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1999 Legacy outback transmission problem


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Hi all! My 1999 Legacy Outback has developed a disturbing problem. Sometimes when I put it in drive, it just sits there as if in neutral. Reverse works, but and of the forwad gears just at like neutral. If I rev the engine up a bit it will usually start to creep forward, or just clunk into gear. I had the transmission svericed, fluid change and both filters. This solved it for a while, but it is back ,like a bad habit. Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

Nickatnite

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I think the problem may be caused by a sticky valve. I don't think it will hurt anything but I would let it gently engage rather than rev the engine and make it jerk.

 

Here is a link to a site that you may want to try their transmission additive to see if that will solve the problem. They have a good product I think but I have not tried any as of yet.

 

http://auto-rx.net/

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Hi all! My 1999 Legacy Outback has developed a disturbing problem. Sometimes when I put it in drive, it just sits there as if in neutral. Reverse works, but and of the forwad gears just at like neutral. If I rev the engine up a bit it will usually start to creep forward, or just clunk into gear. I had the transmission svericed, fluid change and both filters. This solved it for a while, but it is back ,like a bad habit. Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

Nickatnite

 

I changed the fluid twice and the external filter once. That corrected this problem on my '99 Legacy GT. I'm not a technician, but my theory is that fresh ATF is highly "detergent" and by changing the fluid twice (about 150 miles between changes), it either dislodged some varnish or swelled up a shrunken seal. Whatever the case, it's been 8000 miles and 10 months since I did this, and the transmission still goes into gear promptly when the shifter is moved to "D"

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A have a 2000 legacy and use it hard, so I am worried about the above mentioned problem.

However, I always suspected that people reporting these problems did not change ATF every 30000 (15000 severe service) as recommended. I personally am a believer in the 15000/30000 intervals, synthetic oils and transmission coolers. So far so good.

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All,

Thanks for the input, however . . . the tranny absolutely refused to work in any forward gears, so I got it to a transmission shop. The torque converter had gone out and took a bunch of other stuff with it. It is being rebuilt. They said it was very unusual to even see a Subaru in the shop with transmission problems - at the most they get one to two per year. A good tribute to the way Subarus are built. Unfortunately, ours was one of them. I bought the car used and attribute the failure to the first owner not servicing the transmission. I will be taking care of it!

 

Nick

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