Rooster2

Any chance that this hesitation started after buying a tank of gas? I have had this happen, and it turned out to be some water in the gas. Add a can of "dry gas" product to your fuel tank. Maybe that will solve the problem.

The best suggestion that I can give you is to go to a wrecking yard, and try to find a car with the same engine that you have. Take a pad of paper and pen with you, and write down what color wires go where on the donor car. Then take the connector home, and splice in the connector. Hopefully, all color wires should match up, and all works well again. Also, before you go to the wrecking yard, write down the number and color codes of wires on your car, and take this written info with you to the yard. That should also help you find a correct matching car in a yard.

Screwbaru offers great advise. I agree with everything he says. I would also suggest checking the radiator coolant level and over flow container when the car motor is "stone" cold, such as in the morning after the car has sat over night. That way there is no heat expansion of the coolant in the cooling system.

Thanks for the reply and advise. I forgot about the needed seals. I ordered, and will pick them up later today. I guess if the labor charge comes to $204, that it is a heck of a deal. Thanks again!

I have a 98 Leggy OBW that needs a rear wheel bearing replacement. A local repair shop that I have done biz with many times before, that will let me bring in a replacement bearing for installation. The shop owner looked up the labor rate in his book. The book quoted 3 hours of labor ($204), if the car has rear disk brakes, which it does have. Both the shop owner and I think 3 hours is a high quote time rate. The shop owner said he would charge me less, if the job required less time. The shop owner has always been honest with me, and his work excellent. Does anyone have experience doing this job to tell me if it takes 3 hours to do the work, or have a receipt handy showing labor rate that you paid a shop for bearing replacement? Thanks for the help and advise!

My first Subie was a '91 that I did pad and rotors on. Now, I have 98 and 99 Subie OBWs. Both have ABS, however, I don't notice any difference working on the brakes. I can't imagine that an '01 model is any different then working on your old '90. Buy your brake supplies at any parts store, like you likely did before.

Thanks guys for all the thoughts and advise. I did a search on this forum, but could not find what others have used as a "cocktail" to solve my trany delayed forward engagement. I did not see any response that it is a simple matter of dropping the pan to replace a low clutch timing solenoid, or shrunken or worn low clutch outer piston seal. So, it is my assumption that the trany has to be removed from the car, and bench torn down to replace those items. I guess that leaves me with either replacing the trany with one from a wrecking yard, or the "bandaid" approach of changing ATF fluid and filter, and adding fresh ATF and cocktail additives in hopes of helping the problem. Since it is now just a PIA problem, as the trany performs perfectly once moving. I will do the bandaid approach for now. I know I have to do something. More than once, I have wondered if the car was going to get me home, when I have had to wait 20 or 30 seconds to get the car to engage in "D" when stopped.

Thanks, I will do that.

when i was searching for info for the friend i mentioned above i ran across a thread of a guy who did the "concoction fix" a few years ago. i contacted him and he said the car did noticeably better for 3 years up until he got rid of it and he never had to get it fixed. so that seems like a reasonable try. Does your friend remember the ingredients and ratio amounts of the "concoctuin fix?" Maybe, I will give that a try! I added some Lucas trany fix last Fall. That maybe helped a little for a while, but not anymore.

I have a 99 AT OBW with delayed forward engagement. It sometimes/often won't go into drive quickly after shifting from reverse. The problem has gotten really bad the last couple of weeks. Sometimes, I have to rev the motor slightly several times to get the trany to engage. I added a little ATF to slightly over fill status, that hasn't helped. Otherwise the trany performs well. I changed the trany fluid several times last summer. The car has 160K on the odo. The 99s have been written up repeatedly with this problem. One writer posted a tech bulletin from ATRA saying two common causes for this problem is a faulty low clutch timing solenoid, or shrunken or worn low clutch outer piston seal. I have never worked on a trany other than to change fluid. Are the above two causes something that I can work on with my car in my driveway with the car lifted on drive up ramps, and the tranny pan pulled? If not, I would appreciate any advise on how best to address this problem. Thanks!

Amazing timing of your post. I just got off the telephone talking with a friend of a friend who was a Subie tech guy at a dealership. He now sells Amsoil products here in Indiana. Just started having bad trouble with my 99 OBW trany with delayed forward engagement of the AT. The tech suggested replacing the low clutch timing solenoid, AT filter, and adding 5 quarts of Amsoil synthetic ATF. Give me a few months, and I will give you a testimonial on Amsoil. Yes, I know that 5 quarts is just half of the fluid capacity, but that is the amount that he recommended.

The dealer's asking price sounds rather high for a car with 180K miles on the ODO. Prices vary around the country, but just to give you some info, I purchased a 99 automatic Legy OBW in Dec 07 with 150K miles. Cost was about $4200. Since the dealer has had this car you are looking at for about a year, my guess he would prolly sell it for $4K or less. You prolly won't get any service records, so figure on a timing belt, and possibly brakes, maybe a tune up as well. Use this info in your discussion to deal for a lower price, if you are truly interested in buying the car. Good luck!

Looks like a nice clean care. I hope the owner/dearler guy was able to provide service records to you. That would be a big plus in knowing when the timing belt was replaced, and HG possibly replaced.

I have also heard that if you have to wait in line for emissions testing, keep your car idling, don't turn off the motor. You want to keep the motor at normal operating temperature for best emissions rating.

Sorry to hear that you got it confirmed that the HG is your source of trouble. I heard with HG trouble that some of the combustion gasses escape into the coolant, thus pressurizing the coolant with hot gasses. The gas can then be seen as bubbles in the over flow tank. When my 91 2.2 blew the HG, it pressurized and heated the cooing system to the point of causing the radiator to leak. So, keep an eye out for any dripping antifreeze on your driveway even after replacing the HGs.

I have gone the universal 02 sensor replacement on an Audi and a Jeep only to regret it. The sensor part prolly worked okay, but for the life of me, I could never get a good solder job and shrink tubing over the solder joints to last very long. I would wrap electrical tape over the shrink tubing, but within a year, the CEL would come on. Then it is a guess as to which wire at the solder joint is shorting out. I vowed at my last screw up replacement (on the Jeep) to never use a universal 02 again. It wasn't worth the aggravation of trying to save $20 to $25.

I have done well buying batteries at Wal-Mart. Just be sure to pull the caps to make sure that the battery water level is full. I did buy 2 batteries there, that were low on water.

The starter are the same from 91 thru 98 that I know of. The same starter is used on 2.2 and 2.5 motors. I have bought remanufacturerd starters from Auto Zone with no problems. I know that Chinese made radiators are available for Subies, prolly pretty inexpensive. I saw one installed on an OBW that I looked at, that was for sale. Owner said the radiator worked okay, but mounting bolt holes didn't line up, so the guy used cable ties to secure the radiator. It looked pretty "red neck," but when a car is over 10 years old, it doesn't make sense to throw a lot of money into an old car.

Yes, that is prolly correct. R-12 was always called freon. Prolly a slang term for its chemical ingredients. Every time that I bought R-12 back 10 to 15 years ago, I was asked to show my license. The store actually recorded my freon license number onto a reporting log. I had a license card from a diploma mill, that the stores accepted. R-134 seems to be called only R-134, nothing else. No license needed to buy the product.

If you carry comprehensive insurance with say a $200 to $500 deductable, it may be easier to turn in a claim to your insurance company. With that much bad wiring, it is possible that your insurance company may "total" the car. Might be easier to take your insurance claim check, and apply it towards the purchase of another car.

she kept bleeding air out of the tires to keep them at 34 No reason to bleed air of tires trying to keep them at 34. Sure the pressure will increase as the tire heats up, but will decrease when cooled off. Still suggest putting in air when tires are cold to 35 psi. It won't hurt anything if the heat build up the tire pressure a little.

Yes, Denso has an excellent reputation for quality. However, I have never seen their oil filters for sale on a retail basis. Where can they be sourced?

If it were me, and I still liked the car, then it is worth putting some money into it to keep it reliable. Yes, I'd replace the timing belt, if it has 60,000 on the existing belt. Doing a brake job on a Subie is super easy to replace the pads, rotors too, if needed. Rear pads seem to wear forever, and the rear rotors seldom need replacing. Suggest bleeding the brake lines, if the brake fluid has the brown color of ice tea in the reservoir. Automatic transmission is as simple as changing the oil. Just unscrew the drain plug, and replace the trany fluid. It is best to do it 2 or 3 times, to do a good fluid change. Check to see if any of the struts are leaking, or if a strut is weak, and lets the car bounce after hitting a bump. Check CV joint rubber boots for any tears. Replace if needed. Check for any looseness in the front suspension. That would indicate ball joint or tie rod wear. Replace if needed. That is all that I would do to the car if it were mine. Most of the above you can do at low cost. It is the labor of having to pay to have work done that is so costly. Doing it yourself, is like paying yourself $70 to $75/hour. I always felt better paying myself that hourly wage verses paying a shop that amount.

What is the quote of "$1,800 worth of routine maintenance," suppose to buy for you? List the maintenance items to us on your quote, maybe we can whittle down the list to what is really need, verses what is just needless fluff and wasted money.

The only things that I can think of to raise mpg, would be" Increase tire air pressure to 35 psi to lessen rolling resistance just a little bit more. That is what I carry in my Leggie OBW. It doesn't ride bad at all with the higher psi. Add a can of Techron or TLC fuel system cleaner to the gas tank. That helps clean the injectors. Don't use the cheap stuff, it won't work well. Drive a little slower on the interstate. Driving at 60 mph gives better gas milage then driving at 70 mph.