shaggywerewolf

I imagine these are the same folks who drive the $4hit out of their brand new (or leased) cars, and after 3 years of zero maintenance, sell/trade them in for another new car to abuse. And the unfortunate buyer who ends up with said vehicle gets to pay retroactively to catch up with the lack of maintenance.

http://endwrench.com/images/pdfs/H4H6Fall03.pdf Page 13, under "Engine Disassembly". It's supposed to last "the life" of the engine, whatever Subaru determined to be the "life" of the EZ30, provided the previous owner dilligently changed the oil. There was a post on here not too long ago where someone did have to service the tensioner - http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=55910

I think this may be normal; at least the demo XT (2800 miles) at the dealer here in town seemed to make a similar noise. It was a warm start, but it definitely sounded like a starter trying to engage a moving flywheel. Despite my Whisky Tango Foxtrot moment of shock, I thought it was kind of cool, actually. Unless both dealers somehow managed to break the vehicles in the exact same way....

That's nice that they offered to replace the entire left side. (I'm assuming it's covered under warranty?) But don't be too surprised if the slap returns - if you search around, that's happened at least a few times to people who've received replacement parts.

I remember being told the same thing by the Saturn dealer when I used to have my old SL2. These engines had a timing chain as well, and was apparently rather picky about clean oil. Might be mistaken, but I believe the 1.9L DOHC engine in these cars was an interference design.

http://endwrench.com/images/pdfs/H4H6Fall03.pdf Some interesting reading with a few pictures of the H6 with the timing cover removed.

My '03 OBW has made this sound since I bought it late last year. I assumed that this was a "Subaru" thing, and thought nothing of it. For what it's worth, it coincides exactly with the brake light illumination, which takes barely any pressure at all on the pedal, so I figured it was normal relay noise. I've never worried about it. Should I be? I want to say that my mom's '94 Corolla does the same thing, but it's been so long since I've driven it. My '94 Saturn never did this. 27K on the car, I'm going with the assumption that pretty much everything is original, including the pads, though I can't confirm it since it's used.

Haha...."stylish" pistons... "The result was an all-new piston with a pleasing shape and a stylish two-tone color." That's exactly why I bought a Subaru Friend: What's that sound? Me: Piston slap. Friend: What's that? Me: It's when the piston smacks around laterally in the cylinder because of how Subaru "redesigned" their pistons. It's normal. Friend: Oh. Me: But they're pretty.....oh, wait, no one can actually see them.....

Scroll down to post #4 by Commuter: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=51554 You may have bumped that little switch. EDIT: D'oh. Late by a minute. :-)

My '03 OBW's 30K tune is coming up in a few months, and I'm probably going to have it done by the Ann Arbor dealer (Dunning) I had a coworker who had her '94? legacy wagon tuned there and she seemed to have had a good experience with a reasonable price tag. (then again it has the smaller 2.2L) Will post back when I get the work done. I've only been there for an alignment, but they did fix a instrument cluster light for free at the same time.

Does the German Shepard sniffing the headlight come with it? :-p

Maybe someone (hrrmph) at the dealer touched the bulb while they were installing it....BTW hoovman, I see you're in A2. Is your dealer Dunning Subaru?

Well, if you're like me and are used to smaller engines in smaller cars that sort of lap up gas, then be prepared for the first time you fill up the tank Otherwise, my '03 OBW runs great (aside from the piston slap, which I can live with) and handles better than the car I replaced.

Well Subaru warns against towing the car in neutral (AT) with all 4 wheels on the ground. Isn't coasting in neutral basically the same thing? If it is, I suppose if you do this repeatedly, you could damage the transmission over time.....

I'd imagine part of the reason for inflating tires with pure nitrogen in these cases is due to the high risk of fire in these applications, and the element's low reactivity.

So I've been reading some of these threads regarding replacing of the battery and ground contact cleaning.....but I was wondering what brand of batteries everyone uses in their Subarus? The '03 Outback I bought a month ago looks like it still has the OEM, but we've always used the Sears line of batteries in our other cars when it came time to replace them.

Well, got the Sube back from the dealer today to have the alignment done. Other than the fact that it took nearly all damn day to have it finished (apparently the Subaru half of the dealer is at the mercy of the Toyota half when it comes to using their alignment machine), all seems well. The drifting is virtually nonexistent, and the steering just feels a bit firmer/tighter to boot. Let's see how long it'll take for the local Michigan roads to reverse all that. Dealer seemed to be pretty competent and the overall experience was pretty good. Only paid for the alignment, even though they tore down the dash to reseat a loose instrument panel bulb.

Yeah, I wondered if that could be a cause, but it's difficult to tell. On one way streets, or on median divided multilane highways, which should be crowned similarly as 2 way, there is no left drift if I'm in the far left lane, which I would expect. Instead, the line of travel becomes centered, as if the the leftward angle of the left lane is compensating for the right drift, if that makes any sense. The drift also manifests itself off public roads as well, such as in parking lots. Anyway, I'm having the alignment adjusted tomorrow, so I'll ask the tech there if he's got any other ideas. Hopefully it should fix, or at least reduce the drift.

I've noticed something similar in my '03 OBW with 25K. However, it's not so much a "pull" as it is a drift. On a straight & relatively level road, the vehicle will drift to the right if you let go of the wheel. This requires me to constantly correct to the left by a few degrees - it's not substantial, but enough to be noticable. My old '94 Saturn used to do the EXACT same thing. An alignment seemed to help that car, so I was wondering if the same could apply to my Subie. I've checked the tire pressure, and brought the front up to 31 and the back to 30. Didn't really help. I'm guessing this could be a slight alignment issue, but I haven't really noticed any uneven wear on the tires. I imagine it is possible the previous owner (used only for daily commutes to work) could have run it up on a curb or something. It also doesn't help that I live in Michigan, where we have some of the worst roads in the nation.

Anyone have a clue why Subaru designed those cheap fog lamp grilles on the 2000-2004 OBs to be so breakable if you try to remove/reattach them? I broke one of the little plastic retaining tabs the other day trying to replace the right cover, epoxied it, and of course, the same bit promptly broke again. So it's now hanging on at only two points, as opposed to the normal 3. I figure I'm going to drive until they both fall off, and forget about it. Giving that the designers of these things made a half-a$$ed attempt, I'm guessing the grilles serve no functional purpose besides aggravate you.

Hmm...well, it doesn't sound like it's making the noise if I rev the engine in neutral when it's cold. At least I can't hear the noise from within the passenger compartment, or from the outside. Can only hear it when I open up the throttle to accelerate (around 2000-2500 rpm) Does the tapping from a bad CV joint disappear after things warm up, or is there all the time?

Hi all, First post, and I'm really impressed with the amount of knowledgable people here. Got a question regarding what may be a similar clicking noise, which so far, I can only hear upon acceleration. I just recently got an '03 OBW, and I've been liking it so far. When the engine is cold (ie sitting for >6 hours or so), I hear a regular clicking or tapping sound from the left side of the engine upon acceleration which have the following characteristics: 1.) The sound increases in tandem with speed while under acceleration, but disappears if I return the throttle to idle. 2.) The tapping ceases once the oil has reached operating temperature - usually a few minutes after the temp gauge reaches ~1/2 mark. 3.) The sound is fairly faint - the radio has to be at low volume, or off. Normal radio or conversational volume drowns it out. Again, I want to reiterate that as far as I can tell, this tapping is NOT present (at least audibly) when the engine is cold and idling -- only when cold and accelerating, and disappears once the engine reaches operating temp. I've been reading a lot about the piston slap issue with the 2.5s for a few hours, but after stumbling onto this thread, I'm not sure if this is indeed piston slap, or worn CV joints, or something else. Thanks