ar2

thanks to all for the initial replies. The car is pristine, no service issues (other than speedometer - and grossgary was right, it does read high) to date - only scheduled maintenance at dealer, who is the one that diagnosed current problem. With no other service on car during its year in operation, this certainly appears to be an assembly glitch. Somewhere online I had seen some references to prior problems with these bolts -because they are apparently shorter than in other cars. I have no clue, didn't even know what a flywheel bolt was until yesterday afternoon but initial feedback doesn't indicate it is a recent or chronic problem. Now waiting on "Subaru regional" to authorize warranty repair. Doesn't seem to be any issue with who should cover the repair, I just wonder how you repair the car correctly after the bolt came loose and left gashes everywhere.

I've got an '08 Outback with 12,000 miles that suddenly started making a loud loose metal on fan sound this week. Dealer determined one of the flywheel bolts had come out, and 3 other bolts were so loose they could be removed by hand. I know nothing about cars, but the loose bolt created some large gashes on engine and on other nearby parts. Read somewhere online that there have been problems in the past with Legacy flywheel bolts. Anyone know about this problem? How do you fix something like this? Perhaps related, when the repair tech was getting into the problem, he showed me a metal disc (real name??) in the same area - I had previously complained that the speeedometer was 3-4 miles off from GPS measured speed. Tech said bolt hole in this disc was too large, causing disc to slip/have some play and that likely explained speedometer error. This is all new to me but sound serious. Help!