idosubaru

Yep, you're on it and have the right idea. I'd look through online reviews via google, tire rack, etc and narrow in on the specifics you're concerned about - snow and longevity. Reread my advice concerning reviews above. See which ones do well in snow and longevity. Go through the recommendations already given and read reviews and see if any of them fit. In my experience lower price point tires often degrade in snow performance by year 3 so I'm hesitant to say that any one tire is great in the snow without compelling reviews/experiences otherwise. And I don't have enough statistically relevant experience in that regard to answer your question. But maybe your snow use/concerns aren't that high, so it won't matter. Yes high mileage rated tires can totally be worth it if snow and messy traction isn't a concern. Down south, people that don't drive in the snow or have impeccable local maintenance, flexible work schedules, or people that have dedicated winter tires can run whatever they want the rest of the year, or people who have multiple cars. I routinely have tires I wouldn't dare drive in the snow, but I have more than one Subaru and I have an extra set of wheels with dedicated snow tires so my other tires can be anything I want.

That's what I've been asking for - the conversation is much more productive now that we know you're concerned about mileage. As matt said, 4WD isn't very forgiving and longer lifespan comes with harder materials which doesn't perform as well, particularly in snow which is often an issue for Subaru owners. The types of tires it seems you're leaning towards are likely to not perform well in the snow. When it comes to winter driving, tires are far more important than 4WD. Many people act as if 4WD is so superior that tire choice doesn't matter for performance - which is not true at all. Tires make a bigger difference than 4WD for snow performance. So this might come down to whether or not snow performance matters to you - look up reviews and try to find reviews of them from people who use those tires in real snow conditions. The reviews are heavily biased though so you need to look carefully. Many people who need snow performance won't even buy them so you're not getting great feedback from demanding snow use. They're going to have inflated reviews of snow performance because the majority of people buying them don't need or have very demanding snow needs. Sift through the reviews until you find a few that seem to indicate people who really need snow performance.

Yokohama is used at the shop my parents go to in MD in a significant snow area. But the roads around there are in pristine condition so this wouldn’t say much about durability. It’s a family owned shop that is really good and been around for decades, I doubt they’d go with annoying tires. I’ve had good personal experience with yoko but not enough to say anything about them Go to online tire stores like tire rack and discount tire online and read reviews and ratings for the tires you’re interested in. Some of the individual comments will be terribly inaccurate so don’t focus on those but the overall ratings . Start there. you never answered what you didn’t like with your previous tires.

The easy solution is use (legacy) Outback axles for Outbacks. They almost never fail so theres thousands of OEM available cheap all over the country. Since they’re so easy to find it’s easy to get the same model. Could the axle be fine and the issue isn’t the axles? impreza axles are said to have different widths but sometimes those interchange without issue? But I haven’t seen gobs of good info on it. Rears can also be left and right depending on the model/year?

We can’t help if you ignore real information. Why didn’t you like them? buy something that overcomes what you don’t like. Don’t just guess or assume random comments on the internet will magically address your unspoken and unknown concerns.

You have to sift through them. I’m not a well versed tire expert on all brands or any brands really. Quit thinking about whether continentals are good or not. it’s specific tire dependent. They will have some very good tires and some big loosers. Choose carefully. I avoid them because it’s annoying trying to tell which are good or bad and keeping up with tire product name changes. As for the other ones - honestly I have no idea. I’ve seen them and haven some general opinions but nothing more than anecdotal and not trends. So I’ll keep them to myself as there’s enough tire Babbage online. In general - If they’re lower cost I’d guess they’re prone to a mix of the issues I mentioned above. They’re not lower cost because they’re using the same high end materials, compounds, manufacturing and designs as higher cost tires. A lot of tire design comes down to materials and construction towards ultraviolet and oxygen degradation. Circumstantially it seems better tires excel here And that makes sense since it doesn’t sell so cheaper tires don’t need what consumers can’t tell or care about. It’s a good market fit. That’s all subjective guessing on my part though what I’ve seen seems to suggest something like that is happening And for that the cheaper tires have great uses - just choose accordingly and I wish we knew the data to make it easier

Also - why are you not buying whatever tire your previously had or have bought? What’s the factor causing you to post here ?

Get Michelin - nearly everything they make is excellent, safe, and durable. They cost more but the traction durability and longevity you get over the 5-10 sets of tires you’ll buy in your life are worth it for many people mastercraft is probably the best low cost option. You can pretty much pick one of those and never think about tires again. Get Michelin for quality or Mastercraft for price point.... and still good quality Other companies have really good tires - but duds to. They can be annoying to sift through unless it’s a specific well known AT or off-road tire, etc. choose carefully if you’re going that route. Read lots of online reviews (but reviews have issues I’ll mention later) I’m not a shop but I’ve worked on over 100 subarus, more than a few personal cars. I’ll favor Michelin but recommend/buy lower cost tires for certain vehicles but it depends on the vehicle and use. Not all lower tier tires are the same but some clear trends I’ve seen: lower cost tires can age poorly. They don’t take the elements as well (namely sun exposure) and can show degradation in 2-3 years as well as terribly degraded winter traction. This is rare but I’ve seen wrecked subarus in the winter with two year old tires. With the rubber cracking I would have thought the owners had bad memories except for the date of manufacture stamp on each tire. *if someone doesn’t drive a ton of miles I won’t recommend lower tier. I don’t like lower tier on most daily driver cars much beyond 3 years unless they’re garaged, out of the sun, not snow critical. So if someone doesn’t drive much and are likely to have the tires 5 years I want higher end. The cheaper tires snow traction at year 3 isn’t nearly as good as it was at year 1 or 2. *if someone wants really good snow traction for years I don’t recommend them. They’ll do great year one, but year 2 or 3 could be way worse in the snow. My guess is it’s related to the same materials compounding issues eluded to in the aging issues so take note of what kind of snow driving you see. Do you drive no matter what, do you get off when it snows, are the roads well maintained, do you have flex hours? I have seen dozens of tires with side wall bulges (granted the roads here are awful). Im talking dozens of times. This happens most of the time on the lower cost brands. I’ve probably had it happen once or twice and forgotten but Michelin’s and nokians rarely do that. and reviews can easily miss this. Since degradation and snow traction are long term issues 3 years down the road, reviews are nearly worthless because they don’t bear this out. Or they are so few you can’t distinguish them from the anecdotal reviews which are probably inaccurate or blaming tires for user error, rotations, alignment, car condition, etc The lower cost tires work well in certain situations but make your choice around physical realities and your expected use and need for safety, rough roads, time and mileage, not just opinion and price. The altimax RT43s are a great example. People love them. They are decent. But they side bulge easily on terrible roads and snow traction in my area isn’t as good by year 3 as year 1. I’ll run them sometimes on certain vehicles and not others. I’ll run them if they’re not needed for snow (have dedictaed snow tires) and on subarus with better road conditions or if it’s a larger tire and not low profile. due to road conditions here I have to mostly avoid them in this area but they’re a good fit for some college students who are here temporarily and not driving much or on roads like I drive.

There’s nothing lucky about it, the leverage (the engagement points are a larger diameter from center than the nut diameter) and engagement characteristics aren’t enough to damage anything. I get it, I’m an engineer, wondered that too, and was careful to pay attention to engagement, etc and I’ve done it a zillion times. Nothing to it. But yeah there are plenty of other ways to do it. The sprocket is easily damaged, I’ve seen damaged sprockets: marring of the teeth and bent guides on the side. Take care against those issues and have at it.

Turning the offending rotor fixes this *every single time* Pay close attention to braking or try to feel it by rotating the wheels by hand- turn that one rotor and you’re done Or turn them both if you cant tell properly clean and grease the slide pins and make sure the pin bushings aren’t swollen-loose and impeding pin movement - and Subaru rotors will last 300,000 miles on average use daily drivers.

Why not repair it? It’s not aluminum or stainless so shouldn’t be a big deal to weld a chunk in there. It looks almost usable as is and not much is needed. Cover it and keep that edges from hitting the belt. Machine shop accustomed to custom work could do it. Some could make a new one from the dimensions. Got any local large businesses you could ask the machinists to do it? As an engineer I’ve been around large global corporation machine shops and was surprised some of these guys have milling machines at home and can whip out a pulley rather easy. Worth an ask if there’s any local entity like that v

When it cuts off - it restarts immediately? There's no patterns (hills, cold start, highway, coasting...)? Test or swap the CTS? What would the pro's do here - log data so they can see what happens just before it cuts off?

Oh right, I just meant "3 possible" coolant temperature devices - senders or switches. I don't keep track of which engines have which ones because I know it varies some - I just keep in mind what to look for when I'm working on engine XYZ so to speak.

Use the ones they've said, find one that's based in the Northwest, I just forget which one that is, but you should be able to look them up easily enough. You want to buy from the big online dealers who have higher volume, maybe closer warehouses, and are constantly involved with the warehouse, back end logistics and shipping. Average dealers aren't set up to do those things efficiently. They should tell you if they have it in stock or not. If time is an issue, or the part you're ordering is large, isn't common (and they're unlikely to have it in stock) ask them if they have it and how long, consider that it might take 1-2 days longer than they say, or just order it locally.

Swap the coolant temp sensor next There are three coolant temp components - one triggers the radiator fans, one is for the dash gauge cluster engine temp, and one is for the ECU. Swap or replace the one for the ECU. When it cuts out to you get any symptoms just before or around that time such as: A. dash lights lighting up B. drivability issues, engine getting weak C. noises Or it goes from perfect running to not at all instantaneously?

Nice work - by next week you'll build your own controller! Can you test the lock cylinder signals for fidelity, or mimic them insitu so you're not reliant on questionable signals?

FSM all the way. The old style two piece tensioners were way more reliable than the new one piece units. I never replaced those two piece units. The one piece new style I replace with every belt change unless it’s a rusty worthless heap. I used to swap newer Subarus from the one style tensioners and install the two piece ones for that reason. Now they’re so old that’s not as desirable so I don’t.

96 does have misfire codes and is OBD - read the codes first. There could be pending codes. Clean or swap the idle control motor/valve if it’s usually cutting out when you take your foot off the gas....coasting, idling, etc. is it cutting out under load - while speeding up with foot on pedal or when coasting ?

First- no I don't have any leads. I've had the same problem with 99 and that generation. It's been awhile and I can't recall many details but I've wrestled with these as well. You're not alone. One thing I do remember is a small tweak in the process could make it work - keep in mind I'm totally making these up because I don't remember, these have rusted out of mainstream around here awhile ago! But anyway - like when do you let off the brake? or do you leave the key "on" or "off" after that 10 cycles?...Remember, I'm making those up, I just remember how ambiguous a step or two could be interpreted once I got it to work. So read each step carefully and try to think of additional interpretations or try a few iterations with slight variations. I guess you're certain the FOB's are good? It would certainly be worth stopping in and asking what it would cost to try to program some remotes - maybe he would get lucky and they'd help him out. 2000+ stuff is much easier than what he's dealing with but maybe the SSM would be magic for them.

That's great, glad it drives well. I love daily driving my XT6. It was down for a few days while I just replaced the timing belt, water pump, crank seals, cam seals, etc. I was so glad to park my 09 legacy and get back to the 89 XT6 !

1. Rust - western folks are hit or miss when it comes to rust. Many have no experience and avoid rust, thereby making themselves useless for any useful prognosis for rust. Post pictures or get a well informed Subaru specific opinion from someone familiar with rust on daily drivers. 2. turbos'....others can answer that 3. Oil leaks are not from everywhere - there's just so much oil they can't tell where it's coming from and they know you don't want to pay $500 just for them to clean it all up and then start diagnosing. Nothing they can do for a car that puked for years or quarts and quarts of oil and neglected fixing it. 4. Find the source of the leak and fix it first. If you want to replace a bunch of gaskets as a guess then replace the following - this isn't a bad idea on older Subaru engines anyway as the valve cover gaskets and seals are all prone to leak very frequently. It's standard practice for me to do all this on a new to me XT6 (very similar to your car - same crank and cam seals) a. valve cover gaskets first and PCV valve b. crank seal, cam seal, cam cap orings, and reseal the oil pump, and water pump (this is all behind the timing belt so do it all at the same time and include a timing belt and all new pulleys if you want a reliable daily driver). These long shaft water pumps are prone to leak more than newer stuff so good to replace the water pump with the timing bits. I prefer Subaru seals on older engines - I dont' know if companies have updated EA parts or not but I've definitely seen mis-sized crank and maybe cam seals from aftermarket companies on EA and ER engines like 10 years ago. The OD was slightly too large and would be difficult to install and prone to leak afterwards if you crammed them in. I don't do enough of those older Subaru's any more to know if that's still possible or it was only certain companies. Ideally for the leak: 1. clean up the oil first so you can diagnosis the source of the leak 2. replace the PCV with a new Subaru PCV valve 3. identify the source of the leak (again - post pictures underneath the car) 4. repair the most egregious leak first 5. monitor oil loss and see how much you're loosing

you're good, I know you can think and dialogue through things and have gobs of experience interesting. makes sense - prep is critical and variables are many.

I'm not looking for blanket statements or anecdotes - I understand restoration guys hate POR 15 because rust has one solution - cut it out - I get that for their line of work. But they say it's terrible, so clearly it's not the magic in a can that some people profess. All of which is no shock. So what's a healthy understanding of what POR 15 can, and can not do, for us practical folks daily driving Subaru's for a few decades? I don't want to avoid it if it can help sometimes but I don't want to waste time either for a "maybe"

yes it's supposed to go back in the same way it came, it should have a marking on it - usually it's the letter "B" on XT6's. take note if it's facing in or out upon removal or just mark the rotor with a grease pen. having the FSM will help here, as that is mentioned.

For the oil pump shaft nut. You have to hold the shaft of the oil pump to remove the nut on the shaft. A 32mm socket fits perfectly with zero play over the 4 lobes on the end of the engine side oil pump shaft.