nipper

i use the audiovox system which is starter/alarm/locks in my 97 and i love it nipper

WOW 300,000 MILES?!?!?!?!? You win the award for most piled on a car in three years. i would check also to make sure you have power to the fan motor, but at that milage, i wouldnt be surprised if the the fan motor died. nipper

They do it on a dyno. The dyno is set to the weight of the car for the proper resistance to movement. a heavier subaru will have worse then gas mileage then a lighter one. nipper

OK 97 OBW with winter package.... Heated seats. Do i have them in the seat backs, or just the seat bottoms. Also i dont know if low works, but i know high does. :-\ nipper

thats odd .. so early to fail considerng they can last 15 years .. are you sure its seized? Look under the dash on the passenger side, it should be an easy in car jobto do. Worst thing to remove may be is the glovebox. nipper

http://www.subaru.com/shop/specifications.jsp?year=2006&model=OUTBACK&trim=25_XT_WAGON&category=PERFORMANCE Says 19/25 for a manual , your getting 24, thats pretty good. Remeber the 2006 is most likely heavier, with higher output engine then your 2004. Also it takes a while for the engine to break in. Your doing pretty good. EPA is usually overly optimisitc. Also its a turbo, every time that turbo spins up it sucks down the gas. i dont know if the car has a boost gauge on it or not, but you spin that turbo up more then you may realize. nipper

could be the beginngs of a head gasket issue too . Did you notice if the spark plug was cleaner then the other plugs? nipper

You can try unpluging it nipper

Just for the hell of it, take a volt meter and see how much voltage is at the contacts with the car running. The only thing i can see blowing out bulbs there is a poor quality bulb, heat, or voltage/current being to high (and that would be a real real real longshot on the begings of an alternator going bad). The only OTHER thing is vibration. Make sure the fixture is tight, as are the sockets. nipper

The easiest way to tell is to unplug the beep thingy and see if it goes away. i'm thinking its a moisture issue as its a peizo-electric beeper, sort of like a capacitor. The voltage leak to round is enough to make it beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppppppppp. Thats just the best theory i can come up with nipper

\ er um i am not here to challange you, i am here to offer suggestions like everyone else,. Since you wish to point out quaifications: Im 43, been driving sticks since I was 16, and have torn apart many a drivetrain and rebuilt them. I have been pulling a wrench since I could pick one up next to my father, who was a navy mechanic. And for the record, since you sem so well informed, clutches do not propel cars, Engines propel cars, clutches dont, they just provide a emas for disconectiing the propulsion source to allow one to change the gear ratio and allow for one to stop at traffic lights. i also have a degree in automtive engineering. My last stick shift car, a subaru, had 180,000 MILES on the original clutch. i regularly get over 130, 000 miles or more on a clutch Now instead of blindly pointing somone to a general link, if you have done so much research, one should share information like : http://www.onthehoist.com/index.php/2004/03/30/p24 http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-424800.html http://www.carsurvey.org/viewcomments_review_52481.html http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=45128&highlight=clutch+chatter http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1041&page=2&pp=10&highlight=clutch+chatter http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1041&page=2&pp=10&highlight=clutch+chatter Now i may have been wrong, and ill be the first to admit it, but i would suggest if you have information, help the poor guy out instead of trying to make me look bad, personally i dont care how i look From the links it looks like there is a fix, but still requires taking the car apart. nipper

CHeck the universal joint in the sterring column. This is typical of it starting to seize up. It was just coincidence, or the shock of restarting the engine knocked it loose, but this is a GET IT CHECKED NOW kind of thing nipper

First rule, never drive into a large puddle or water of unknown depth. FLash flooding and cars dont mix. Secondly he panicked, as there is a manual lock, and in a worse case scnario, you hold the manual lock as you open the door handle. Thirdly any car with power windows and locks will have an electrical failure if the water is deep enough. It sounds like the water was already 1/2 way up the tires or better when he drove into it. to make it stall. nipper

We have been buying these bulbs from radioshack.. 2 bulbs for 2 dollars and change, and very easy to install. nipper

does it sound like the beep beep you get whne you lock the doors? nipper

Actually slipping shows up first in the upper gears, by the time it shows up in first gear your clutch is freid. No you cant always smell the clutch slipping in the upper gears because your moving. TryTarting the car from a dead start in third gear, the car should buck and stall. If you can do it your clucth is on its way out. The good news is that it just starting. HOw many miles on this car? nipper

It not unusal for one really good overheating to blow a head gasket on an aluminum engine. if it went right up to H thats pretty hot. nipper

Factory cruise control shuts off when the clutch is depresed, so unless he was powershifitng, i dont beleive that. But true i forgot about mis-shifitng, but even that is usually 1-3-5 or 2-4, so i still dont buy it, but always a chance of a blond moment. Even with that you get valve float and shouldnt be an issue since your not holding it there. A driver would notice the mistake fairly quickly and hopefully do something to fix it .... or am i giving people too much credit. nipper

WOW that goes under the the best fiction writing i have ever heard, especially considering that soobys have RPM govenors in them to protect from over reving.. Lugging the engine can cause that kind of failure, not missing a shift, and even then you have to work at it. nipper

there is always the hygrometer that measures the specific gravity of the mix to tel you what your protection is ..instead of tasting nipper

correct on all counts, but the lights are not that bad to fix. do a dearch on climate control and it will tell you how to do it with ease. nipper

are you sure your not leaking oil? thats an auful lot of oil to burn and not have a smoke screen behind you, no matter how your digesting the oil. nipper

First tell me exaclth how hard a hit the car got to make you think it cause an oil leak? How many miles are on the car. Overheating a car will kill the engine. Yes if the body repair shop had to do front end workthey may have forgotten to plug in the fans.... or the connector could have had a broken lock tab, so the connector never stayed pluged in. The cooling fans only come on when the temperiture hits a predetermined point. If you drive around and the car never sees that temp (cool wether or winter), they will never some on unless the ac/defroster is on, assuming they are pluged in. Load up the engine like climbing a steep hill, they should come on, if not you bake the engine. Inspect the connnector to make sure this does not happen again. I would even have the connnector repalced just to be on the safe side. Its hard to misdagnose that fault if they physically had to reconnnect the connector. Since th car made it one way, i serously think the connector is broken so it wont lock, or it wasnt pluged in far enough to lock it. If this is true, then both are liabel. nipper

OK this needs to be addressed soon. I will bet money you have a leking heater core. It all makes sense. Normally the defogger clears the window rather quickly using the ac. You have a minor leak in the heater core. your mechanic did a compression test most likely looking for a bad head gasket. Does the car smel like antifreeze (may be small enough leak you cant smell it). You dont want to be breathing this stuff in. Go to subaru and buy a can of thier antifreeze additive (its stopleak) and see if that works. Otherwise you have a bad heater core. nipper

http://endwrench.com/images/pdfs/4EAT.pdf from another thread, very interesting The awd does vary between 10-50% (though it doesn say that outright) nipper