bjwirth

I was just rambling. I guess what I meant to say was that given tires that are "classified" the same, sometimes the average driver cant tell significant differences between them (maybe one tire will have a marginally better grip when pushed, or ride a little quieter). when you take tires that are on opposite ends of the spectrum, then yeah, you'll definately notice (like the potenza and affinty example). but when you take tires that are comparable in features, then maybe you wont notice, or the difference will be so insignificant, you wont care. now about your statement saying potenza's aren't all-season tires, I would have to agree with you. I bought them b/c I thought I wanted a "performance" type tire at the time. now I just want a quiet all around long treadlife tire.

getting a tire recomendation is so subjective (michelins are the best! michelins suck! etc) I don't think tire selection matters that much if you are choosing an all around all-season tire for a passenger car. (now if you compare summer/winter vs all seasons, that's different). Before you choose a brand or a make, choose some criteria that are important to you. You can choose a tire that's geared towards dry performance, tread life, noise, low price, snow/wet traction, whatever, but youre not going to get it all. on my other car, I went from a potenza re950 to a goodyear affinty comfortred- and contradictory to what I just said, I noticed a differnce in just about everything. But I went from a "performance" tire to a "touring" tire. If I slap on some michelin harmony's, I doubt I would be able to tell the difference to the goodyears. I would first determine what factors are most important and go from there.

Can't you use one of those "fake cassette" tape adapters. I use one of those for long trips and it works fine for me. My forester also has a stock radio so using this adapter is not the "limiting" factor for sound qualtity, and I have to imagine it will sound noticably better than a FM modulator.

I considered getting 2 new tires. but from what I read on this forum, I got the impression that was "bad." Greg, how long have you been running with 2 sets of tires? I'm beginning to think that the 1/4" tolerance was just set super-conservative. How many people on this board have actually measured the rolling circumference to check if their tires are within 1/4" of each other (not using the tape measure, but driving in a straight line)?

A while back I posted that I had a flat tire and I was going to buy a used one with a comparable circumference. We're going to do some traveling later this week and I decided to "test" the rolling circumference of the new tire. Basically I found a parking lot, marked the tires, and let one tire roll 40 revolutions and measured the difference in rotations of the other tires. The results were: the 3 old tires are within the 1/4 inch and the 1 "new" tire is off by about 3/4 inch. (I estimate my error is about +/- 0.1 inch). My "stupid" question is this: the FWD fuse is still in. can I park the car on a steep hill, place something underneath the "new" tire so that traction is comprimised (some sand maybe), and get into the car and just stomp on the gas? the possible result is the tire with the comprimised traction will spin like crazy, while the other front tire will just sit there until the car gets going. If I do this, I'll burn off some of the tread on the "new" tire and get it within the 1/4 inch spec. I guess I should mention the car is a 00 forester auto and the "bad" tire is LF. The reason I think this is stupid is, am I making a so-so situation possibly worse? as a side note, using a tape measure to measure tire circumference sucks. It's cumbersome and not precise. (I did 3 measurements on the same tire and got 3 numbers- with a range of just under 1/4 inch) when I shopped for a used tire, I used a tape measure and apparently it did me no good.

6/32 would be 50% right?

That's not true at all. Like others have stated, the #1 reason for rust is the amount of salt on the roads. Excluding geography, other reasons include: -the type of primer/paint (anyone see an early 90's dark colored GM), -how the car is welded (certain types of welds set up a galvanic cell) -driving conditions (someone drives the subaru during the snowy/rainy days and drives his porche on the sunny days) -how clean you keep your car, to a limited extent. Depending how a car has been repaired, this can also lead to significant rust. Just about every car today does pretty well in terms of rust. For every ford of a certain age/model that doesn't have rust, I'll show you another one in that same town that does. The same holds true for Subarus. I used to work for an automotive coating company and ALL car manufacturers are very anal about the type of steel, paint, how to deal with welds, etc... Your friend is just seeing what he wants to see. I bet you I can find a bunch of chevy's that have rust and a bunch of buicks that dont. That doesn't mean buiks are better than chevys, it just means I sampled the top 10% of one population and the bottom 10 of another. Has your friend NEVER seen a 4x4 truck with rust??

25?? wow that would be a dream for us. we have a 00 forester auto and we get 20-23 for mixed city/hwy. on all hwy, we barely break over 24. (I'm afraid to see what an all city mpg would be) We are easy on the gas pedal, we don't use the A/C alot, we had our O2 sensor replaced, so I don't know what gives. I've heard plenty of people who say they get mid to upper 20's and I've heard numbers in the low 20's as well.

Have you tried holding the remote under your chin? People always laugh at me when I tell them this, but I've noticed that I can increase the distance between the remote and the car. You can at least try it... it won't cost you anything except looking a little foolish.

There is no pressure (or I should say, there is no guage pressure) in the bad tire since there's a gash in the sidewall. I was wondering if stretching the tire around the rim distorted the shape in a way that would change the circumference.

Thanks for the replies. From the research I've done and the people I've spoken with, I think I am just going to replace the one tire with a used one. We can easily see the impact of different diameters on our differentials. And I can see how a different tread might affect rotation and traction of the wheel- but only in slippery conditions or turns. I have no way of knowing this, but I gotta think that two "comparable" tires (ie all-season touring tires w/ similar ratings) aren't going to perform that differently. As for going for a used over a new- a new tire may have a circumference of .25" or less, but a used one will also have the same difference (but opposite magnitude since it's smaller). I'll keep an eye on it and if the used tire wears faster, then I'll just change it with another one or just get 4 new ones later. with my luck, I'll damage another tire in a year anyway. So here's my next question: does a tire on a rim (more or less "deflated") have a different circumference as a tire off a rim? The tire store I called has 5 used tires in my size. I'd like to bring a string and see which has the closest measurement. Thanks

Over the weekend, one of my tires blew (sidewall). Now I need a replacement. I've done a search in this forum and it seems everyone is in agreement that the circumference has to be within 1/4" of each other. This makes perfect sense. What's fuzzy is some people recomemend buying 4 brand new tires, while some say to "shave" the tire to match circumference. Some say that the replacement tire has to be the SAME brand and tire as the others, while others say it doesn't matter. Ok, so I live in a small town and I called around a few places and nobody shaves tires. One of the guys I spoke with said the circumference is a function of the tread depth (for all 215/60/16's). I didn't think this was true, but who was I to question him. (I thought I recalled a post where 2 different tires had 2 significantly different rolling circumferences) anyway he said he would measure the tread depth and find another tire with a close tread depth. So my questions are: 1. Do I need 4 matching tires or 4 matching circumferences? 2. If the previous answer is 4 matchng circumferences, can I just measure tread depth, or do I have to get the tape measure out and measure tires? If these tires were more than halfway spent, I'd probably just buy 4 tires. But the tires are less than a year old (15k miles). Before I knew the board existed, our last car was a 96 imprezza which we had for 8 years. It seemed we were replacing 1 tire every 1-2 years- right from the beginning (due to damage or age). So you can imagine by the 5th year (and beyond), we had 4 different tires, with 4 different tread depths. The car had about 75k miles when we sold it, but never had any transmission problems. Had I known about the tire circumference issue, I would have made more of an effort to at least change the tires in pairs or something. Did I luck out, or was the transmission on its last breath? thanks for any help/

When my wife and I were looking for a car a couple of years ago, the Legacy wagon was on our list. We weren't even considering the Forester- we just decided to drive one for the hell of it. I went into the situation "poo-pooing" the forester, but ended up liking it. Everyone has their own criteria, but for us, we like the egress/ingress of the forester, and thought the cargo area was more suitable for us. The one pet-peeve I had about the legacy was that you had to lift up the rear bench to fold flat the rear seat. with a car seat in the back, that wasn't going to work for us. I did find the ride of the legacy more 'comfortable' but this is a subjective opinion (as are all our other deciding factors). Your friend should just pick the car he wants. The specs on paper should just be a starting point in making his decision. None of the things I mentioned may even be applicable to him. It's hard to comment because we don't know what he's looking for in a car.

I have the same problem with my 00 forester. First thing in the morning when it's cold or when the car has been sitting for a while. I hear clicking, but I cant remember where it's coming from (column, shifter?). In warm weather, absolutely no problems. I'm not an electrical engineer, but why would cold weather affect the shift lock mechanism? what can be done? it sux to wait 10 minutes before you can get going in the winter.

I have no experience with warranties since I would rather take my chances, but I did consider it when I heard about some of the issues I might be facing. When I spoke to my subaru mechanic (not salesman), he told me he likes the Sam's club warranty. He said they covered some item not always covered with other warranties and was easy to deal with (from his point of view) when it came to re-imbursement. My wife bought one once- she paid $1000 and got $200 worth of work done. Unfortunately I forget the name (CNA maybe?) but they were also straightforward in paying- and why wouldn't they be- that's a great return for them.

thanks for the links. I gotta admit that higher pressure=better handling seemed anti-intuitive until I read the stuff in the links. it's a lot clearer now. But what about the MAX PRESSURE setting? I can now understand the benefits of HIGHER pressures, especially for special circumstances. I'm not talking about a performance car or anything carrying a heavy load- just a regular minivan filled to 44 psi. This has gotta translate to a smaller contact patch and with no great force generated on any one wheel from hard handling. And this question will seem dumb, but if you fill your tire to the max pressure (say when the tire is cold), then drive around for a while and the tire heats up, will the tire "pop" or do anything when the pressure is exceeded?

I'm hearing contradictory things here.... "Poorer braking performance (dry, wet, don't go out in the snow)." vs "stop better under most driving conditions" "Less steering control." vs "making handling more responsive" "overinflated tires wear much faster in the center of the tread" vs "Faster outside tire wear" I tend to think (I have no data or experience to back this), if steering is lighter and braking is worse, handling should also suffer- right? I always thought (street) drag racers would lower the pressure in their tires for a race to get more traction, then fill them up before they drove home. Otherwise the consensus is: stiffer ride better gas mileage higher load carrying ability

thanks for the info. from what I'm hearing a higher pressure is necessary for towing or a more comfortable highway ride. are there any disadvantages?

My father-in-law has this notion that tires should be filled to the "Max pressure" listed on the tire. (when he saw our forester this weekend, he said "whoa, your tires are too low." I told him I filled them to 32 psi to which he said "no, too low, my tires have 44 psi...") He has no idea why he does he fills his tires up that high, he just does it. But then I realized that I have no idea why I fill my tires to the "recomended" tire pressure either. so could someone please tell me what the recomended presures are based on (weight of car? I guess I always assumed tire pressure was a function of "load per tire" but I have no idea where I heard that from) what are the advantages/disadvantages of increasing the tire pressure? I've heard of people who lower pressure for a "comfortable" ride but that's about it. Is there ever a reason to use the "max pressure"? It is listed on the tire so there should be a reason right? Thanks BJ

Ok, I've never changed my own brake pads, nor am I an expert, but when I had the brake pads changed on my other car, I asked about ceramic pads, since the pads on my other car were producing a lot of brake dust. Some one told me ceramic was only good for racing applications since they really didn't start to effectively work until they got hot. During normal street applications, ceramic pads don't get hot enough. When I bought my 00 forester last year, the brake pads were changed with some cheap semi-metallic pads. I hate them because they squeal like a pig. I may change them to save my sanity. If ceramics are the way to go, I may consider changing to them.

So I'm thinking of getting either an 05 legacy or OB wagon and I noticed some non-US pictures of the new legacy have some kind of LCD panel where the center cubby hole is ontop of the center console. Does anyone know if: 1. there's a part out there to fit a Nav system there? perhaps not likely since even if this were an option in other countries, they may not have the appropriate database for the US. (I don't even know if this is an option in other markets.) 2. fit an aftermarket screen in there, but still utilize the "stealth" feature of this cabinet. so when I want to have the screen, I flip the cover and out pops a screen. And when I park the car, I just close the cover and it looks like a plain jane interior. I'd really like an LCD screen so I can watch Survivor re-runs as I'm driving down the street (just kidding of course). Rumors have been going around that the 06 will have NAV as an option, should I jsut wait until then? Thanks, Brian

oops I wasn;t paying attention to who was relpying to what... What I shoulda said was practice on a car that's not one you care about- In my case it was my wife's old car- in your case, find another car, your mom's maybe? (she's not on this board too, is she?) But also keep in mind what I said about hand applying/buffing, you can just as easily leave swirls that way too. On a black car, it will become painfully obvious as the wax wears off. I used to have a black car- and although it's my favorite color, I'll probably never buy one again since my "mistakes" show up so easily.

There is a good chance that you will leave swirl marks and/or burn the paint if you are not carefull using a buffer. But as far as I know, the swirl marks come when dirt or "particles" are trapped in the "cloth," so make sure your car is clean and use a clean soft cloth. The burning comes when you press down on the buffer, don't keep the buffer moving, or a buffer which spins too fast. But I've also seen swirl marks on cars that have been hand applied- so pick your poison. Is you dont want to risk your obsidian pearl paint (and who could blame you), do what I did, practice on your wife's car.

What do you think of this idea... the other day I was driving with my wife in separate cars (2000 forester s) and noticed there was a discrepancy in speedometer readings. My car said we were doing about 70 mph, while her forester was doing 74. So either my speedo is reading too low, or hers is reading too high. Lets assume the latter for a minute (perhaps incorrectly). What if the overall diameter (or circumference) of the tire was bigger, leading to fewer revolutions of the wheel per mile covered. would this correspond to higer gas mileage, since I'm getting more distance traveled per RPM (assuming same gear)? and perhaps a correction to the speedo? I don't know anything about differentials or stress or torque, but from my simplistic point of view, it would be like I had taller gears in my transmission... yes? no? SO i've been reading some past threads, and some posted that you could put 205/75/15 on a forester L- according to my crude calculations, I could put a 65 series tire on my wifes car on the 16" rim. could I go taller without scaping? are there any drawbacks? would I see an improvement in MPG? ONe last thing, when we bought the car used, the dealer put on a set of S-rated tires. I don't care one way or another, except I noticed in the side panel, the car specs an H-rated tire. does a forester really need this kind of tire? Beleive me, we don't go tearing through the twisties in this car (nor do we go 130 mph). thanks for any help, Brian

I've never found much use for rear speakers except for "rear fill." In fact in my last car, I just upgraded the front speakers and just disconnected the rears. If you're looking for "fuller" sound, try a sub. I realize that's a pain since that starts to eat up space, but a 4 or 5" speaker isn't going to have great bass anyway. Maybe you could use one of those "storage holes" in the back for a ported sub enclosure. I think bazooka or somebody makes these "tubes" that mount somewhere in the trunk. I've never heard what they sound like, (I imagine it's not great, but it's gotta sound better than a 4" speaker). It sounds like you upgraded the front speakers, so that's gotta make a big improvement. But I think if you buy the cheap $30 subaru rear speakers or a high end speaker that's been adapted, you won't notice too much of a difference- especially if you install a sub.