1999 Forester Transmission

[tupelohoney]

Howdy,

I'm new to this forum, so first of all, hello! I thought perhaps that with the knowledge of more experienced Subaru owners, I might be able to get some insight into the mystery noise my automatic 1999 Forester S makes when the gears shift, particularly into 2nd gear. The sound is a loud click, and the car lurches quite a bit too. Also, once when my subie was raised in the air at my local mechanic's, and one mechanic was inside accelerating, while another mechanic and I watched underneath, we saw that there was quite a bit of movement of the parts under the car when the gears shifted. We were appalled, so I got other mechanics to check it out. Both the dealership and transmission shops swear that there's nothing wrong, and that some movement is normal for subarus. I thought that maybe the dealership was waiting for my extended warranty to expire before they "discovered" the problem, but transmission shops say everything's normal too. As far as the noise, noone's been able to duplicate it. Of course, noone has ever taken the transmission apart, if that makes a difference in the diagnosis. So it's been a frustrating experience. Does anyone know if this is indeed normal forester behavior? Thanks so much!