Ranger83

Sir, did you buy this vehicle new, or used? What was the mileage when you got it? Did you buy it from a dealer? A friend of mine had all kinds of problems with a used Toyota he bought with 65,000 miles on the odemeter. He had a lot of unusual problems, and eventually was able to contac the original owner - who had put nearly 120,000 miles on it. It had been wholesaled out, then sold through a couple of dealers, during which over 50,000 miles disappeared from the odometer. Brakes at 50-60K are one thing, a head gasket and tranmission problems are pretty rare. This site tends to amplify some problems. I have 8 friends with 97 or 98 Outbacks with no head gasket problems, with mileages of 50K up to 191K. Mine has 126K and no such problem.

Sir, we had two '97's and one always got 1mpg more than the other..... We've seen tanks from 20 mpg for all city to 28.1 for all moderate highay driving. I drive nearly 50 miles one way several days a week and have noticed a significant drop in mpg since Fall. I attribute this to a different fuel mixture for the cold weather, more idling time and more fuel consumed during warmup, and the consequence of pushing denser air out of the way at 70-80 mph. I was average over 25 mpg per tank, now it's a little under or a little over 24. I'm replacing the air filter next week and checking tire inflation pressure (it's been -10 to 31 degrees for the last week) just in case they are out of line.

Sir, back to your topic. ADAC is the German auto club. Their services are far more comprehensive than AAA. Their guidebooks and maps are great, and the local office can give you all kinds of good travel advice. There's usually at least one person in an office that speaks decent English if you don't speak German, especially in offices near U.S. Kasernes. http://www.adac.de. ADAC used to publish statistics back in the day ('83-85) on the causes of the most frequent highway breakdowns. #1 on the list was fan belts. #2 as I recall, was tires. Mechanical failures depended more on the age and condition of the car. The final drive ratio appears to be the same for U.S. and European Subarus. Subaru.com and Subaru.de don't seem to list it, but other websites in the U.S. and subaru.co.uk do. So you should be able to crank along with the Euro versions. Over the long haul, car accidents kill more GI's than enemies do, so there is some Command Attention focused on that area. Garryowen

On my 97 OBW, usually between 330 and 375 miles. I almost made 400 once, someone who has the patience to drive at 55 could do it.....

I normally averaged 25-26 mpg in my 97 OBW mostly driving to work via highway at 75-80 mph. I've noticed it has dropped by at least 1 mpg in the last month or so, which I presume is from a change in gasoline composition for winter temperatures and the fact that you are pushing the car through denser air.

From the article: I put in Sylvania Xtravision and was very pleased with the improvement.

The factory tweeters are in the little triangular mesh pieces at the front of the door. I left them connected initially, but have since disconnected them as it didn't sound as good.

So, does the Subaru factory radio with the CD, Cassette, and weatherband have a clock? I haven't seen it!

Here it is. Next 234,567 I called my garage today and told him that all people talk about on this board was the detonation of head gaskets on 2.5l Subaru engines, and would he run the tests on it at the next oil change (I had an oil analysis done at 65K). He said, "We'll do them if you tell us to - but we don't see it happening...."

Dropped off the baby sitter Saturday night and noticed the mileage on my '97 OB was 123,455. Drove an extra block or two to get 123456. I approached this mileage cautiously, since I was sure that the [original] head gaskets on this 2.5l engine were going to jump out from under the hood!

Here's a front and rear view comparison of the Infinity Kappa's versus the factory speakers.

I installed the two front Infinity speakers yesterday and today. Took them out yesterday, brought the mounts home and cut the back off to mount the new speakers, and installed them today. They sound great but I'm concerned whether I wire the + and - correctly. I cut the pigtails off the factory speakers so I could retain the existing plug connectors. On the left front door, as I recall there was a grey wire, and a grey wire with a green stripe or something like that. On the R. side the two wires were black and red. I think I assumed the solid color was - and black was -, respectively (I think). Is that right?

If you have a 97 Outback and have gained weight or your wife is mad at you, it's because you need a new head gasket, or two.

Sir, if you have a 97-99 OB on this board, and it pulls to the right, barks at the moon, rides rough, or your girlfriend doesn't like it, someone on this board will suggest you have a bad headgasket. Between friends and I we have 8 97 or 98 OB wagons, mileage from 60K+ to 180K+, and none have had any head gasket problems. I always hat to say this because I feel like tomorrow it will happen to me, but that's the fact. Some do. But there are lots of reasons for low compression in a cylinder. It is never good news. Most mechanics would put a little oil in the cylinder and do a "wet" test to see right off if it was the rings. Or do a leakdown test t osee if it is valves. And they can do an oil and/or coolant test to see if any contamination present indicates a head gasket problem. The problem with the spark plug may well be unrelated. Yes, having one plug in would affect the comprssion test, but would likely do so uniformly for all other cylinders.

Terry, the X Plus tires I had on there had plenty of tread despite 60K miles. But I waqs going to need new tires within a few months one way or the other (I drive about 25K a year right now) so I decided to have new ones for all the rain in late fall and winter snow. If these last the same as the last set, I'll have 180K on the car by the time they wear out and it won't owe me anything.... P.S. If you are having "hideous roll over" problems with a tire, you need more air pressure. see below.....

I don't care if they last less than a year, they're so much better on low beam than the original lights I'll spend another $25. For me that's roughly $0.001 per mile. If the Silverstars are brighter I'd consider those. But I hate the glare from HID lights so I'd prefer to avoid something that even looks like them.

A friend of mine in VT has a 97 OB wagon with 192,000 miles. She says the mechanics treat it with reverence.....

Update after Boston got 25" of snow over the weekend. And driving in the ice storm last week. These tires are excellent. I drove up and down some steep, snowy hills to test starting and stopping and the grip is excellent. I'm very impressed with these tires.

I got the Sylvania XtraVision bulbs. They claim to be brighter by 20% than stock bulbs. The were $12.50 each at PepBoys. Some of the other Sylvania bulbs are designed to look more like HID lamps, but the Xtravisions are designed purely for performance, not style. After trying them, I believe the claim! They're great! Put them in my wife's Caravan the next day and the company van last week. http://www.sylvania.com/auto/xtra.htm

If your car is drifting, first thing to check is tire pressire, especially with the cold temps. I think they mean a difference in Diameter of .25". no? The diameter of a Michelin HydroEdge 205/70x15 is 26.1" Michelin says that gives 797 revolutions per mile. Circumference is 2 x Pi x R = 81.954 They show a P215/65x15 has a diameter of 25.8 - 0.3". That tire goes 806 revolutions per mile. That's 81.012 in circumference. This is a difference of only 1.1% - and that's for a tire .3" different. Guess I better start checking my tire pressure every day....

So do most Subaru owners! Just for reference, a few winters ago I stopped into the WalMart in South Burlington VT just after a snowstorm. At least one out of four cars in the lot at the time was a Subaru - maybe one out of three. I checked 10 or a dozen of them, and exactly one had dedicated snow tires. All the rest had typical All Season M+S rated tires. A surprising number were older Outbacks with the original Michelins on them. I've heard some mountain passes in CA require chains during some weather conditions - but don't they exempt AWD vehicles? A stock Subaru is good enough in snow that you'll inevitably wind up stuck behind somebody with a car that isn't good in snow.....All that you can do is buy good speakers. One thing that people tend to forget is that weight over the rear wheels is a Good Thing. Even with AWD, when it's snowing I try and keep several hundred pounds of something over the rear wheels, and a full tank of gas.

Raod and Track said about the Forester"So is it a car or an SUV? I don't know...let's just call it a Subaru." If you go to carpoint.com you can compare cars to get the difference. The Forester is: 11.8" shorter 255 lbs lighter .4" narrower 1.7" taller has .2" more ground clearance Might just be a local phenomena, but I don't know a single male Forester owner. Outback owners I know are 50/50 male/female. The Forester competes quite directly in the "Cute Ute" class with the Ford Escape/Mazda Tribute and Rover Freelander. The new Toyota RAV4 is still a bit shorter but is proably in the same vehicle class. Car & Driver tested them last year. Don't know where the Honda Element fits in - it's even shorter and boxier.

I thought about dedicated snows but I drive a lot on the highway, and they don't seem to be very good in the rain. Since I live near the coast, that's a concern. I have to say after driving in the severe icing conditions of this morning, the Michelin HydroEdge is a VERY impressive tire. If you're not ready to step up to an extra set of mounted snows, they definately bear consideration.

From the ODOT:

So far, the only place I've found that lists the foam speaker baffles online is Crutchfield. Would a local car audio outfit have them, or a higher end audio chain like Tweeter, etc?