nipper

But are your pants on fire? Basically i take them with a grain of salt. It's just like anyone who deals with the public, no one is going to be 100% satisified, but when it dips down below 95% then i will think twice about them. nipper

With the new "learning" computers in rentals, they never get a chance to adjust to the person driving it, so they tend to get odd performance profiles. nipper

If these keys have anti-theft chips in them, then beleive it or not, thats not an unreasonable price. If they do not, then hes nuts. You can get the fobs on ebay also, as well as searching google. nipper

GO into an autoparts store and buy one off the shelf. Some things are just easier to buy in person. nipper

A few things here. This car has very low miles on it. Its 6 years old, so it should have 72,000 miles. You need to use the 1 month = 1000 miles for the maint scheduale. The valve guides walking out is rare, but it happens on engines. I havent heard of it happening on a sooby before. The Valve guide is the sleeve that the valve stem fits in and slides up and down very very fast many times a minute. The stem walking out will keep the vlave from closing, causing a miss fire. Chat kind of oil do you use, and how often do you change it? What are they saying they are going to do to fix it? nipper

If you can constantly drive in a straight line, you will cause no damage. Anytime you turn the steering wheel, there is damage occuring. Of course when you hit that telephone pole on a rainy day because the AWD is locked up, that is also damage. The front axle and rear axle turn at differnt speeds whenever the steering wheel is turned. In an auto the clutch pack is the one that does that. When the clutch pack has failed for whatever reason, you loose this ability, and can make for some very interesting handling. nipper

Actually hybrid diesels dont do much better then just straight diesels in passenger cars. They do very well in trucks that do a lot of stopping. There is very litle cost benefit in making a passnger car thats a hybrid diesel, as a diesel has all that low end grunt, and gasoline engines have to really start spinning to make things move. nipper

The plastic wheel liner is someplace to look too. nipper

MWE is a 100% sure bet, anything else is a risk for problems. nipper

Oil is up to you and your driving habits. Is this a new car to you? If it is I would recomend PCV valve (once a year), Fuel Filter, Transmission flush, coolant flush (both are 3/36,000 miles items), a new radiator cap, and diff lube wouldnt hurt. nipper

Hrmmmm Since you moved, has your altitude changed dramatically? If so disconnect the battery for 1/2 hour and do a hard reset of the ECU. When was the last time the PCV was changed, if ever? That little valve surprisingly with super lean burnning modern engines can cause some running issues. nipper

The comon denominatir here is road vibration. On some cars the ABS light coming on during a bad stretch of road is not unusual. I havent heard this issue on a subaru, so we will take it as an incident. I would look at the wheel speed sensors and the tone rings. Its possible a senosr is loose or a hairline crack in a tone ring, add in the rough road at highway speed, it can knock the air gap out of kilter. nipper

At 180,000 miles i dont see any reason to pull your hair out. Seems like its just normal maint stuff. Most prats are only made to last 100K so anything over that is just icing on the cake. Your due for wheel bearings, thats where I would look first. nipper

Some older charcoal canisters have a fresh air filter on the bottom of them, I dont know if soobies do. nipper

Should i warm up the volcano? nipper

That too

Very bad. It can cause you to loose control of the car in wet weather, cause premature wear of the tires, could damage the CV joints and the universal joints. You may not even be able to drive the car another few 1000 miles, as the torque bind gets worse. nipper

I know the diesel is coming, but sooby ruled out a hybrid due to costs etc. Maybe its one off being tested out by you or a engineering test mule? nipper

Keep in mind that any lift kit you choose, there will be unplanned things that need to be modified. nipper

Torque bind

thats what i did basically, it came out to 12 qts. nipper

Yup. nipper

I do three then drive around the block then repeat

It sounds like there is a voltage leak ib the flasher itself. I would replace it and see what happens

Yes a very bad idea. Its only for emergencies like flat tires. No you wont save any gas since you still have 200-300 lbs or stuff to still make move. nipper