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Someone was not having a good day.

My car has its original front axles and will sometimes vibrate violently when idling. Most of the time there is a slight vibration. Sometimes when it is bad I just put it in neutral till I need to move. It has always done this and I don't really think its a problem.

Have any of you who have run mismatched tires for long periods of time checked for torque bind? Torque bind shows that the AWD system is damaged. The way to check for it is to go into a paved parking lot and do the tightest circles and figure 8's you can. If there is a hopping, binding, a grinding noise or the car will not do it at idle (or near idle) then it has torque bind.

I have Nokian WR all seasons on my '99 outback. They are great but they arent cheep.

I just got done doing some drifts in a parking lot that has a T intersection in it. So much fun to get a nice drift and stick it. Back tire was getting to be about 6" from the curb. How i love my outback. I have Nokian WR's on it and they are amazing. Oh, and the parking lot also has a dead strait 1/8 of a mile section good for testing ABS and floored starts.

Was the wood grain radio bezel a special item? because i have that and wood grain around other parts of the car too. (although its really plastic with a picture of wood on it.) I don't think Boomie is a limited but he has the heated cloth seat, weather band radio, cold weather package, and i don't believe he has the rear diff cover eather.

They do not have the high failure rates that the 2.5s do. I still see a post about the occasional head gasket failure but that can happen to any car.

My '99 OBW did that for a while. I can't remember what the problem was though, it was some seal leaking and the dripping oil would fly back onto the exhaust pipe and make big clouds of smoke. It would be fun, we would go to a gas station and there would be a bit coming in the vents so we would open the hood to let out a giant cloud of smoke and everyone would . twas fun apart from the smell and the adding of oil.

I don't know how much work it is worth, but it is the only cup holder i have ever seen that can expanded to hold a 4" cup.

Blu looks great now. Seeing that new headlight it looks like I have a lot of polishing in my future for Boomie (tis the name i have bestowed upon my Subie). And I still love that color and I wish Boomie was that color. Instead he just teases me in parking lots at night when the lights make him look that color. Also, my one friend, who drive a '93 Toyota pickup, has found that a bumper made of steel tubes does a nice job of taking out deer. You may have to add one in front of you normal bumper.

1999 OBW, HG replaced at 105,000mi (failed before that but never overheated, it just kept pushing coolant out which we would put back in. Did you know there is a spot where a turkey baster fits nicely right near the overflow tank?) Then had a cam shaft seize at 118,000mi. Got a new engine from CCR and now at ~132,500 it is running strong. (actual millage is unknown due to the speedometer/odometer only working interemitantly starting at 131,000mi)

We have a '99 OBW that failed like that. My dad was driving it home from work then it sputtered and shut off. He got out and looked at it and there was a piece of one of the camshaft sprockets sitting on top of the engine. The (looking at the front of the engine) top left camshaft had seized. We ended up putting in a CCR rebuilt engine ourselves. Also, I hope that by tow you mean "put on a truck" because towing a Subaru with 2 wheels on the ground can make a mess out of your AWD system. Anyway, good luck with this. I would like to say that it sounds like it might be a simple thing but I can't.

We had 2 on the first page today.

Thats a bummer. Although stuff like that can happen. My car ('99 OBW) had a camshaft seize at 118,000mi. That got it a new engine.

Yep, thats the "Subaru virgin switch" I think almost everyone that has owned a Subaru has hit that at leas once and then runs around trying to figure out why the lights wont turn off.

Yeah, I have hit that switch so many times. Luckily my dad had told me about it. Welcome to the board.

I have had both seats out of my subie ('99 OBW) and you should be able to take the seats off the seat rails and just swap them if you dont mind the back lever being on the right. The only problem i could see is if you have seats with the hight adjustment mechanism. The way that is attached to the seat rails makes it near impossible to get off and then the seat rails would be incompatible left to right.

The Nokian WR's are great tires, weather it be wet, dry or snow. But if you are only going to run them in the winter i have to agree with everyone else that you should go with a set of Blizaks. We have Blizaks on my mom's front wheel drive minivan and they are absolutly incredible. They literaly stick to everything, including ice, we have never spun, slid, or even have the abs kick in. (although we were driving carfully, even with good snow tires it does not mean you should drive fast). I would only go with the Nokians if you plan to use them all year round.

The 4 cylender engens should idle relativly smoothly but it realy depends on the car. I have a '99 OUtback waggon and it has a relativly rough idle. Also with the 4's thry don't have a lot of low end torqu, to get them to realy accelerate you need to get them above 3500rpm. The AWD systems in subarus are very reliable and durable IF they are taken care of right. You need to keep your tires proporly inflated and you need to run tires that are all within a 1/4in circunfrance. If the tires are diferent sizes then the AWD will be engaged all the time causing a lot of damage. It often gets so bad that it causes tourque bind. This is where the AWD is engaged all the time even if the tires are the same size. It is easy to check for TB though. You drive in tight circles of figure 8's, it should do this smoothly, if the care sudders or feels like the breaks are on then the car is showing symptoms of torque bind. Good luck with finding a car that suits you. And remember that AWD can't help you stop in the snow, only a good set of tires can.

I have a set of those on my '99 Outback and I love them. They are good in the dry, Great in the wet, and great in the snow. They are actually better than most snow tires and in the snow they ahave about 80% of the traction that the Blizzaks have. (one fo the best snow tires arrond. We put them on my mom's FWD minivan in the winter and even on ice we have never had the ABS kick in.) If you can afovd them i highly recomend them. My dad put about 11,000 miles on them before i bought the car from him and i have put another 3,000 on them and neather of us can complain.

My car does this also, it always vibrates a little at lights but sometimes it is realy bad. The only difference is that mine does it at 700rpm. I beleve that is is caused by a loose coupleing in the drivetrain somewhere that causes it to bounce back and forth.

Is this vibration a slight one at around 2,000-2,500 rpm? If so my '99 outback soes the same thing and it has never been a problem.

I have only been driveing regularly for about 3 months now and i have almost hit close to 20 deer. I live in northern NJ by a state park. The most interesting thing i almost hit was a red fox. My friend though has hit three deer and a bear (at 50 no less) in the same car with minamal damage. This my have something to do with the fact that he drives a tank with couches in it ('78 Buick Le Saber (sp?)) When an animal runs out in front of me i hit the breaks then check for someone behind me, if there isnt anyone i push harder and if there is room i will swearve but if there isnt i wont.

2nd vouch for cloth heated seats. I have them in my 99OBW and I couldn't live without them. And is it just me or is the high to high and the low to low for the heated seats?