adamthegreek

Officially in 2002. Without going into details the car has had both headgaskets replaced (the drivers twice) along with the 2 drivers side pistons replaced. SOA won't replace the engine (they could have saved money if they did that initally) and I can't lemmon the car.

Just a thought, I had a similar problem on my 03 legacy. Smell in cabin especally in traffic. Under warrenty on 4 seperate trips to the dealer both front axles (one twice) and the transmission seals were replaced. This did not cure the smell. The end result was the hg was leaking on the drivers side and dripping onto the exhaust. the smell was hard to diaginose partially because I am not the daily driver of the car.

I worked at one of those quick lube places back in my high school days. Its scary what happens to peoples cars. They do provide training but it is very minimal. All you can hope is that the person working there has some car knowledge. The other scary thing is the cars the customers bring in. All the time cars would come in and less then 2 quarts of oil would come out when you pulled the plug or the oil had not been changed in a year! I agree, stay away from those places but if you need to use a place like that pick a seat or stand outside so you can watch what is going on. Look under the car and make sure what they are draining is black in color(not red) make sure they put oil in before starting the car, insist on seeing the old filter, and insist on checking the oil level yourself before you leave. Subarus and Saturns were somewhat common for having the transmissions drained instead of the oil because the AT has a drain plug and spin on filter so for some its hard to tell the difference

I have done a lot of reading on this. First, 03 with 50k miles and horrible piston slap. Tensioner has already been replaced. Dealer/SOA has agreed to replace 2 of the pistons. I am trying to get them to change all 4 to balance the motor. Should I have this done? My concern is that major work like this will lead to problems down the road after the warranty is up. I tend to keep my cars for a long time. I can’t stand the noise. I also don’t think I could get rid of the car as is because of the noise.

I have a hidden hitch on my 03 legacy. Is was easy to install. Check out E Trailer.com. They had the tail light converter also. Only thing I found out after a few hours of looking is that the legacy does not have the trailer connector in the back like the Outback does. However it does have an open fuse in the fuse block and it was easy to connect up.

I had the hg replaced on my 03 at 50k under the power train warrenty. The power train is a 5yr 60k warrenty. I had a hard time convincing the dealer that is was the hg. They replaced the drive axles and seals first. Took me 8 trips to the dealer but now no smell!

Yup, I tried to push the issue before the HG work but they said it was fine and now they have to go into the engine again. The leaking HG was on the drivers side too. As long as SOA keeps paying the Enterprise rental bill......

I have run the K&Ns in my last few vehicles and motor cycle. For me its a cost savings, don't know about the HP. I never had a problem with a MAF.

Update: well I stood my ground and so far it is working. I had the head gasket replaced under warranty. There is still a faint smell but that may be from residue when the work was done. (I hope) I called SOA and they paid half of the work to replace the rear control arms. (This was a separate problem, needed a four wheel alignment but the adjusters were frozen.) They won’t extend the head gasket warranty for the other side even if I put in the conditioner because my vin is not part of the campaign. At least I have everything documented with them should the other side fail. I brought it back to the dealership so the service manager could listen to it and sure enough the diagnosis is piston slap. It goes in next month to have the pistons replaced. Hopefully this will be the end. For those that had the pistons replaced any long term implications?

Its the 5yr 60k warranty. I am trying to get them to cover it to 100k but they say that the vin does not qualify. At the very least I want them to cover the other side beyond 60K

It just turned 50k but my wife has had to deal with the smell for about 10k now.

Well this is my first Subaru and it has been a rough road. After 6 months of the dealer replacing differential seals and front axles (under warranty) on my 03 Legacy because they were leaking onto the exhaust I finally received the bad news. The head gasket is indeed leaking. I have read a lot of posts on the issue but it looks like a lot of the problems went away after 02. Has anyone been able to get Subaru to extend the warranty on the 03 models for the head gasket after a failure? I opened a ticket with SOA. I would like them to address the piston slap issue when they change the HG. A previous dealer already replaced the timing belt tensioner but that did little to quite the noise. I saw that a few people had luck with this. Any advice?

I have had my first Subaru about 8 months now, 03 Legacy GT. We had a burning smell that dealer diagnosed as a leaking CV Boot on the driver side and replaced under warranty at 38k miles, no problem. Well at 43k miles the smell is back and while changing the oil over the weekend I noticed the passenger side axle boot is leaking. I did some searching but have others experienced premature failure of their axles. In addition to this I have had to have the timing belt tensioner replaced and I currently have oil in the passenger side spark plug wells that I need to have looked at. Given that I have under 50k I was thinking of unloading the car before more problems set in. Have others had these types of problems at such a low mileage?

We are trying to buy a small boat. Did some searches and it seems a lot of people tow with their Outbacks but what about the legacy? I believe they have a different suspension. We have an 03 Legacy GT Sedan with a Draw Tight hitch. It tows a utility trailer fine but how will it handle a boat. Its rated at 2000 lbs and the boat we are looking at is a 15.5 foot with a 70 hp motor. A total weight of about 1300 lbs with the trailer. Anyone pull anything like this some distance with a sedan?

I'm in the process of putting a trailer hitch on my 03 Legacy GT sedan and I can't find the plug. Anyone have any luck finding the trailer connector on a sedan? According to the wiring diagram it should be on the left side but i can't find it.