johnceggleston

if you haven't tried this yet, you should; if you have please disregard. put in the FWD fuse ( i don't even remember if it's an a/t) and see if the "grinding" goes away. binding is secondary. grinding is primary. if it always grinds, thewn you probably need a tranny. isolate the grinding first. it has the potential for being more serious. if the grinding goes away with the fuse in, then you look into the binding / clutch pack problem. of course i'm not an expert, just a suby driver.

it would be nice to know just what it takes to replace valve stem seals.

can't be the starter, i swapped a 96 2.2l a/t starter into a 97 2.5l a/t obw. i can see where a manual and auto might be different, but i don't knoww for sure.

is the the flywheel swap is due to the a/t - m/t difference or the 2.2 - 2.5 difference? fi the donor trans matched the outback trans, then the flywheel would be ok.? i'm a little confused. john

sounds a lot like seafoam.

so,... are you a folder or a scruncher???

the virgin switch is the "p" light switch on top of the steering column. it turns on the parking lights. since all the lights go off when you turn off the key, the p switch will let you leave your parking lights on. the problem occurs when a noobie turns it on accidentally, and doesn't know how to turn them off. the "head" is the speedomete head, in affect it's the receiving unit of the speed sensor, or the speedometer it self. it's contained inside the instrument cluster. the cluster is easy to remove, as nipper said. i haven't neede to work on mine but it's easy. few screws for the trim, a few for the cluster , and some snaps .... ?? my guess is you need to clean the electric connections.

should we tell him about the virgin switch now or wait until his lights are on? does the forester even have a virgin switch?

i did mine on sunday. i would recommend starting with the left rear plug (#4) first. the set up i used on the right side (#1, #3) didn't work for me on the left rear, so i had to re-learn the procedure. my old plug wires were not oem and when i remoped the #1 wire, it left the metal connecting insert on the plug. this was quite a challenge to work around. i couldn't reach it with pliers so i needed a longer socket to clear the "extended" plug. asa matter of fact the old wires weren/t even for a subaru. the boot / well covers were rectangular, not teardrop shaped. and #4 wasn't even inserted far enough for the metal connector to reach the plug. no wonder #4 was misfiring. i got a scare when i fired it up after the change. my at temp light started flashing. OH CRPA!! i turned it off and restarted, and all was well. the next time i started the car, the CEL was even off. amazing, everything working just as it should. it did take 2 hours and 3 beers though. and a lot more fun than cutting the grass.

now slow down just a minute. yes the 95 is dual port exhaust, and yes single port exhaust is newer..... but the 96 is single port an non-interference. so not ALL single ports are interference. right? right ? come on somebody say right. john

3/16" is correct, if you use 1/4" you'll regret it.

if the poor gas mileage was just one tank, i would suspect that you didn't fill it up the tank before . in other words it wasn't full when you started measuring your mileage. (there's one place where i fill up that my gas pump will click off when the pressure changes in the pump, like when the guy next to me "clicks off".) b ut if if this is continuing over several tanks, then that's out. the other thing is mpg is an average. i get 25mpg in my 95 2.2L leg. but 2/3's of my driving is hiway. if i go 200 miles at 30 mpg, i have to go 200 miles at 20mpg to average 25 for the tank. but realisticly, i go 200mi (weekly commute, one way) at 30mpg and 100mi at 15mpg to average 25mpg for the tank. this may not be the best round town gas mileage, and maybe should be improved, but the car is over 10 years old, 170k miles. keep us updated. and good luck.

if the odd size tire caused the problem, then there will be a warning in the owners manual. there seem to be 2 questions: 1. did the odd size tire caused the damage? and 2. whose reponsibilty is to know of the potential damage, yours or the tire shop? #1 is going to be a no brainer. #2 i couldn't tell you. but if you persist with the ins. co. you will have a shot, if you give up you will have none. did the tire shop tell you it was an odd size tire? did they tell you that it didn't matter? did they sell you what they had instead of what you needed? do they stock the right size and just put on the wrong one?? the difference between 55% and 65% of 215 is more than 3/4" in radius.that's a big difference. what worries me: was 10 days long enough to cause the problem? good luck. john

that's what i thought. so as far as inspection goes, as long as the computer is happy, it doesn't matter what cat you have. go to the salvage yard.

excellent advice from someone who knows !!!

i sold a 99 obw a/t that not only had a lable on the top of the belhousing with model number, but on the driver side midpoint ther was a label wit hte vin. and while loading and shipping the side lable came off and underneath, the vin was etched in to the housing. i haven't looked for this on any other years.

regardless of the lenght of the warranty, not many places will pay labor to replace a bad part. so it is always a gamble. 1 month just means they garrantee it to work. no DOA. 4 months ... if that is the standard policy they just want to be better than the other guy. if it's a special offer, my guess is it's an enticement to move a trans thats been on the lot a while. seems to me that the longer it sits the cheaper it gets. lots of places will work with you to find one that works if you have a problem. but you need to have some confidence in who you deal with. besides, if they cheat you ... just post it here. we won't buy any more.

i would go around back of the shop and see if you can find your tranny. were they carefull enough to throw it in the dumpster? after you've done that i'd call them on it. one owner, trany number doesn't match, cost was twice the quote, and the tcu. and as said above, dispute the credit card charge. that will give you some time and make them think. what is the model number of the tranny and the model number on the id tag?? you might also check the number on the new tcu. you can trace all of these back to the year and model they came from. you might try calling a dealer and asking about the tranny number.

apparently we have 2 terms, fog and haze. i too have noticed the haze, (haven't seen purple haze for a very long time). the haze is hard to clean, always comes back and does seem to cause fogging (moister on inside of glass) a little quicker. but, if you have a serious moisture problem, like nomad said , make sure the fan is blowing outside air. (the defrost positon does this automatically and engages the a/c.) also check to make sure you don't have water leaking into the car. my cracked rear center light on my wagon let water leak in and the inside fog was terrible. sometimes it would almost rain.

i don't think you can do that. you can get other used ones if you want to save some money. search here: http://car-part.com/

i went to autozone for ngk plugs, they didn't stock them. should i order the m, or is bosch platnum ok?? i had a miss, threw a code for #4 missfire. when i look under the hood 3 of the plug wires were seated well. the "t-grip" on the boot was flush with the top of the valve cover . but on #4 the t-grip was sticking out about , well at least 1/2" if not more. still change to oem wires? i think so. current wires are ngk and look relativly new. 97 obw with 108k miles, i've had it since 97k miles. on a side note, i was a little surprised the computer didn't throw a code a sooner. i could feel the miss and knew i had a problem before the cel came on. i guess they programed in some lag time ??

i don't konw, i haven't done it , but if the tires are off the car i bet you could do all 4 while watching somebody beat anybody in football on a sunday afternoon.

which 2 digits? did you checkthe trans model# before you had the work done? how long have you had the car? how many owners? any tranny work done before? it does sound like a likely senario ... but you would need to be able to showw that the trans in the car matched the id plate before you had them service.

do a search here for o2 sensors or p0420, lots of talk about them. the only area of disagreement seems to be on wether you rplace the front o2 sensor or the rear. in my 97 obw i replaced the rear , and TAADAA, no more CEL no more p0420. i replaced the rear with a used sensor i had on hand, it didn't cost me any thing to try. also check onl;ine prices for replacement parts prices.

from the pictures , it does'nt take much of a groove to make this improvement. would more be better? probably not on the piston head since you want it working as the mixture enters not during the compression stroke? just wondering?