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Your going to have to replace the axle anyway. Changing the boot sucks man. You have to repack the grease and it's extremely messy and fairly time consuming. It only takes about a half hour to an hour to replace the axle. I'd replace the shaft.

If you can find one with the same gearing.

Go to autozone and they'll read the codes for you, usually for free. That will give you an idea as to what is going wrong.

I too have experienced none of these issues. I had a '95 2.2 impreza and put 60k on it in 2 years. Oil changes, CVs, clutch and exhaust. It ran great even when I traded it in with 151k on it. Not one problem.

careful with the intake. It might ruin your MAF, depending on what you get. Cobb makes a nice one. I went with a K&N filter only. Exhaust is a good idea, like a borla or a stromung cat back. Check out cobbtuning.com for some ideas. also rs25.com rallitek.com congratulations and enjoy!

"i bought it in NJ where they get a lot of snow" HAHA sorry nipper, couldn't resist.

Not sure exactly, but it's somewhere behind the glove box. I'm pretty sure the manual has some sort of explanation.

piston slap

Sounds like a clutch to me. Does it happen in every gear?

Axles are no biggie at all. Chances are the bearings are good. They're sealed pretty well. Even if you had a shop do it I can't imagine it would be anymore than $300 but it's a pretty easy do it yourself job.

No way I'd pay $3900 for that. Good condition or not it's got 240K on it and it's 11 years old. Keep looking man.

My '04 impreza ts has it. It has about 35,000 on it and it didn't really start until about 25-30 thousand. Mostly when it's below freezing outside. What ever though, when it's warn it goes like a bastard, so I don't care.

I've seen napa filters fail too. Just like anything else, if you get a bad one then it sucks. I always let my car run about 10 min before I drive after an oil change and check the levels again. I got one a month ago from Fram and I put it on. A quart of synthetic all over the floor. Came from the filter. Upon further inspection, the old gasket was stuck on the block when I put the new filter on. The gaskets doubled up and didn't seal properly. Over the course of 8 years (since I was 16) I've been doing my oil changes and never had that happen before. It's already happened twice with this car. Now I always inspect the threads before I put the new filter on.

My 95 impreza used to do the same thing. Nothing bad ever came of it, just annoying as all hell. Only did it when it was very cold out though. Lasted for about 5 min. Louder when you accelerate.

compare the old shaft to the new and make sure they are the same size. I got one that was a different size before because the parts store had 2 different numbers for my car(95 obw sport). After I inspected them both, the new one was visibly smaller. I just grabbed one (should've grabbed both and returned one) and it didn't fit. They should just slide right on.

It's probably due to aggressive driving and cornering. Same thing happened to me with all my cars when I was younger. Alignment can't hurt either but you would feel a vibration at highway speed if it was that far out.

If it's a cable clutch, which I think it is, you can possibly adjust it to get a little more out of it. You can find the adjustment nuts on th ebackside of the intake manifold. If you back the nut off a couple of turns you should notice a difference in where the friction point of the clutch is in relation to the pedal. Hope that helps

It shouldn't be a problem with a manual. It's the autos that have the problems

To really assess the situation you'll have to remove the wheel and caliper. On my '95 ob the mechanic who did the last brake job, before I bought it, didn't grease the contact points on the little bracket that holds the pads. I had one side of the pad that had little to no wear whatsoever and the other side was down to the metal. Ended up warping the rotors. I replaced the pads and rotors, applied the proper amount of grease in the correct areas and never had a problem again. Traded it in just a few months back. So, I'd recommend removing the wheels and swinging the caliper out of the way. It's probably just dust though if it's only been 6 months.

Isn't this reason we all own subarus in the first place? Sideways is better!

In my '95 there was a roll pin to hold the shaft/CV assembly to the trans axle shaft. So he should've noticed when trying to thread the axle nut on if the length was wrong. Unless he didn't put the roll pin in. The spindle should come off just by backing the nut off the ball joint. Then you can separate the a-arm and the spindle. Sounds like he really effed up.

Will an STI tranny, clutch, bellhousing and flywheel bolt into my 04 impreza TS? Does the STI come stock with a short block? If so, Is the bolt pattern on the back of the block (for the bellhousing) different?

Careful with the turbo. Not as good in the snow due to the lag. I would probably stick with the 2.5 but I haven't driven the 3.0 yet. I recommend the Legacy 2.5 GT if you're looking for all the options. Beware of the head gasket in the 2.5 though. I think it was previously stated that if you get one newer than 2000 it shouldn't be an issue. I've got a 2004 2.5 ts and I love it. Plenty of power to pass trucks uphill in 5th gear.

sounds like a fuel pick up issue to me. Something isn't right in your tank.

also, if the ball joint is still good, all you have to do is back the nut off. Use a bar to pry the a-arm from the ball joint. Put a new cotter pin in the ball joint when done.