idosubaru

what kind of "experience" are you looking for? 4WD, how it differs from other cars, how it differs from other subarus, function, performance, reliability, easy to work on? can't tell you what to like in terms of looks, interior and function. that's fairly individualistic. they are easy to work on. EJ25's have head gasket issues, piston slap and loose more block bearings than any other subaru ever made. if you're fine with it then just keep that in mind as your shopping. that might mean not leveraging every cent towards one nor paying top dollar for one. if you're test driving look for signs of overheating and read up about "torque bind" in this forum. other than that - good cars and you should enjoy them.

WOW - $550 is insane. particularly considering you can probably run this car to 100,000 miles on nothing but oil and filter changes. times have changed drastically in the past 10 to 20 years. dealers make almost their entire profit margins not on selling new cars at all - but on services and used cars. the trends and data on the shifts in profit for car dealers is very interesting, it's a complete 180 from a decade or two ago....because of stuff like this. yes you can do it yourself. look up the 30,000 mile maintenance items or someone will post it here and we'll tell you what to do. check all your fluid levels and change the oil for sure. this should be a sticky or something....."X miles service" are marketing tools that generate massive revenue for the dealership. you're paying for a very small percentage of legitimate services. you're paying for $100 worth of service you need (at the most!) and the rest is BS marketing hype. they got words and filler but it's mostly nonessential or brainless. and no you don't need to change your brake fluid. but if you wanted too that wouldn't cost all that much. you don't have age or mileage working against you here. i'd personally wait until 100k or 5 years to change it unless the system was opened or there were issues. if i come to cinci can i do your 30k maintenance for $300 - save you big bucks!!

i used to buy from advanced - which meant wearever silvers and golds. they worked fine. i think my comments would have been much like yours - wear fast and tons of dust (seem to go hand in hand!). some wearevers used to have a life time warranty - there's an option if you're blowing through them often. i'm a ceramic fan now, they noticeably improve braking. and no/less nasty dust! haven't bought into any particular brand but NAPA has been my goto place for ceramics so far.

sorry - i was replying to his squeaking and suggest "he" stay away from cheap pads due to his squeaking issues, not because i have anything against them. sounds like he's attributing his squeaking to "non Subaru parts". that's not the case but if he's going to think that then maybe he should avoid pep boys and whatever brakes they use. and in the same breath - mention that i've used cheap pads plenty of times with no noise in the hopes he will understand that's not normal if the job is done right. i'm kind of replying to two things, facts and feeling because in the end "perception is reality". i have never had any problem with the el-cheapo's on subarus. i don't use them any more for myself because i think other pads offer better braking.

wow - this will be awesome. when you find another hatch - park it right next to the burban. have her sit in one - take photo - sit in the other - take photo. then splice them together. that would be awesome! something funny about burban with a lift to a hatch.... a guy i know wanted to sell his hatch last year. it's an 88 with only 80,000 miles on it and other than the interior being beat is in great shape - no rust somehow. but it's FWD. if you're interested let me know and i'll shoot him an email.

yours is an interference engine. it's annoying the way they do "model years". but a 1997 model year vehicle has a 1996 manufacture date. so all 1997's have a manufacture date of 1996. when we say all 1997 and up EJ22's have interference engines we're talking about the model year. so yours is a 1997, which has an interference EJ22. which means you'll need to replace some of the timing belt pulleys when you do the timing belt job. on a higher mileage vehicle i always get the ebay kits - they come with all the pulleys and the belt. or i'll regrease the pulleys myself, there's a thread posted on how to do that. there's probably some cross-over so if you have to know for sure then you need to verify by something other than the date. by cross over i mean that i do not think that 12/31/95 and 01/01/96 is a magic number where they just quit installing the non interference engines in anything. i know that to be true of some things (like Phase II engines) and would only assume it's true here as well. though yours being right in the middle is hard to imagine it not being an interference engine. with the mileage on yours i'd rather have all new pulleys as i can promise that unless they've been replaced before they are all low on grease internally.

nah, not at all. many of us have done dozens or hundreds of subaru brake jobs and have never used Subaru parts on the brakes. quality pads and changing fluid are huge, but Subaru parts are not needed at all for brakes. what is odd that your shop did that most never do is use different pads on different sides - that is very bizarre. shops almost always replace both sides at the same time. so they gave you a good deal by only replacing one caliper, nice shop. most would swear you have to have both calipers replaced and the same pads on both sides. stay away from cheap pads and make sure you have a good mechanic. they probably used some real junk pads is my guess. i've used the cheapest pads around dozens of times and never had any squeaking issues. and of course the point was already made that subaru is using rotors made by some other company...that makes rotors!

that doesn't matter, there's always a few that don't. they can be a real PITA to get out of the bores. i don't even bother since I always take them to a machine shop they take them out. you'll be pleasantly surprised tomorrow, nothing sounds out of the ordinary at all.

usually. it's typically very loud on start up. much louder than a normal ticking HLA. for now we can only assume it hasn't run long enough. it's got oil right? i've seen frozen HLA's - the only way to fix that is to replace the bad HLA. and when i say frozen - i mean they don't give under vice pressure, heated in an over, soaking for days with all sorts of detergents...etc. if they're that bad they have to be replaced.

the 1999's are significantly different. i wouldn't say it's impossible but they differ substantially. pretty sure the intake manifolds aren't even swappable from a 99 EJ22 to an earlier model (98 or earlier). and i don't believe the wiring is exact either, like you said. i know someone that may be interested in the transmission should you want to sell it, he's in KY. oh and you should sell the transmission for about $50. just kidding, i'm a bit biased (see statement above!).

good luck!

i'm not against helping you here, but i'm not going to make a habit of it. let me check my contacts. if you decide against notching it, find me the JDM part number.

AH! i'm back in one of my least favorite classes - materials engineering. my rotors are didactic steel ionically bonded to elastically strengthened titanium substrate that has been yield tested to 1.21 gigawatts, i stop instantly! whatever is discussed won't discount the millions of miles put on $20 rotors. XT6 rotors are expensive, there's a direct fit chevy application that works on them and i've seen those as cheap as $9.99. THEY WORK AWESOME! tons of people on the XT forums are using them. there's a select few that make claims about how unsafe it is to do that, how they must suck and we're risking people's lives, etc. chicken lil chicken lil... will someone promise to take over the subaruxt/forum as all of our members start dying from using these!?

it's likely this guy doesn't even need rotors. it's not beneficial to argue opinions. stating them is one thing but to think that opinion is applicable across all circumstances and people is not the case. and trying to scare people with "you will die" statements is not helpful either. the great thing about this community is that there's a huge statistical representation that covers an insane number of miles, vehicles, experiences and as quantitative information as you can get for this sort of thing. anecdotal opinions or even experiences are not very weighty - with that any car ever made is junk or any car ever made is the best. i have $15 youwilldieifyouusethembecausethey'retoocheap rotors on my XT6 and they work just fine. you get what you pay for is a moto that is well headed but there are exceptions - with that moto he would have paid the shop their high quotes to do the job. this community is the perfect environment to hash out those exceptions - but there will be people that disagree and there's no harm in that.

yes you can check them yourself. if you have aluminum wheels, just look through and see the surface of them. if not you can turn the wheels to full lock (left or right) and look behind and feel them (be sure to let them cool down first). if it's smooth, fine. if it's slightly wavy in nature, that's fine too. if it's got chunks coming off and shreddings everywhere and rough - very bad. but you would probably have noises associated with that. i'm not sure if the newer stuff has these - but if yours has the two stupid freaking set-screws on the rotors, they can be very annoying. it's a very simple and easy job - but if those set screws are there and rusted in place they suck. i've had to drill most of them out. they aren't needed though, so i never reinstall them. if that's only older gen stuff, i'll delete this comment??? the last brakes i did were a a 97 impreza, you'd think i'd remember!?!?!? frankly - if you want to save the $60 and time don't replace them. they will perform just fine and wear your pads marginally faster. i personally replace mine and encourage people to but i also know people have budgets to work with. if that $60 could be used elsewhere and your brakes are performing fine then you have that option, it's not a safety or performance concern. as far as performance you'd probably gain more by replacing all your brake fluid than the rotors anyway since it's 10+ years old. i've had good luck buying cheap rotors from the parts store. if you're going to spend money - spend it on the pads - like ceramics or something. rotors definitely need replacing if you have any vibrations while braking.

gotcha, i saw your response but didn't understand. oh sorry, i wasn't trying to poke, trying to get one more thing checked off the list. you said: i assumed you meant the front of the car where the grill is and that's where the radiator hoses are and they go "back". so you checked the other smaller hoses plumbed into the bottom of the air intake tube? mounted on the front side of the passengers side strut tower should be some small mechanisms that have very tiny vacuum hoses attached to them. follow those hoses and make sure they are properly seated. there's one in particular that makes a bee line straight across towards the engine and has a small round filter in line with it - about the size in diamter of a quarter roughly. it's about 1/2" thick with a sponge around it. this one can easily get pulled out even with just about any engine work, spark plugs, air filter, etc. other than that - the IAC might be worth a shot. i would start here, but throwing parts at something can also be very frustrating when it doesn't work. maybe there's a way to test it? you might want to consider a used one. they very rarely fail. most 1980's subaru's still have the original IAC valves on them, if cleaned they almost never need replacing. so used isn't a bad option here at all.

you're not old - just a product of your environment in the same way he is.

seems like you got a good eye for what you're trying to do and that being the case i would notch it. the easier option might be to have someone in another country source you the parts and send them to you, should be able to order that stuff from Subaru in another country. i do that for some NZ folks...actually shipping them a package tomorrow. i give them my address, they order and send stuff to my house, then i package and ship it to NZ.

yeah man, that is awesome. i had never heard of that and will put that to good use. thanks a bunch.

the down pipes go back far enough to hit the rear transmission mount? if it was that i would notch it. if you mean the front cross member, which holds the engine, i would be more hesitant to notch that...where, how much, etc?

you didn't answer - did it do this before the timing belt change (ask wife?). i think you checked the wrong hoses "from the grill to the engine" - that's the radiator hose. the largest hose in the engine bay, from the air box to the engine is the intake hose and where you will find vacuum leaks. large black hose from passengers side fender to the engine. underneath of that hose it has a number of other hoses connecting to it. need to make sure those are not broken, leaking, or possibly not seated properly. if it has only done this since the timing belt change you might just ask the mechanic to look over it. and yes - IAC's get dirty and cause stuff like this as well. have the spark plugs and wires ever been changed? at nearly 100k i'd say it's about time.

wow, spoken like a true engineer!

ignore the old belt marks, half the time they're warn off or not there at all. older generation subaru's never came with belt marks, it's just an added check and not something that's necessary. even some new belts don't have the marks. the cam/crank marks are all that matter. line those up and remove the belt that way everything is just about where it's supposed to be, if one snaps (and it probably will), just move it back to where it was. line up all the marks (cam, crank, NEW belt) and you're golden. you said yours isn't interference? i guess yours is a pre 97 2.2 since all 2.5's are.

fluid change? try another TCU...can usually find a used one for cheap and give it a whirl. you could get crazy and wire in a switch to control lock up yourself. there's only 2 solenoids in A & B - i would think one of those controls the lock up function? i haven't really looked over that part of the FSM's, but i bet it wouldnt' be that hard. now whether it's a good idea and when to use it, i would have no clue. but i'm sure switching it on and off in DC traffic makes it nearly useless anyway.

if you can't find any off the shelf you can call an alternator rebuilder and ask if they can do that for you.