FindingForester

I discovered with my wife's Forester that some aftermarket rotors have a different profile than the originals. It didn't seem to affect the braking but it did cause some annoying noises when nearing a stop. I eventually had the original ones turned (one was quite warped) and put them back on, and the noise went away.

That seems to not be the case. With the same pads but with the original rotors back on the car, my wife reports that the noise is gone. I'd say it most likely has something to do with the aftermarket rotors having a different profile from the originals. I would repeat that the original rotors were cleaned up quite substantially (I gave them a naval jelly and wire brush treatment before I took them to be turned on a lathe).

I wish I could remember; it was a Japanese brand, and I ordered them online from either Kragen (now O'Reilly) or Pep Boys a couple months in advance of doing the brake job. The pads are Raybestos.

Or more likely, with the pads. Since the noise wouldn't appear until after the car had been driven at least a few minutes with several applications of the brakes, it was probably related to thermal expansion of the steel rotors (coefficient of about 0.000011 to 0.000013 per C°), which would increase—though slightly—the diameter of both the raised portion and the narrow ring between it and the braking surface. Perhaps enough to scape against the edge of the brake pads. You can't really tell anything by the rust in this photo. The original rotors are cleaned up pretty thoroughly. They were very scaled, especially after sitting in my garage for a couple years. Both the original and aftermarket rotors develop visible rust markings on the braking surfaces even as the car sits overnight.

The rotor on the right is an aftermarket rotor that I had installed on my wife's 2005 Forester a couple years ago. On the left is one of the original rotors, after resurfacing at a local shop. You might be able to see in the photo that the aftermarket rotor has a raised area, about a half millimeter or so, just inside the braking surface. The original rotor is actually recessed slightly inside of the braking surface. That raised area apparently was just enough to cause a moaning, slightly grinding sound as the car came to a stop after a couple applications of the brakes. This noise was mystifying. Some friends suggested that the rotors were glazed, so I tried roughing up the rotor surfaces a bit a couple times with sandpaper. The noise came back. I disassembled the brakes and made sure everything was in place, no bent clips or anything. Nothing seemed amiss. Added some anti-seize lube to the backs of the pads. The noise came back again anyway. Finally in frustration I decided to replace the rotors with the originals. One of the original rotors had developed a significant warp (which is why I had decided originally to save time by replacing the rotors when I did the front brake job a couple years ago, instead of leaving the car jacked up for a few hours to have the rotors done) so I had them turned at a local shop to prepare them for reuse. When I compared the original and aftermarket rotors side by side, that raised area was a pretty obvious and visible difference. The original, resurfaced rotors are back on the car. So far, no noise. The lesson I learned is that just because an auto parts store lists an aftermarket product for a given year, make, and model, it might not actually be a good fit.

A poor electrical connection will do that. Considering the amount of current that an alternator is often called upon to produce, every connection has to be in great condition. For example, even a resistance of only 0.05Ω, which is too low to measure reliably with a convention ohmmeter, would dissipate 180 watts of power if the alternator is putting out 60 amperes, which it might be called on to do after starting the engine, with the lights on, etc. (Power = I^2 × R). That would be like having three 60-watt soldering irons applied to that single point, If the current output drops to 30 A, the dissipation would drop to 45 watts—still a sizeable amount of heat to develop in a single small point, and it would probably get quite hot to the touch. That's what causes connectors to melt and burn.

RallySport Engineering (http://ocautosites.com/RallySport/) in Costa Mesa is about 1-1.5 hours south of Pasadena. They're very good. You'll probably want someplace closer--and there are probably some good ones that are--but I don't happen to know of them.

Thanks for the reply, Jamie. I couldn't tell if the other two were backordered or if subarugenuineparts.com had gotten my quantity wrong (I've had that happen on some web orders on other sites). Thanks very much for your help.

From subarugenuineparts.com. I sent an e-mail to remind them that I ordered three but only received one. Subarugenuineparts.com has great prices but the shipping for just one blade wouldn't offer any savings over buying from the local Subaru dealer.

Hey, there must be a shortage of these blades; I ordered three (a couple spares) and received one. :-\

Yup, a wiper (not washer) refill. I'd been making the rounds at auto parts stores to no avail; the Trico, Anco, and Bosch books had no listing for either the blade or the refill. Thanks for the info and part number, Subie Gal. That's a reasonable price for an OEM blade. I'd done a search on subarugenuineparts.com yesterday and nothing came up, but sometimes searching by keywords can be quirky. The specific part number helps a lot!! I'll buy a couple extra to have on hand.

Damn, is the dealer the only place to get a rear wiper refill for a 2005 Forester?

The Eastwood Company offers these: http://eastwood.resultspage.com/search?p=Q&ts=custom&w=windshield&submit.x=22&submit.y=14 I've used their Glass Polishing Kit Pro and it worked great, though I'd definitely recommend using a buffer/polisher instead of a handheld power drill like I did.

I haven't changed the plugs in a Sube but in my 1988 VW Golf, now with over 245000 miles, I ran my first set of Bosch platinums for well over 100000 miles. I just removed them every 25 to 30 thousand miles, and since they looked good I lightly brushed them, regapped them, put fresh anti-seize on the threads, and put them back in. I finally replaced them a couple years ago when I figured I'd taken the spark plug frugality thing far enough. But I never had a problem with them.

When the tank is low, try maybe 1/2 tank of reg and see if the car pings or knocks or runs like crap under acceleration. If it doesn't, you're most likely fine. If it does, then top off the tank with the higher octane. Both regular and premium gas have the same heat of combustion--that is, the same amount of energy per gallon. Higher octane gas is more resistant to preignition.

Synthetic, inferior? Are you sure about that?

That's what I was thinking, too. I've noticed that few inverters sold in stores have any statement of efficiency. But as others have said, if the load isn't drawing 500 watts, the inverter will be running at less than maximum as well. I would be really surprised if a baby bottle warmer drew 500 watts. That would be quite a bit of heat (nearly 120 calories/second), unless it warms a dozen bottles at a time or something.

Well, you're spreading misinformation. Clipping is not DC, and it doesn't make the speaker "work almost like a solenoid." Period. I can only go by what I know about loudspeakers and how they fail. Bob Lee 2005 Forester XS; 13,000+ miles 1988 VW Golf GL; 243,000+ miles Costa Mesa, California Previous Subes: 1992 Legacy L station wagon (sideswiped; totaled) 1995 Legacy LS station wagon (head-on; totaled) 1998 Forester L (rear ended; totaled)

I didn't say that loudspeakers can't be fried, only that you're not going to fry one by putting into it much, much less power than it can dissipate. Here's the limb that I'm out on: Two things kill speakers: overpowering and overexcursion. Overpowering is obvious. A speaker's continuous power rating is essentially a thermal rating. It's how much power it can handle on average over time and still not overheat. Overheating can cause the voice coil to burn open like a fuse, can melt the adhesives that hold the coil former, spider, and cone, and can cause other related damage, not only on paper but on kevlar and other materials, too. More than 90% of the audio power put into a typical loudspeaker turns into heat, and not acoustic energy. Therefore, speaker coils tend to heat up pretty readily. Overexcursion is excessive power at too low a frequency. The distance that the speaker cone has to travel to produce a certain sound pressure level, all else being equal, is inversely proportional to the square of the frequency. Thus, if you run a sine wave signal generator into a speaker and then run the frequency down one octave, keeping the voltage constant, the speaker cone will be traveling in and out four times the distance that it was before. If you go down far enough, the cone/coil assembly will bottom out, and that can cause damage, especially at high power levels. It could also crease the cone, or cause the former to break loose. If the loudspeaker is rated at 200 watts of power, you can't "fry" it with a 5-watt amp unless you modify the speaker. For example, if it's a full-range multi-way speaker and you bypass the passive crossover, you can easily pump way too much power into a midrange or tweeter, because in a 200-watt speaker system, the mid or tweet may typically be rated at only about 15 to 40 watts, which could make them vulnerable to overexcursion damage. If "underpowering" speakers was dangerous, we could never turn off our sound systems, because the zero watts that results would be the worst possible underpowering. Bob Lee 2005 Forester XS; 13,000+ miles 1988 VW Golf GL; 243,000+ miles Costa Mesa, California Previous Subes: 1992 Legacy L station wagon (sideswiped; totaled) 1995 Legacy LS station wagon (head-on; totaled) 1998 Forester L (rear ended; totaled)

No, this is incorrect. You couldn't possibly "fry" 200-watt loudspeakers with a 5-watt amp. Even if you drive the amp into extremely heavy clipping, the worst that could happen is it would put out 10-watt square waves. A 200-watt loudspeaker should be able to dissipate that much power easily. The voice coil does not "try to hold [a] signal." Clipping causes heavier than normal current to pass through the output transistors, but since they are typically in saturation at that point, there is no appreciable voltage drop across them. Therefore the power dissipation in the transistors during clipping is not as high as at midpower. The average power of the audio signal is higher than normal, though, and that will cause heating. The worst heat dissipation in a class AB output section is normally at around 1/3 of full power. Bob Lee 2005 Forester XS; 13,000+ miles 1988 VW Golf GL; 243,000+ miles Costa Mesa, California Previous Subes: 1992 Legacy L station wagon (sideswiped; totaled) 1995 Legacy LS station wagon (head-on; totaled) 1998 Forester L (rear ended; totaled)

Don't worry. Unless the locks had been changed, an authorized Subaru dealer can make new keys for you based on the key code associated with your car's VIN. A locksmith could make keys for you by duping the key(s) you have but unlike the dealer, probably wouldn't have any way of determining the key code from the VIN.

My additional recipe for car longevity: keep engine RPMs down (< 3K, if possible) until it is reasonably warmed up. Oh, and make sure no one crashes into you.

When the speedometer stops working, does the odometer also stop advancing (or do something else strange)?

Yeah, struts at 130K is not bad at all. My '88 VW Golf has been averaging maybe 70K to 80K per set of fronts (shorter life when I lived in a wintry climate, although driving to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada has also seemed to shorten their lives). And brakes--when you need them, you need them. I'll bet they've been done at least once before on your vehicle. Sometimes things come up like that at about the same time.

The last time I had a dupe made for a Subaru key I had to go to a locksmith because the stores I'd gone to--OSH, Home Depot, and some other chains--either didn't have the right blanks or couldn't seem to cut a key that actually worked (the original key had very little wear, too). The key made at the locksmith cost about 3x what the other stores cost, but since I'd wasted a couple hours on them I figured it was worth it anyway.