wilco

No hints is right. I still haven't been able to reproduce it. I've got to do some highway driving this afternoon so that might do it. I suspect that the damage was done before we bought it because the tires are good, and I've kept them equally inflated. If that's the case, it means that the car has been driven thousands of miles without symptoms.

Would you trust them to do fairly major work on a Subaru, or is there something you'd draw the line at?

That's the exact type of place I'm looking for! ...aside from how far away it is. I'm going to be working in Seattle on Monday, so I may stop by and check them out. Thanks.

Anyone know of a good Subi mechanic/shop anywhere near Bellingham WA, specifically for drivetrain/AWD work? ... I mean, other than the dealership (which I have no problem with, it's just $$). It seems you can't throw a rock in this town without hitting a Subaru, so there has got to be someone good and reasonably priced. Specifically, it looks like I need a new viscous coupler, and I've read here that prices can vary dramatically.

Ok, good to know that in a bind (pun intended) I could use this trick to get a few more miles. As it stands, it's only happend once and I haven't been able to reproduce it, but I'll probably just go ahead and replace it when it acts up again.

OK, thanks for the help.

Well, at least that's good to hear (the boot that is). So my next question is how long can one go before total failure?

Not since I've owned it, but the first owner... who knows? They seemed to take good care of it though. It came with a full service record - all performed at the dealership they bought it from. As for the fluid, isn't the VC a sealed unit?

Intersesting. What change would I be looking for? Getting worse?

Done. Yeah, I pretty much figured, but was hoping that maybe I overlooked something a little less expensive! How about that torn boot on the steering rack? Think I can just replace it, or am I going to be looking at a new rack too? I've had mixed luck with that on other cars.

Hi all, first post, but I've been searching/reading for a while. Does this sound like a failing VC? After about an hour of highway driving, I pulled into a parking lot where I had to make some sharp low speed turns, and there seemed to be some binding (similar to running a "part-time" 4x4 on dry pavement). There was a faint clunking sound (like a bad CV, but not as pronounced), and some side to side rocking. This only happened when making fairly tight turns. There was no drag/binding in a straight line or wide turns. Oh, and it didn't matter which direction - it happened at the same turn radius for both left and right. That was last night and it was too late to have a good look at it, so today I checked the CV boots - all good - and tires/pressures - equal - and took the car for a drive but couldn't repoduce the problem. So I'm thinking the drivetrain needs to get hot, i.e. highway speed. While having a look at it I noticed that one of the steering rack boots is torn, but the steering seems to work fine - no shuddering, pulling etc., and the fluid level is good. Otherwise, I can't see anything obviously wrong with the car (I'm a fairly good 'shady tree' mechanic, but not all that familiar with Subarus, and just too busy right now to start pulling the car apart). The details on the car are 2002 Outback, 5 spd MT, 2.5 L, 145K miles. So am I on the right track suspecting the VC?