classact2575

Good to know. Mine has always been a bit "grumpy," to say the least - basically when the vehicle's cold and/or doing tight turns, I get the growling noise. Dad attributed it to a leaky pump, and as a result I made the mistake of adding more fluid when it didn't need it. Burning PS fluid smells greeeaaat!

I know this isn't exactly a Subaru specific question, but my dad is 3000 miles away and can't help me here. :-\ There's a funny sound coming from my car, and I believe it may have to do with my tires. Here's the thing - I can only hear it is if my windows are open and I'm driving near something that'll bounce the sound back to me (e.g., jersey barrier, wall, parking garage, etc.) It's quiet enough that I don't think I can record it to play back to y'all. It also may rule out the possibility that the rear brakes aren't adjusted correctly, because that just happened to me a few months ago and I could definitely hear that *inside* the car. :-p Plus, this has been going on for at least a year or two - I just haven't remembered to ask anyone about it as it's apparently not life threatening... just annoying me as my car is enough of a jalopy that the last thing I need is more noise to attract attention to it. The best way I can describe it is a shush-shush-shush sound that increases in frequency with speed. It's definitely coming from the wheels, and happens everywhere - curve, straightaway, braking, not braking, etc. No whumping, no vibrations, just the shush-shush-shush sound. I keep my tires properly inflated, and the last time they were changed was probably in 2005... so probably around 30k ago. Tread is good, and there are no dead animals sticking to them. Any ideas?

Yeah, I actually took it to the Sub dealer near work last year to have the ATF sensor checked... no dice, but a nice $100 bill though! Last time I had the fluid drained/replaced with synthetic, but it didn't make any difference. Since I am a total greenie when it comes to mechanical work, how difficult would it be to replace the TCU? Same for the lockup switch override... is it something a Subaru specialist could do without giving me a, "dude, you're crazy" response? Nearest Subaru specialist is Andrewtech in Gaithersburg... don't know much about them other than they do a lot of pimping out for the NASIOC crowd. :cool:

Agh. Just got off the phone with the tranny shop guy and they couldn't find anything wrong with my car. Sounds great, right? Noooope. (Long story short - my TC takes a long, long time to lock up, even in 90+ degree weather. It's been doing this forever, and it drives me nuts... driving along the highway at 3000 rpm going 55, plus the drastic drop in fuel efficiency equals .) The funny part? When I figured out the stored TCU codes, all of the ones that *didn't* come up have something to do with TC lockup. This car is awesome, and I don't want to get rid of it... but the lockup issue is starting to really get to me. :-\

Excellent. So far no warning lights have gone on, ever, which is good. Or maybe bad if there really IS something wrong and it's not showing up. But yeah, nothing has ever light up on my dash. The only complaint I do have is that the gas mileage really varies - and not just that huge jump you see with city versus highway driving. I've gotten up to 36 mpg in the summer doing mostly highway, to 24 :eek: last week doing mixed w/about 75% highway. (Winter usually is lower, though, just not *that* much. 28-30 mpg is considered average in winter.)

And by 'that time,' I mean when the transmission finally kicks the bucket. If it ever does. :-p I love this car to pieces and it owes me nothing... right now it's on 169K, I bought it when it had 132K about 3+ years ago. The couple that had it before me took meticulous care of it -- I wish I could say the same, the only things I've had replaced out of necessity were the water pump, timing belt ("while we're in there"), rear catalytic converter & muffler, and front tires. However, I know that auto tranny is not going to last forever (I freak out that it's going to happen very randomly, since that's what the '85 family Volvo did with me -- started to hesitate when accelerating and it quit about 5 miles later :-p) and that at some point, it's not worth replacing. However... a Subaru guru told me that this particular model lasts a long, long time, and if you need to replace the tranny, it's an easy job and [relatively] cheap. The body is in generally good shape, although I swear I have to wash it daily whenever it snows here in N.Va - they pile the salt on the roads like crazy. There's a little rust spot above one of the wheel wells that I've treated with Permatex & will try to "patch over" with some bondo/paint so it doesn't look THAT obvious, ha. So - if it were up to you, and the car's tranny gave out tomorrow, would you can it? Or stick a new tranny in and drive around for another 150K? Just thought I'd get your valued opinions before I do anything drastic. :cool: [And, if you've read my other total newbie threads mainly on the torque converter not locking up -- still haven't had time to bring it to Andrewtech to see if one of the solenoids is on the fritz or the TCU is acting up. Which makes me curious as to whether the slightly excessive RPMs is going to kill the transmission that much faster or not.]

Nope, and nope as far as I know of - I bought the car used with 133k on it w/original trans & engine.

Mine does that when it's really cold (say <20), but it takes less than a mile to shift. Torque lockup, on the other hand... :-p Basically that's all I post about.

DURH! I knew that was too easy. I got the secret handshake and test leads confused. The power light blinks 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 24, 32, 33 Imp. manual says: 11 Duty solenoid A 12 Duty solenoid B 13 Shift solenoid 3 14 Shift solenoid 2 15 Shift solenoid 1 and 24 Duty solenoid C 32 Vehicle speed sensor 1 33 Vehicle speed sensor 2 Okay, call me or , but does this seem excessive to anyone? I mean, hitting all the solenoids doesn't exactly seem like winning the slots to me.

--> See post #3 Alrighty, I did the super-secret "connect the test leads and watch the CEL blink" thing on my Impreza and got 3 codes. (24, 12, and 32... 24 is a faulty b solenoid - makes perfect sense as TC lockup is heinously slow and that's been my major issue with the car). Gotta say, this is SO COOL! Green connection didn't have anything to give, just blinked normally. I reset the ODBI by connecting both sets of leads & following the instructions, but now it doesn't seem to record anything... just blinks normally when I test with the two black leads. For example, I can always count on the TC not locking up as soon as it should be, so wouldn't that be recorded? Checked it when I drove it to work (didn't lock up this AM) and again this PM (lockup occurred). Or do I have to drive it for a week straight before it records something? Thanks in advance.

OK, took a closer listen and sounds like it's coming from the speedometer/instrument panel. Is this something I can do myself, or do I have to take it in? (excuse the noob-ness of this.)

Feel free to move this, but I can't figure out for the life of me what the heck's going on with my car. A week or so ago, I noticed a sound coming from the bottom of the windshield [outside] - much like there was a leaf stuck in the hood and it was flapping around. So, I popped the hood, cleaned out every leaf/twig/acorn/whatever I could find and went on my merry way. Well... the sound still hasn't gone away. The only time the sort of crackling, "leaf-flapping" noise occurs is when I go above 15-20 mph... the frequency doesn't seem to change with speed, other than simply disappearing when I slow down to stop. Doesn't matter if the car's cold, warmed up, heater on, heater off (which was my original thought - not a blower problem apparently), etc. etc. - still that damn flapping leaf sound. Now, I could just turn up the radio and ignore it, but I'm curious. WTH is this coming from? Anyone have a similar problem?

Oops - sorry, my bad, I meant about 600 RPM not 1000... not paying attention! I'll check out what you guys suggested and let you know! I'm hoping the TC lockup problem is something relatively simple to fix, although the subie dealer did absolutely crap when I asked them to look into it... "You should do a transmission flush!" was their recommendation.

I was doing a bunch of research here yesterday on Subaru torque converters and problems with locking up. (Mine is extremely finicky, and doesn't engage when it typically should, thus resulting in me getting shoddy gas mileage.) Anyway, someone had posted this "How stuff works" article on torque converters: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/torque-converter.htm This part of the article (pg 2) is what gave me an "hmmm... I wonder?" moment yesterday: Common knowledge for 99% of you, but me being not so mechanically inclined, this was new information. Ever since I bought this car used (about 3 years ago), it's done this funny thing while sitting idle at a stoplight or whatever. I'll be sitting there, foot on the brake, and the car will kind of make this shuddering noise -- almost like something's pulling on the car. I usually just go up to Neutral, and the noise/vibration goes away. The engine's going about 1000 RPM when stopped at a light, in D, but when I shift it into neutral to make the pulling go away, it goes UP to around 1100-1200 RPM. This only happens about 60-70% of the time, doesn't matter if the car is warmed up or cold. Sooo, if the torque converter is involved in the car sitting idly waiting for the light to change, and I frequently have the above problem (combined with the lockup not engaging soon enough)... does this indicate that there's something wrong w/my TC? Like I said, I'm a complete noob and want to learn more about my car -- since I want it to last FOREVER! Any advice or guidance appreciated... thanks!

Ah ha! That's where I read it. Bummer, though. I was hoping to try the "secret handshake," but I don't think it'll work... now to tear apart my car to find the ECU and mess around with the multimeter to figure out WHAT'S causing my [extremely slow] torque lockup to not kick in... :-\