (my 2 and my wife's 1). The charity I donated to was a church that gave the car to a parishioners. They drove it for awhile, then I heard something happen to it MVA. Is my ignition coil the square block on top of the intake manifold and with the spark wires coming out of it? Thanks
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On the drivers side of the my 2008 Tribeca is a 6" wide and 10" long clear plastic sheet. This sheet protects the bottom rear of the door from rock chips. A few months ago the car got side swiped on the passenger side. Both doors had to be replaced and the whole side repainted. Today, as I was going around with the touch-up paint to cover the rock chips. I noticed on the repaired right rear door that there wasn't any clear plastic protector. After touching up about 5 paint chips I called the dealer. They said no parts list for the clear plastic protector. They were going to check further. My question is: Do other 2008 Tribeca's have a clear plastic rock protector on the right rear door?
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Replying to: fendertweed (Jun 18, 2009 1:24 pm) I would agree with your methodology on a total city car. Then again, what works to prevent down time is what it is all about. Not to mention, different makes like to cause different headaches at times. Glad to see someone else agreeing that cutting corners on these cars is asking for big trouble.
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