nipper

Are all your heat sheilds in place? i have jeard of this happening with other subarus when they are missing heat sheilds. (sounds odd to me too) i think this is something odd to your car, since no one else has complained about it. nipper

http://www.cars101.com/ They will have all that good info. nipper

on a subaru if the timing is off by one tooth the car wont run. The fuel pressure regulator is something to check also. nipper

The way to check it is to remove it and shake it or blow through it, and if your going to go through al the trouble of removing it, just replace it, its not a lot of money. Some here will only use OE PCV valves, ive used aftermarket with no problems nipper

OK in all fairness you cant blame tires at 60K on the car . Also boots rip thats a fact of life. There arent too many complaints of riped boots on here. The only thing i see here unusual is the fuelpump, and i have no idea as to the $$. Not to pick on you personally, but its annoying when people put the car down because wear items, well they wear. There are many differnt tires out there, some wear out faster then others. Gte a high milage tire next time if you want, but beware the trade off is ride and noise. Last time i checked Hondas wore out tires too. The boots are in a very harsh enviroment and road trash can rip one, the same way road trash can crack a windsheild. Call a parts store that carries name brand parts and ask them, then call the dealership. Also this is from a fuel pump site on the net for subaru pumps : Alleged fuel pump failures can often be traced to a faulty fuel pressure regulator instead of (or in addition to) the pump itself. To avoid unnecessary warranty returns and comebacks, Seller strongly recommends testing (and, if in doubt, replacing) the fuel pressure regulator before considering the diagnosis of a faulty fuel pump to be complete and correct Like i said the need to test the pump performance, and i find it unusal for a pump to go bad so early, but it happens. Testing the pump performance will tell them if it is the regulator or not. nipper

i started buying OE axles after i went through 5 axles cause the stupid idot working on the car couldnt get the right one. Got the one from the dealer never had a problem. i was pleasantly surprised at the dealer price for the axles. Call your local dealr and ask nipper

If they left a vacume hose off someplace, yes. If it is a fuel problem, no.. stuff breaks. nipper

broken belt will apear to be a dimple on the sidewall of the tire. nipper

Talking oil here is like talking religon and politics, beware. Do a search on air filters, basically the OE filter is about as good as it gets. The tornado thing is a complete waste of money, as is all those gas milage increase cons. SUbaru engines are fairly well desighned, breath well, and have about all your going to get out of the engine. There really isnt anything you can do to get more power out of the car that subaru hasnt already done. As much as we would all like more power, we buy these things for thier go anywhere capability. If you want more power, should have got a turbo. nipper

Stuff happens..... That being said its unusal for the fuel pump to go that early and yes its not a cheap fix. If you are handy you can go to an autoparts store and get just the pump. Subaru may sell you an assembly, which can give you a heart attack. Ask them to do a fuel pump pressure and flow test to see what is going on. nipper

it sounds like a seized cv joint. Could be a bad tire, bad wheel bearing or a warped rotor. a cv joint can seize even with a good boot, its rare but it happens. You can jack the front tires up and with the wheels cut hard, turn the wheel by hand and see if you can feel the sensation. Also inspect the tires for any broken belts. nipper

that too. And if you buy name brand, most the time that is where OE stuff comes from, just re packaged. It is not necassary to buy OE for things like hoses. Alot of the guys here replace the OE brake lines with Braided Steel Hose, which is far superior to OE hoses. nipper

sigh ok you have a bad caliper. As the caliper get hot metal expands. As the metal expands things are binding. The slider on your caliper is hanging up due to rust crud or whatever. The calpier slider can be cleaned and lubricated. i recomend all four be done. The brake line price is very high, i bet you went to the dealer and not an autoparts store. Also ask yourself, is your life (or somone elses) worth the cost of new brake lines? Others here may have a better source for brake lines. nipper

You know they always leave out the little details:banghead: The fact you are loosing a second axle is telling. The tranny is fine. You can have bad motor mounts. You can have an ignition issues. You may have the wrong length axle. nipper

thats a very exp and lazy way out. i am still suggesting a second shop to look at the car

the best time to learn is when something is broken and you cant make it any worse. They arent all that hard to work on (except that they are engines ). That aside, ask them why they have ruled out a burned valve, i have a funny felling your going to be looking for another shop. nipper

If i was you, im going to assume that your not driving this car right now, i would pull off the head on the offending side. A failed wet test rules out the rings, unless you have a whole in the piston. The only way to find out is to pull the head and inspect the valves and piston. Odds are its an exhaust valve thats burned. i would pull the motor (makes life easier to inspect things) pull the offending head and inspect the piston and valves. i dont know how much it costs to rebuild the heads, but it is going to be far far far cheaper then an engine. DId you do the comprsssion test or did a shop? nipper

with subarus driving them into the ground can be a very very long drive. the way CCR works is that they send you an engine, and you ship yours back to be rebuilt for somone else. Was a wet compression test done on the engine. Subaru engines are tough, aside from HG they dont often die at such a young mileage. The only thing i can think of is a burned valve, and that is fixable. Im not sure your engine is scrap yet. nipper

get a 2.2L.. me i would get another 2.5 and replace the HG before installing the engine. Why are you so quick to get rid of the car, you said you like the car. you know the cars history. By another one you wont know any of this, and no guarentee it wont be running any better in the long run. The headgasket issue is over blown. Also the cars are getting in a milage range that blowing a head gasket is not surprisng in an aluminum engine. At worse case scenario, for 100 Outback owners with 2.5L, only 15 (worse case) have Hg issues. after 130K if a HG goes, you cant blame the car anymore, you can blame milage and age. Out of curiosity, why do you need a new engine? nipper

i dont think your tranny is going. There are two possabilities, this sounds like the cv joint is getting ready to go south. What is happening is that when you are transmitting power to the cv joint (car in 5 gear) you have hit the critical load that the axle starts to bind up in the beaings in the cv joint. By shifting to fourth, the axle doesnt have to work as hard, and the axle centers itself back in the cv joint. This will get worse with time. The shifting issue sounds like your clutch is getting tired. When was the last time the car had a clutch changed. Sounds like the clutch is not full releasing. Is it always hard to shift into those gears? Will the car shift into those gears with the car off with ease? nipper

Thats cool. That wil help us try to trouble shoot this thing i'm just trying to help. Sometimes threads get convoluted and we loose the details. nipper

i have a good used 2.5L but its stil in my car and running fine. Since your looking at a rebuilt, in my opinion i would go with another 2.5. The rebuilt would have the headgasket issue dealt with. The 2.2L wil give you a little better gas milage, but will do more shifting which will be annoying in hills. Thats why i went from a 2.2 legacy to a 2.5L outback. Just my thoughts.. im sure the world will disagree with me nipper

Yes you can run the car without the alternator. In a healthy fully charged battery you can run a car for almost 50 minutes with all the accessories off. For what your doing all your going to run is about 2-5 minutes, which is not a problem. Would also be interesting to see if the noise goes away. nipper

Have you installed a vacume gauge. By installing the gauge, and keeping the vacume needle as high as possible, you will get your best gas milage. This will rule out or correct bad driving habits. Also if the gauge never hits max vacume, that will tell you something is wrong with the engine (vacume leak, mechanical issuses, constant drag on the engine) and not the driver. When driving in extreme cold, does your temp gauge get 1/2 way up, or does it get 1/4 of the way up. if its les then 1/2, it could be the car is never truly warming up enough to run at its best. Also if you throw snow in the mix, you can have a few extra 100 lbs of frozen snow under the car that can add to the problem. nipper

They are the easiest to work on, but you have to realize, swapping out a tranny is NOT an everyday thing to do. It's not fair to say the car is hard to work on because of something you do on the car once in its lifetime. nipper