cheetah8799

Greetings! So a little while back I filled up my gas tank and did my usual of pressing the button to reset my trip odometer. I like to do the math in my head to figure my gas mileage every fillup, so this is a regular thing for me. Funny thing though is that when I pressed it in, I heard a click, like the button broke inside. The trip odometer went to 0, and when I drove away it wouldn't go up! The regular odometer works fine, nothing else is broken, just the trip odometer. Any thoughts as to what broke in there and how hard it will be to replace on my own? I've been living with it like this for about two months now since it's not a big deal, but if it's easy to fix, I'll do it. And in case you missed it in the subject, this is for a '98 Legacy Outback.

Greetings everyone. I am in the market for an OBDII scanner, and the AutoTap ATU looks to be a really nice unit. Is anyone here using this unit and able to reply with some quick comments on how it has worked out for you? Are there other units in the same price range which might be better? I'm currenty driving a '98 legacy outback.

I own a 98 Legacy Outback, 2.5l, manual. I get pretty much the EXACT same mileage as you. I bought it used, have always gotten the same mileage. Have replaced all the stuff others here have suggested already for you, never noticed much of a difference really. I get my best mileage on highway trips going about 50 to 65mph. Anything over 70 and I dip into the low 20s again. Winter is tough, sometimes only 20mpg in the city.

I own a 98 Legacy Outback and use a Yakima rack with extra wide bars with a set of kayak rollers and pads, as well as two bike trays. I also keep the stock cross bars in place for stability, since technically it's only rated for 100lb, and a canoe and kayak combined can go over that... Ya, the noise gets bad at freeway speeds. But there is no way around it. In the winter, I pull them off to avoid snow buildup and corrosion on the rack. Very noticable difference. If on the car you tested the noise is from the stock rack, then something is wrong. I most definately do NOT hear any extremely loud noise with just the stock cross bars in place. At least no more than if I pulled out the cross bars. And that is in any position, even if they are backwards, which the probably are. I'm not sure if they were changed after 98 though to be directional. As for the Yakima wind fairing. I own one, but never use it on my Outback. I did use it on my old Ford Taurus, and actually found that it caused WORSE gas mileage by up to a couple mpg. So I chose to live with the noise instead.

Any problems with combining the two things in the lock? Seems to me that spraying with a cleaner like carb cleaner or WD 40 would eat away all the gunk fine, but the 2nd coat of silicone or graphite would not go well with the solvent that's already in there. Better to wait a day or two before adding the lubricant?

I just wanted to post that I too have a '98 Legacy Outback with this exact same problem! It's amazing actually, I was just about to post my own thread to ask how to fix it. For me, I live in Minnesota, and it only sticks in the cold. It started last winter, about half the time it wouldn't work. Now though, I can't get the door open at all. On warmer days, I can hold the key in the unlock position and the door might open, but lately nothing works. I'll be sure to try the WD 40 in the handle and see if that helps. I've tried it before in the area where the door actually latches, but that hasn't helped. My driver side door lock sticks sometimes also, but it's the key moving, not the door opening. May have to try something similar there as well.

I had similar problems with my 98 legacy outback. Was the front main oil seal that was leaking. I was told here that it was a common problem. Unfortunately it was a real pain to fix because I had to remove the timing belt to get in there, all of which was new to me... On my car, it would drip slowly and blow back under the engine and collect on the exhaust heat shielding. When I would stop, smoke would rise up, and always made me nervous. Never was a big problem, couldn't even measure oil loss, but I just didn't like seeing and smelling the smoke. edit for typo...

I agree that the cam tool is a definate big help doing this job. When I did mine, with my brother's help, it was a major pain to get apart without the proper tool...

I too was going to suggest that you pull the covers off and look at the belt. I know on my 98 Legacy Outback it is pretty easy to do. I think can even be done without pulling off the radiator fans, but is a little trickier.

I own a 98 Legacy Outback, 5sp manual, 118k miles. About 10k miles or so ago I had to replace the front main oil seal. During the project I also had the clutch replaced. The clutch was done professionally, but everything else I did myself. About 2k miles or so after all that I started hearing some noise while shifting in the lower gears. I also hear noise if the RPMs are over say 3k or 4k in 4th or 5th gear and I let the car coast in gear. That noise is much louder than the noise I hear when shifting. Strangely, during the winter months when I first started hearing the noise while shifting, it would go away after driving a couple miles and the car warmed up. Now that it's getting hot here in Minnesota, the shifting noise doesn't seem to really go away after a few miles. So here's my speculation. I'm thinking maybe, hopefully, there is some loose heat shielding or something down under my car that rattles loudly during shifting or coasting in gear. Knowing how things usually turn out with car repairs though, I'm probably wrong. That's why I've decided to post here. I'm wondering if there are any known common issues with Legacy Outbacks that might cause this type of noise. Or maybe if anyone has any thoughts that can get me started on diagnosing the problem. So far I haven't done much to be honest. It's kinda hard to crawl under the car and listen when the noise only happens while the car is moving. The best I can describe it is that when the windows are down, it's much louder. It seems to come from directly under the car, not up in the engine compartment or anything. Anyone have any comments or suggestions? Thanks. -Josh

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I tried digging around where you guys suggested, but couldn't find what I need... I'll put more effort into it later, at this point it's just something I've been considering for a while. Darryl, I agree, the fog lights are pointed way too low. I'd have to figure out a way to get them pointed differently. I wonder if it's even possible...

I've got a 98 Legacy Outback. It has the stock fog lights. They only turn on when the main lights are set to low. When going to high, the fog lights turn off. What I'd like to be able to do is re-wire the way they turn on so that I can turn the on or off manually no matter what the main lights are set to. Does anyone see any reason I shouldn't do this? Maybe somehow it would draw too much power or something??? Only reason I'd want them on with high beams is when out in the sticks trying NOT to hit any deer or other animals... I'd rather shoot them with my bow than hit them with the car. I never use them in the city.

I had to get a couple replacement rims for my 98 Outback a couple years ago. Had a hell of a time finding the stock ones anywhere! Junk yards didn't have any! Ended up having one repaired, and maybe found one at a junk yard luckily. Anyway, maybe some older model Subaru rims will fit your 04 and you can check at some junk yards to get them?

I'm no expert, but here's what I've seen in the recent past... My 98 Legacy Outback w/ 5sp manual tranny idled rough when I replaced the timing belt. Turned out I was one tooth off on the timing... when fixed, ran great. When rough, I could feel the exhaust coming out of the muffler was puttering a bit. My girlfriend's 92? Toyota Camry recently blew a fuel injector. It would run, but idled rough. We replaced tons of stuff before we finally had a good shop diagnose it as the injector. Her exhaust puttered as well. anyway, good luck.

Thanks guys. A good friend of mine has an ODBII scanner and is going to loan it to me this weekend. I will likely replace the plug wires, and maybe the coil pack, depending on the cost. Mostly just as preventitive maintenance. I really really don't want to have to do the fuel pump. I hate doing those, so much work, dirty, pain in the butt...

This is regarding my '98 Legacy Outback wagon 2.5L 5sp manual. I'll try to keep this story short... This issue occured on Saturday in the early morning after my car sat in the rain/mist for 2 days straight without running at all. Temps ranged from 35F at night to about 55F in the day. Mist, rain, high wind and clouds the whole time. (I was hunting, had no need to go anywhere.) Last Saturday at 4am I was going to drive from one hunting spot to another, about 2 hour drive. I get about 2 miles from the house I was staying at and the car started running funny. I was at a stop sign, full stop, then went to go. The car jerked a bunch of times as if I had let the clutch out too fast without enough gas. So I got it into 2nd and it did it again! weird I thought. Then acceleration was poor, and the check engine light started flashing. I pulled over, stopped engine, checked under hood. Didn't seen any obvious problems. So I started the car and let it idle a few minutes before going back to the house I was staying at. I wasn't about to get stranded in the middle of nowhere at 4am... Anyway, later that morning after sleeping a bit and hunting deer for a couple hours I decided to look at the car. It idled fine, so I let it idle for a good 10 minutes. Revved the engine, no problems. did a couple short loops near the house, no problems. Then had my friend follow me as I drove it a good 5 miles, running up to about 60mph. No problems at all. The check engine light was on the whole time though. Then Sunday afternoon I had my dad follow me home (he arrived Saturday afternoon). It was about a 80 mile drive. No problems at all. Check engine light was on, but car drove great. This morning (Monday) I started the car. Check Engine light is now OFF!!! Same this afternoon. Anyway, sorry for the long story... At this point I'm trying to think of ideas. A coworker had the exact same problem with his 98 Outback once after a good day of rain. Same scenario. His ran fine ever since, but sold the car a couple years ago... I'm in the process of trying to borrow an ODBII scanner from another friend so I can check the car memory for the error codes, may not be til later this week though. My dad and I have thought of a few things: - fuel pump could be going out. - spark plug wires, didn't replace them when I did the plugs a good 45k or more miles ago. - some other wiring had moisture on it? Anyone else have any ideas?

Adnan, thanks for all the great assistance. All the suggestions here are way more than I could have come up on my own. The belt is a genuine Subaru belt, and yep, it's on the right direction. The original oil leak was very minor, and only dripped very slowly down the oil pump housing. I'd be suprised if much got splashed around like you described. I didn't look too hard though. I think my immediate concern now is the belt tension. In a week or so I'll open it up to check the belt and see what it's like in there. I'll try to get into the tensioner and see if it's tight like it should be. I don't want to tear off the whole pulley and stuff, so hopefully I can just get in enough by pulling back the top of the central housing piece.... i hope.... The low idle isn't a critical issue at the moment I guess. I'll check the areas you suggested though, just to see. I did test today the air conditioning, since when on it should raise the RPMs to 700 - 900 I believe. According to my tac, it did go up to around 600 - 700 I suppose. Not as high as it should be, but a definate increase. That's a good sign.

Well, when we installed the new belt, it was really tight to get on there. From what I'd read in the Chilton's manual, the way to do it was to get the belt on, then install the final idler pulley. We did that, and getting the last idler pulley on was really tough because of the tightness of the belt. When I released the tensioner, it did put more pressure on the belt. Regarding the tensioner. Chilton's said to compress it in a vise to get the hydraulic piston to go back inside. I did it, and very slowly as the instructions said. I used a small allen wrench to act as a pin, and it held ok. And when released, it the piston did come back out. The Subaru documentation I've read from endwrench.com says to NOT use a vise, and that a special hydraulic vise is required to re-insert the pin, and that doing it any other way will damage the tensioner. I'm not sure how much of that is fact or not, but it's possible I suppose. Is it likely that the tensioner is messed up? Another thing to note is that when I first started working on this project, I was trying to locate the oil leak. I removed both side covers, and only the bottom of the middle cover. That's when I found that the oil was leaking from the oil pump seal on the crankshaft. To see that, I had to use my fingers to bend the belt up and out of the way a little. Not in a damaging way, just to get it to move a little. I don't think it was really any tighter or looser than what it is like now. I could be mistaken though, hard to say for sure. I guess the thing for me to do now is to take apart the housing again and look at the timing. If it is off, then I know something is moving that shouldn't be...

Adnan, I agree, the belt was a little more loose than I thought it should have been. It was really tight trying to get it on, but now it's loose. weird. It wasn't loose loose though, still on pretty solid, and to actually rotate the sprocket I had to use a 10 - 12" wrench and crank on it kinda hard. I'll take a look for any hoses or anything that may be old/soft/disconnected. I made sure to put everything back on that I took off, but you never know... especially with rookie mechanics like myself.

Hey guys, guess what! I got the rough puttering idle taken care of! I opened it back up and looked at the timing. When everything else was lined up, the lower left (when facing) was off by 1 tooth counterclockwise. So I rotated it clockwise one tooth. I was able to do it because the belt was just barely loose enough all around to get it to rotate under the tension. Anyway, I started it up, and it was smooth! I put it all together and drove around the block a few times to make sure. Every time I stopped to check, the puttering was gone, and it idled smooth! I'm going to take it for a drive to the store and see how it goes for a longer distance. As for the slow idle though, it's still idling around 400rpm. It's supposed to be 600 - 800, so I'll have to maybe figure that out still.

yep, it had the marks on it. We actually got those lined up the first try. As for looking twice, well, how does 3 or 4 times sound? I think our big problem though is that we may not have turned the engine by hand enough to get it to move stuff around, just in case. I'll take off the covers tomorrow and see what it looks like. -Josh

Greetings everyone. I'm new here, but have owned my 98 Legacy Outback (w/ 2.5l engine and 5sp manual) for about 4 years now. This may be a long story, but I really could use some advice from other Subaru owners and mechanics. A few days ago I finally took apart my Outback to fix an oil pump seal leak that I've had for almost 2 years now. It's the main seal on the crank shaft that goes throught the oil pump. Apparently this is a common problem with the Subaru 2.5l engines. While I was at it I decided to replace the timing belt as well since I had to take it off anyway. The car has 109k on it. Prior to doing this, I copied the Chilton's manual pages relating to timing belt installation and removal for my engine. So I went at it. No problems til I took off the belt. Chilton's didn't warn me that the left side camshaft sprockets were under tension and would spring free when I removed the belt! I now have a document from engwrench.com that shows the proper tools to hold them in place, but hindsight is 20/20. They sprung, but didn't rotate super far, so I think we were able to line them back up by hand later, they may have damaged the valves though... So by now my dad arrived to help. He wasn't too worried (i was...). We replaced the oil pump seals and started work on installing the new belt. We lined up the TDC on the right side camshaft sprockets without any trouble, they weren't under tension. The left side ones were, so when we go to putting the belt over them, my dad used a socket wrench to rotate and hold them in place while I seated the belt. We got the belt seated, and installed the idlers and such. At this point everything was lined up. We double and triple checked everything. The only problem though was that the double-notched markes on the right camshaft sprockets were a tad off. Not a whole tooth, but a little. Apparently from what I've read, this means the engine is a little off, but it can't be fixed. So we put it all back together, but now for the bad part that really has me worried. The engine now idles really low. No strange noises, but really low, and it putters a little coming out of the muffler. It also idles rough, so when I sit in the car I can feel the puttering. Same frequency as the exhaust puttering. When I apply gas and put it in gear the car runs great. I've driven the car about 40 to 60 miles since doing the work, and no warning lights or anything have come on. SO! Now what? I'm thinking the engine needs to be timed, and I have a timing light, and know how to hook it up, but not sure what to do next. I can't find any documentation on exactly how to do this. I also am not sure if I messed up the valves. From what I've read, it's really easy to do on this engine... I suppose that could account for the puttering if it is firing wrong, but I'm not sure. If anyone here can help, I'd really appreciate some advice right about now. Before I freak out any more... Thanks. -Josh