Rooster2

I posted a couple of weeks ago about using a "one man bleeder system" in response to someone having trouble with air in the brake lines. The little system works very well, and is great for the "do it your selfer." I wrote a lengthy step by step report on how to use the one man bleeder. Should be easy to find in the archives. My bottle kit is pretty much like the first one shown on the website, except that mine has a magnet affixed to the back side of the bottle, instead of the stainless steel wire holder hook. No big deal. My unit does not have a pump, and I don't see an advantage having one.

Check the fuse for the heated seats, maybe something simple like a blown fuse causing the problem.

Breaking one clip and one insert should not cause a problem on reassembly. Put the good clips and inserts on the ends of the sill plate, so the ends aren't loose and allow your shoe/foot to catch on the sill plate. Hope the sound system makes all this work worth it. Let us know.

Sounds like SOA is coming to your aid, and also staying abreast of your trouble. I have heard of dealer screw ups before with a number of cars made by different manufacturers. Your saga ranks right up at the top in terms of a dealer induced mess. After a while you can only laugh to keep from crying. I just hope things get better for you, and try not to loose your temper while still dealing with these clowns. Persistantly keep after them with a telephone call every two or three days to inquire about work progress, or drop by to see the rebuild. The situation can only get better.

I flushed the brake fluid in my 2 Subies last summer. I bought both cars used, so prolly the fluid was the original in both. What pumped out was the color of ice tea. I didn't see any "chunks" or dirt, so maybe that was a good sign. I just feel better knowing that fresh fluid is in the system, and both brake pedals are rock hard.

Start pulling on one end. Less resistance pulling against just one clip on an end, vs a couple of clips in the middle

Yes, those plastic clips holding down the sill piece will definitely break if yanked at when cold. The cold makes them brittle. Suggest using a hair dryer to warm up the sill piece and therefore the plastic clips. Take your time to get the sill nice and warm to the touch. Pull up the cover with your hands, or gently pry with a screw driver. Good luck!

Quote:I demanded a refund and a new engine, the manager said I can't have both. My thought is that I agree with the manager statement. It is unreasonable for you to emotionally demand a refund, and a new engine. As unappealing as it is to continue dealing with these clowns at the distributor, they owe it to you to fix your car at no additional cost, and with a written guarantee. How they fix it is really there call. The end result, is that the repair must meet your satisfaction. A written guarantee is necessary to make sure there work lasts a good long time. The SOA rep needs to be advised of this entire mess for sure.

I have always heard that there is no problem recording a telephone conversation between two people if you are one of the parties in the telephone conversation. You have no obligation to tell the other party that you are recording them. If you have to go to court, transcribe the tel conversation to paper, then submit the transcription as evidence in "discoveries" in the court hearing. You can say that you have the tape to play to back up the transcription, if requested to do so. O, now I read that you had a recorder in your pocket. Still, the above advise still stands, transcribe the conversation to paper, and present in court at appropriate time.

I had a 91 Legacy with A/T, the fuse holder for FWD is definitely under the hood on the passanger side near the fire wall. To be in AWD, the fuse holder should not contain a fuse. Yea, I know that may sound wrong, but it is correct information. That big snow storm hits Indiana on Saturday PM with about a foot of snow forecasted. My 2 Subies with AWD are both ready for the challange.

I suspect your alternator has gone bad. Suggest getting your charging system checked out at Auto Zone, or Advance Auto parts, or other parts store for free. If alternator is found to be bad, it is very easy to install a new one yourself.

I had the same trouble as you last summer with my 98 OBW. Light would go on then off, finally went on long enough to have the code pulled at Auto Zone. They told me it was the knock sensor. I bought one from them for $80 inc. tax out the door. Installed it myself with little difficulty. That fixed the problem. Use the "search" feature on this forum to read past posts about installation, if you are a "do it your selfer".

I had a failed cat converter in an Audi. Pieces of the honey comb cat material broke loose inside the cat. I could hear the pieces rattling around for some time. Sounded like pea size gravel rattling around. I ignored it, finally one of the pieces lodged itself inside the muffler pipe. It caused such back pressure, that the car would not go faster then 45 - 50 mph. The car would idle just fine. I don't think your problem is a bad cat. Suggest you find the cause of the maf codes that are presenting themselves. Suggest swapping in the injectors, maybe that will help. Spark plugs and OEM Subaru plug wire set may help too.

They have yet to find the problem they created with the car, and now thanks to another mistake of theirs the engine has overheated for the first time in its life. Sure the fans should have been plugged in for power. However, on the positive side, with cold weather, and if you kept the car moving, and not in constant stop and go traffic, the motor would not have over heated that much to cause damage. Cold air being pulled into the radiator while driving would have kept the motor fairly cool.

You are right, I did use a 14MM deep socket, not a 17 MM as I first posted.

I think you have the 2.2 motor in your 93, where as I have the 2.5 motor phase one in my '98. Maybe that is the difference. I had a '91 2.2 years ago, I remember changing out the starte on that car, it seemed a lot easier, and a lot faster to do with less junk in the way. All I can say, is that it seemed more difficult doing the job on the 2.5.

If the vibration is at idle, and the car is not moving, then I would consider that it needs a tune up with new spark plugs and spark plug wires. If other then that, if the motor seems okay at driving speed, then I would not have too much concern about the health of the motor. It is prolly a problem that can be easily fixed. If you like the car, use the bad idle as a bargaining chip to get the dealer to lower the price of the car substantially, or repair prior to your buying it. If you have read posts on this forum, you will quickly learn that the 2000 model has a tendency to ruin head gaskets. That is expensive to get repaired. So, it is imperative that when test driving the car to notice if the temperature guage starts reading "hot" after driving for 10 to 15 minutes. That is a sure sign of a bad head gasket.

Pretty sure if your get down on your hands and knees and look under the back end of your Subie, you will see that your duel exhaust system is actually formed with a single exhaust pipe branching into a "Y" configuration. I don't think this is anything more then a cosmetic addition to the car, and does nothing for performance. Perhaps, more exhaust gets dumped into one side of the "Y" then to the other side, so you see more water vapor (steam) out one the tail pipes. This is not an indication that you are having a problem with your car.

No question that Michelin builds a very fine tire, and they are expensive. I have had good luck with Kumho tires on my Subie. They are great tires for not much money. In my opinion, a best buy for the buck!

If you buy a rebuilt starter from AZ (Auto Zone) or another parts house, they will want your old starter (parts house will call it a core) as a trade in for furture rebuild, as part of the deal. Otherwise, they will charge you additional money, if you don't trade in your core. Since AZ offers a life time warranty on their rebuilt parts, I have always given them my core. With this approach, I am not screwing around replacing solenoid contacts on my own. With a (new) rebuilt from AZ, I am assuming that I will be getting a starter with new solenoid contacts. AZ Subie starters have always lasted a good long time for me.

$175 was a good price for a used trany. I had a 91 Legacy with about 178K miles on the odo. Last year the AT trany went bad. It refused to go into high gear. With lots of advise from this forum, I realized that my trany was toast. I didn't have the time, patience, or garage resources to replace the trany as you did, though I thought about it. I limped it into a dealer, and traded it for my 99 OBW. Still, I miss the 91, it was on its second engine, which still ran just great.

You must really love that Subie to put in a replacement trany when the car had 273K miles on the odo. Here's my experience on bleeding/fluid replacement Subie brakes.........I did it last summer to both of my Legacy OBWs. I didn't know about any recommended wheel bleeding rotation. I just pulled off each wheel and bled. Never had any problems doing it that way. I use a "one man bleeder" kit. It is simply a plastic tube with several size fittings, one size of which will fit over the Subie bleeder valve. The plastic tube connects to a small plastic catch bottle, that has a magnet on the side of the bottle. I place the bottle with its magnet on the facing of the rotor to hold the small catch bottle vertically in place. Earlier, I spray the bleeder valve with spray penetrating oil, or PB Blaster, (don't use WD-40) wait 5-10 minutes for the spray do its thread loosening magic. Then, I use a 3/8 inch drive, with I think it is an 8MM socket to "break loose" the bleeder valve. I use the drive because the twisting force of loosening the bleeder is vertical from the top, not on the side as a hand wrench would be. This helps prevent shearing/breaking off a tight bleeder, and saying "O sh*t" or worse. If the bleeder valve breaks off, then the caliper has to be replaced. Once, I have "broken loose" the bleeder, I slightly retighten, then put the bleeder hose on the nipple, and open the valve with a hand wrench. I push the pedal slowly about 2/3 of it travel, let the pedal come back up, and repeat about 3 times. I then check the catch bottle to see how full it is of old brake fluid. If full, I dump out the fluid from the bottle into a larger catch can, and repeat the process. I continually check the fluid level in the reservoir, and fill with new brake fluid when low. You don't ever want the fluid reservoir to run empty, and suck air into the system. I use an entire large plastic bottle of new brake fluid to bleed all four corners of the car. When the brake fluid starts flowing clear color into my catch bottle, I know that it is time to button eveything back up again. With the nipple hose still attached, I use the hand wrench to close the bleeder. Leaving the hose attached assures that no air will be able to enter the caliper through the bleeder. When finished, I have a good hard brake pedal. This entire process is really easy, especially with the one man bleeder bottle. I was given mine, so don't know where to source one, but guess that any car parts house would sell them. Good luck on bleeding out your brakes...........Rooster2

Agree, you will save a ton of money doing the job yourself. I can never figure out why shops charge so much for a brake job. It is not that difficult, or time consuming. Are you sure that you need new rotors. Unless the rotors are warped, worn thin, or heavily rusted inside the "venting," I would use the old ones. However, the ones quoted by the parts store should work on your car. What is nice on a Subie on the fronts, is that just one bolt needs to be removed on the caliper. Then, with gentle tapping with a hammer, the caliper hinges upward on a pin to slide off the rotor. Makes changing brake pad nice and easy. Suggest using a "C" clamp to push back the caliper piston. This is also a good time to bleed out the brakes to get rid of old brake fluid.

No the 2.2 does not have the head gasket failure problem that the 2.5 has.

Suggest using anti-sieze on the lug nut threads. Also, add some to where the back of the wheel meets the hub. It makes removing the road wheels a lot easier in the future.