nipper

My gut feeling is that it is the master cylinder. There is a tsb that states this fault exaclty as you described. do a search on this, under braking, master cylinder, cold weather brake .. or any other combination you can think of. i dont remeber if the issue affects the 98 or not, but it is exaclty the same failure mode. Good news is i think this is recall item. Go to the NHTSB web site and look at the recalls for your car. Another thing to do is test your power brake booster. With the car off, pump the brakes 10 times (till the pedal gets real hard to push). Put your foot on the brake pedal and start the car. The pedal should go to the floor as the booster does it job. I would try this at below freezing. I woulld rule out water in the brake lines. In order to get enough water in the system to freeze all 4 brakes, you would have to put a few ounces of water in the system. Also since your brakes work great when hot, if you had water in the fluid, the water would quickly boil and you would have dangerous brake fade. nipper

Well you can take some solice in the fact that the car shifts fine manually. Can you explaine this a bit better "If you put it in drive 1-2 is ok but he says it boughs down from 2-3. 3-4 is fine. He says is acts like it looses power from 2-3. ". Does the car have a tach? What happens to engine rpm, does it go up, or as the car starts to feel like it looses power, do the rpms go down, amd he has to press the gas harder to maintain speed. Which gear doe he feel like hes loosing power in 2nd or 3rd. Does the car do this when its cold as well as hot? What happens if at that point he switches to manual mode where he feels like he is loosing power. Manual mode overrides the computer. nipper

have a 7yo in the house? they can be handy for that kind of thing.... 1/4 inch drive set with a universal joint or two? nipper

Not necassarilly, but it would be hard to tell as the car would have to be moving, and with all the other air flowing around the car, it would dispate in the air quickly. i think (i may be wrong) but blue smoke on acceleration is valves, on deceleration is rings. nipper

There is an under the hood test with a multimeter. If you look for the thread on manually controlling the AWD deep in there it tells you how to test it. nipper

is is quit possible a band adjustment, which i think is external. But on the other hand, if the band is worn down enough to need an adjustment, more hideous things may be on the horizon. i dont remeber anyone gettiong a band adjustment in the life of a tranny, but i could be wrong. How is reverse working Maybe somone else will chime in nipper

That is actually the resonable repair. The problem is the piston rings. There are two compression rings, and an oil ring that is made up f three parts (last i checked). It sounds like the rings failed, and since it started doing it recently, i doubt its from improper engine breakin. Whay they will do is (most likely) tear it down to the block, replace the rings, and re hone the cylinder walls. The ring size will be matched to the cylinder bore size.There arent alot of reasons that an engine this new burns oil. Since we havent gotten a clairification on what "unusually hot' was, this sounds reasonable. Now if you want to go for a new short block (which is everything minus the cylinder heads and the accessories). Now if you want to talk about the dealer and make a deal on a short block, you can try. nipper

How does the car behave in reverse? The fact that the car wont force a upshift into 2nd gear at redline in 1st is disturbing. im thinking you may hve a couple of issues, one bieng the govenor, one being the valve body. When it shifts from 1 to 3, does it run 1st gear out or will it do it at part throttle. What happens when you downshift from d to d2 nipper

Car may be past warrenty, but you noticed it while the car was under warrenty, so if stand your ground and make a stink, you may have a chance. im going with a bad front differential nipper

i had a tranny flush for 100.00 US and it solved the problem. i would strongly suggest a tranny flush, as most of the time it fixes the problem. Now its not clear from your post, did they get a trouble code ofr a solenoid failure? if they did a tranny flush is not going to fix the problem. The only time you get a code for a solenoid failure is when it fails. i would go to an independet shop and let them look at it. you can replace the solenoid . What condition is the tranny fluid in, and how does the car shift otherwise? nipper

these things may be marvels of engineernering, but also must be marvels of the old bank account nipper

We need a clarification on what "unusually hot" means. Look at your owners manual, it will tell you what the normal range of the gauge is, anything above that range will do damage. nipper

i just want to know where you got the really cool beating the dead horse thingy:banana: nipper

97 didnt have an external filter. i think 99 was when it started for the external filter. my 98 did not have one. As far as the flush, there are many people on this list that have done them on high milage auto trannies with no issue. Just make sure they dont use a chemical flush, just a straight tranny flush .Look at it this way. If you don't do the flush, your on your way to a major tranny repair (either a swap or a replacement of the clutch pack). with it you may save yourself all that heartach by having it profesionally flushed for 100.00 or there abouts. The binding really has nothing to do with heat, just has to do with lack of maintanece on the tranny (fluid changes) or the luck of the draw. In 1997 1/2 they changed the design of the valve assembly to rid themselves of the mechanical cause for torquebind (the valve seat would erode over time i do beleive). By flushing the tranny you clear up alot of the gum. 250,000 miles on any auto tranny is damn good, and i wouldnt blame the design for a failure at that mileage. When i first started looking for a replacemnt for my totaled 98, i came across a 97 OBW with high mileage (180k) that made me a bit nervous. Car was the original owner, but they never serviced the tranny, and it had torquebind. After doing extensive research here and other places, i was comforted in finding out that the newer auto trannies had a very low failure rate, and when they did fail, they had very high mileage on them. It seems like subaru trannies are far more robust then other manufactures trannies. i would be truly leary of recomending a flush on ford or chevy, or even toyota with the same mileage for the reasons cited, but the subaru seems to be able to handel it, and apreciates it. i only found one failure on this list after a flush, and after readin the entire thread, the tranny already had started slipping before the flush, so the damage was already done. The flush may buy you some time, or it may cure the problem. nipper

If the solenoid is sick, it will usually trip a code. My 97 OB had torque bind and at 180K with slightly burnt fluid i took a deep breath and had the fluid flushed. 200 miles later all is well, and the car is even shifing better. i was all set to pay for a used tranny , but figured ill risk the 100.00 fix. Also there is a thread here for adding a switch to manually control the AWD that tells you how to test the solenoid for function without tering the car apart. i would try that too. nipper

Did you flush the tranny flluid? That usually will fix the problem if it is still fixable. i would have done that first. Have the tranny flushed, drive in a tight circle about eight times. That will usually make it go away. Also there is a long thread here on manually operating the AWD unit, and it goes into great detail on how to test the solenoid and how the system works. also you can dislodge crap that can cause the solenoid to be stuck, or gum up the plates in the clutch pack. nipper

Any electrical appliance hs the potenial of causing a fire in house. Out of all the many many many people that own subarus, most are happy with them, and the ones with failed head gaskets get fixed and things go fine. You are pissed, there will be no calming you about the car. Since you got burned therefore all the millions of subarrus on the road are all potential death traps. If you are really that upset with the car, sell it and buy another brand. If you dont trust the mechanics, find another shop. Also if you feel you got screwed, go to small claims court. There really is no way to make you feel about it, or help you out with a solution. Sell the car or whatever, and go buy another brand. the other 99% here are happy with thier cars and realize that the older the car gets, the higher the mileage, the more likely a major repair is coming. cars are only required to be fully functional for 100,000 miles (federal enissons warrenty for a brand new car) and for your car it was 50K. you want to totally avoid a major problem either buy brand new or buy a throw away car and replace it every 5 years. And someplace in there i thnk you insulted the rest of us that are quite happy with our cars. good luck on whatever you do next nipper

A men to the dealership and misdiagnositcs comment. nipper

droooool i would like to know about this too nipper

So what kind of drugs are you doing and why arent you sharing? Guess you dont like heat. Your not too fond of acceleration or gas mileage wither. ALso if you read on the subavan boards, they can list a few 100 reasons for going the other way. Car would be underpowered, geared all wrong, and from the Vw to subaru boards unreliable. Forget about ever passing an emission test. The big red flag to a bad headgasket was the crud in the overflow tank. Only one thing causes that. Now to get back to serious discussions did give me a good giggle nipper

yes nipper PS if the car is running fine i wouldnt worry about it, but if you are the kind to worry about these things, and it would make you fell better, replace them. i havent removed a coil pack, but have you tried unbolting the pack and running the car, and see if the hum is still coming from there?

You just answered your own question. Why wouldnt the rear seal be any differnt then the fornt seal. There is no reason. i bet the seal is shot and that caused clutch failure. nipper

a cracked block will have antifreeze in the oil most of the time. a cracked head gasket there will be gook in the raidtor. very very very few cracked blocks here, so it would be a safe bet for a HG. i dont even recall a single cracked block here unless the engine was cooked. Get a second opinion, and what are your symptons. nipper

Call the reginal service rep, and start off by saying "i really like my car.." . They get so many angry owners its nice to hear from a happy one, and makes them more apt to help. Also you can try a GM dealer, or another subaru dealer. If i reacall there is nothing specail at all about the subaru onstar, so the gm dealer may be able to help. nipper

Do a search here, there has been lots and lots and lots of disccusion this topic nipper