idosubaru

if it's based on need you are less flexible, but that is not a good deal at all, even in excellent running condition i'd consider that a bad deal in an area with a decent soob population.

left my house and the speedometer didn't work but everything else was fine so i kept driving. the tachometer worked fine. then it stalled a couple times, usually while decelerating it seemed, but could have been a coincidence. one time it stalled, just prior to stalling the RPM's were bouncing all over the place...though the engine obviously wasn't doing that. the check engine light came on briefly then went out before i could check it real-time. since i've owned it, it's had a very random stutter. driving along at low speed, highway speed, or accelerating, anytime really. it would have a very quick 1 second stutter and keep trucking along, no check engine lights. codes from read memory mode were: 32, 33, 35, 42, 51 32 Oxygen sensor or circuit 33 Vehicle speed sensor (VSS) or circuit 35 Canister purge solenoid or circuit 42 Idle switch or circuit 51 Neutral switch (manual transmission)/inhibitor switch (automatic transmission) i'll address all of these, but since i'm supposed to drive a few hundred miles tomorrow, which of these could/would cause the stalling issues? O2 and vehicle speed sensor are not likely to be the culprit. canister purge solenoid or circuit, that doesn't sound like it would either. so 42 and 51 most likely? TPS is sounding suspicious?

a 1 inch socket fits perfectly over the oil pump rotor so that you can hold it steady while breaking the 12mm nut on the oil pump sprocket, to replace the oil pump seal. a right angle screw driver, sears craftsman set, the smaller of the two piece set, works perfect for holding an XT6 drivers side timing belt tensioner. it has a screw that releases tension and must be held while installing the t-belt. i wind it up off the car, install it while holding the screwdriver still in place, then install it with the bolts hand tight and the screw driver holds tight against the engine due to the pressure of the spring loaded tensioner/screw. install belt, remove screwdriver and bam, snaps into place perfectly. i have pictures at xt6.net. very large sockets work well for driving in EA82 or ER27 crank seals.

EJ and EA stuff are incompatible, it will not bolt right up. adapter plates are available, you'll need one of those to make it work.

if you can keep an eye on your oil level and add a quart when needed, then don't worry about the seals. if you're not overheating, loosing coolant and seeing puddles under the car, the headgasket nonsense could be all lies. looking at your list, they really didn't do anything. they replaced the air filter and an oil change. everything else was an eyeball inspection at best. "checking" means they take about 3 minutes to look and make sure everything seems normal with those systems and don't do anything unless it seems out of the ordinary. they charged you $800+ for $50 in parts and about 45 minutes in labor. do not take a vehicle in for "inspection" or "annual treatment" - that's dealer lingo for "charge lots, do little". they don't really do much of anything. they make up a huge list of things that sound impressive but don't really amount to you paying for any REAL service to your vehicle. go in and tell them exactly what you want and needs to be done - change my oil, clean my battery terminals and change my air filter. $75, thank you and see you later. all that other BS is glance over nonsense that takes anyone that knows anything about cars all of 3 minutes to check. consider this a $750 hint on finding another mechanic. doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell you that you need to go somewhere else.

another reason for failure. trying to play games with materials. the mid to late 90's dodge engines (neons) with cast iron blocks and aluminum heads were a materials engineering failure. they blow headgaskets worse than any subarus.

the one motor that i saw that was driven for awhile with blown headgaskets...adding water all the time like you mentioned, had significant amount of metal missing on the head and block where the leak occured. engine held fine, i did not reuse the heads, they would have needed repaired. welded and machined i assume, but i had enough extra heads that i didn't bother even checking them out though i still have them. they probably had less then 50% of the original cross-sectional area left to seal the gasket with at the leakage point.

i've actually run an EA82 on an XT6 ECU - so they are very close. it was MPFI and it didn't run well, but did actually run and drive just by plugging in i vote for a non-interferenced EJ22. (1996 or earlier).

digital thermometer read -8 degrees this morning so i did something i normally don't do - i warmed the car up. brakes worked fine, i guess warming up freed the valve. i will wait until warmer weather to check into it. this is in my XT6, old gen but possibly same issue.

no that is not the case. you'd need to tell us what you mean by "4WD mode" since these transmissions don't have any type of selectable mode that you speak of other than the TCU controlled AWD system. the only concern on a stock subaru set up is to make sure the tires match, are rotated when needed, and the ATF is changed as needed. whether it's driven on snow, mud, off road, roads, gravel, parking lots, highways....none of that matters. not related, but interesting is that the first 4EAT's that came out in the XT6's never, ever experience torque bind. now, i'm sure there's probably one example somewhere in the world. but i've owned 15-20 of these things, been on the various XT groups over the past decade, moderator of XT6.net and have never heard of one TB issue on these 4EAT's. i've always found that odd.

relative to each other they seem good.

i've seen this same phenomenon on older generation Subaru's as well. a cause that suits a wide range of vehicles rather than model/year specific vehicles may make the most sense most of the time. can dessicant be placed inside the brake booster? i've never had to replace one but i'm guessing probably not.

yuck. that's cracked up. if it's that bad you might want to replace the entire hub. it would be cheaper to buy a used hub probably than new bearings anyway. and new bearings might be toast soon after installing them if the hub is damaged inside from the bearings failing. don't forget to specify FWD or AWD when fixing it. did the previous owner not tell you about any of these things before buying it or was it sight unseen?

wow he dropped the F bomb. FEA-that's Finite Element Analysis for those that are lucky enough to have never had to do it. the point is getting the information out there and letting everyone make their own decision. he's suggesting it, there's nothing wrong with suggesting it and letting people make their own decision. to emphatically declare you must do it one way or the other is short sighted and doesn't serve everyones interest. if you rarely take long trips and don't care to take the risk and don't have the money, then no matter. some people rely heavily on their vehicle for their work or traveling long distances and road trips and don't like to worry about it. and many americans don't want to watch the temperature gauge...or they just don't. in reality $1,500 is not that bad to pay for reliability. someone to spend a couple car payments on an item that will get them another 100,000 miles seems financially reasonable if you've got it. $1,500 really isn't that much money to many people, particularly people that know little about cars and don't want to have to worry about it. and also, people that don't know much about cars basically have the alternative of $20,000++ for a new car. sounds like a logical choice to me.

if you got time, an extra vehicle and it doesn't really matter then by all means pull it and do it right. if you have a manual trans, pull it to check the pilot bearings and throw out bearing and clutch. no point it risking those on such a big job, do them at the same time. i'm not as familiar with the newer ones, but removing an engine takes awhile. i can finish and EA82 or ER27 headgasket job in no time in the car with air tools. pulling the engine would take much longer. pulling and installing an engine takes hours. for those that do it alot it gets quicker but in general it's time consuming. the guy that created a website for the headgasket job recorded his hours spent on each task. he recorded 11 hours for removing engine and checking valve clearance and 6.5 hours for reinstalling. now those are inflatted numbers, he admits he was slow and we know that's a long time. and many of those items you have to disconnect anyway to pull the heads - like exhaust manifold and such. but that's still a significant amount of time, particularly it will be for a first timer as well. in my oppinion on the older ones which i have much more experience with, you can save a ton of time by leaving the engine in the car if you have air tools. without air tools it's alot nicer on your back to get the engine out of the car. i haven't worked both ways on an EJ yet to really know the difference so i can't say it's the same, but for the most part it seems like it is. clearance issues with valve covers and you're golden after that if you leave the engine in. another point to make is that pulling a motor your first time takes quite a while. i've pulled some double digit number of engines and have a pretty good feel for the EA, ER and EJ series stuff. but for the first time it's usually a time consuming process.

a local shop might want to pull the motor to do the job and possibly replace the oil pan much cheaper since the engine is out anyway. worth a shot if price is an issue. oil pans typically don't do much more than seep so even if you left it for later i can't imagine it's that big of a deal. and frankly i think you said you don't have much oil loss between changes? if tha'ts the case much of what looks like an oil leak may be coming from somewhere else and just sticking to the edges of the oil pan? i'd probably trust a dealer more than any random shop, but if you have any good recommended shops or people you know, then i'd look into that. what you want is not the cheapest guy, but the most honest guy you can find, and don't assume dealers meet that requirement.

if the gaskets are leaking then i don't know what choice you have. sounds like about the right price if they're replacing the gaskets, water pump, timing belt, etc. i'd ask them how long the gasket job is warranted if they blew a second time already, what's to say they won't blow again? makes me wonder if they even checked the heads, milled them or anything the first time around. i would bet they gasket slapped it.....pulled the heads and without any checking or milling they installed a new gasket. bad idea. i'd ask them this time if the price includes milling the heads. i think CCR sells "new" engines for under $3000. might want to call and ask them. if you spend $2,500 on this engine...it might be worth an extra thousand for a brand new engine with no issues and a great warranty. pretty sure that oil pan will be much harder to replace than you think. i'm not positive about your exact vehicle, but they usually require unbolting at least hte engine mounts...and i usually do the trans mounts to so as not to stress those. then the front of the engine/trans assembly has to be lifted up to allow clearance for the oil pan to come out. don't be fooled by visuals, what you can't see is that the oil pan has baffles in it and the sump protrudes down into it, so it doesn't just "pull off" like it looks from the outside. it has to be manipulated out and leaving the engine in place doesn't give you the room for that to happen. now...i could be wrong on your specific vehicle, but i'd check before assuming it's easy.

in general that is a nice score for bad weather or off road. but if it's a PT4WD, which i think it is, his rear diff isn't getting any power sent to it. on pavement he'll be in FWD.

for non-turbo engines. turbo's can see dramatic increases with little work. i think that's the difference many people don't understand, at least i didn't know that back in the day.

you should be able to find alot of good information using the search function. the general consensus on power upgrades for an EA82 on here is: "EA82 power upgrades = polishing a turd" i've read that a number of times. if you're looking for power the EA82 is going to seriously disappoint you unless you're used to driving really slow vehicles. there's alot of good things about EA82's, i've owned them, own one and get them for friends, but power is not the motivating factor.

i agree you want to make sure it's not something simple. leaks can be tricky to track down, but it's well worth the effort to avoid a costly repair that was uneccessary. make sure the coolant is full before you start the car and it should be fine to drive. it's cold out, so drive with the heat on high and go easy on it and you should be fine. your temperature gauge will tell you, if it starts drifting up then stop the car immediately. 5 miles shouldnt' be a big deal at all. have some extra coolant with you in case you need to shut the car off, wait for it to cool down, refill and drive again. will be hard to tell if it was replaced i would imagine. you'd have to get in there and do some close inspection and would need to see something obvious to verify. i do not put it past anyone to charge for something that wasn't done, but there's no way to prove it. of the dozens of water pumps i've done, i've never seen any fail, Subaru OEM or aftermarket cheap-o's, but it could happen. it could just be leaking at the gasket like someone else mentioned. if it wasn't cleaned well enough or the gasket was contaminated that could have caused it to start leaking prematurely, in this case you'd only need a new gasket not a water pump.

there are some dinky coolant lines around the manifolds that can spring leaks only at certain speeds, temps, etc. throttle body usually has a coolant hose passing close by to warm it up. check particularly at any clamps, they typically crack there. the intake manifold gasket isn't as hard to replace as it looks when you first look at it.

no need for that test. watch the temperature gauge for high running or fluctuations and the overflow tank after runnning for bubbles or nastiness on the inner side walls. in other words, if it failed that test it would also overheat or fluctuate noticeably in temperature and teh overflow would give it away. and the 2.5 in general can pass that hydrocarbon test even with a bad gasket and in your case the 2.5 in that car leaks externally, not internally. the real issue isn't if the car has it now, but are you prepared to deal with it in the future and willing to take that small risk associated with buying the car now?

by what he's saying it's staying in 3rd and not shifting into 4th. the 4EAT transmission will stay in 3rd until it reaches a certain temperature. i do not know the circuit or sensor location for this function but it may be related to that. i'd probably look at a wiring diagram for your transmission and see where that sensor is, then test the resistance of it per the FSM values. what do you mean by "good color"? how many miles on the trans? when was the fluid changed last? how long ago did it start doing this? any other transmission issues ever? any major engine/trans work done to the vehicle recently? does it have an aftermarket transmission cooler on it?

i guess do it with the car warm so you can blast the heat at your "feet" or hands in this case. start practicing standing on your head inside so you're good on the floorboard when it's cold out.