nipper

i have a minor leak, and not sure what it is. Its either engine oil or antifreeze leak (I DONT WANT TO HEAR IT). It sometimes can be seen when the car is shut off with a puff of smoke. Oddly if i run the car long enough to burn it off the pipes, i dont have the problem again until the car is parked fro a while. Beofre i bought the car, the PS pump was replaced, and took a good month to burn that stuff all off. The engine had been resealed the year before, so im not sure what it is, it will have to wait till spring. In the meantime, recirculate is your freind, unless you use the defroster. heeh dont breath in the car in winter and youll be fine. nipper

thank you. Dr is saying 6 months - 9 months since what i do for a living requres heavy lifting (200 lbs means nothing to me) and ladders. I think they call it being thick headed, so they know people in my group dont listen well to that (dont pick up more then 5 lbs for 6 weeks at least) rule. Mine is in the lower back and i can barely walk, it really sucks.. I WANT TO PLAY IN THE SNOW! nipper

ild say 200-300 to R and R the tranny is a good price depending upon location. On an auto tranny, i would stick with the regular tranny fluid. The trany requirs all that gum to hold it together, and synthetic fluid MAY remove all that gum and wipe it out. a Tranny flush does remove gum, but doesnt hurt the clutches. On an engine, worse synthetic may do is make your crank and cam seals leak (which means they were close to leaking anyway), but ild hate to wipe out a tranny thats never seen synthetic before. You dont have the same issues in the tranny as you do in the crancase, so i really dont think its worth the risk. BEFORE you all jump down my throat (easy i have a bad back) this is just my opinion.

i think its called sheer dumb luck that hes escaped damage nipper

awwwwwwwwwww it is still loved. im sort of limited on the oil in the plugs part. The 2.5L is a bear with plugs, and my back is shot (bad disc no biscuit). i do like the steel wool in the exhaust.. nothing worse then baked mouse when you start car.So ful tank of gas with stabilizer Oil Change Fully inflated tires Dryer sheets under hood and inside car Trickle charger on battery (wont be allowed to lift more then 5 lbs for quite some time) Cover Car thanks all nipper

Lets start by removing the turn signal bulb, then try the brakes with the turn signal on, then do it the other way. Make sure they work. im still suspecing the harness for the trailer wiring i dont know how your harness is wired in the car, can it be removed? Some of them just plug into the existing harness, some are hard wired. nipper

thanks i have a remote starter, just with 180K on the engine.. the start and run thing makes me nervous.. or mayeb the vicodin is just making me paranoid .. or so my little voices keep telling me. i didnt even think about rodents That i will defanitly do, as we usually get one of those in the house a year, i can see them seing this great blue condo in the driveway nipper

thats what im looking for Usually in winter if there is snow im out playing in it and the car gets no rest (and i am sure the car just hates that). Nothing worse then a subaru in a driveway on a snowy day ... i can hear it whimpering " i wanna go play ................ somone drive me" nipper

They all have the same AWD system which is the best to date. Keep away from anything that runs on preimum fule if you are looking to keep your costs down. The 6 cylinder is a very smooth engine, but we all know how long the 4cylinders last, and they have plenty of power. The turbo is run, but from seeing the older turbos, they dont last as long as the regular 4 cyl. This may not be a problem with mom unless she has a lead foot. I too would put the outback on your list, the B9 fro m what i hear can use some more power. Do test drive all of them and the final decision is yours . Personally i owould be between the outback and the legacy gt. nipper

Just have the radiator boiled out at a raditor shop. I dont know what you can do about whats in the block, as that glop is really hard to get out of the engine. The raditaor passages are much smaller then those in the trucks so i dont think you will get it all out nipper

YOu may have to get yourself a cheap ammeter gauge to see what is going on. An ameter gauge will tell you direction of current flow. How old are your battery cables? Did this just start, or did it slowly start to occur? i am assuming since the alt was tested, the battery was tested too. On a really long shot, how are your motor mounts? nipper

Sounds like the tensioner is shot. Since your already into this guy and this is warrenty probem, tell him to replace the tensioner. Usually when the timing belt goes it snaps or jumps a tooth, not an entire 90 degrees. nipper

Valve covers are easy usually, the bolts losen up and hopefully just need to be tightend. Synthetic oil ..... its safer to discuss politics, religon, the war on Iraq, and the new medicade drug plan then that subject. Remote for the alarm everyone has covered Covers are on ebay as with everything else. What condition is your tailgate latch in? the shift over the bump is not a awd thing, sounds like a good old fashioned worn suspension part problem. nipper

hehe no thats antifreeze that can give you brain damage Your car is ripe for oil leaks. i bet you have either a P/S leak, of cam seals/main/oil pump leak. Valve covers i dont think leak onthe exhaust pipes the way the pipes are laid out. It only takes a tiny bit of oil to make a lot of smell nipper

I am going to have back surgery on the 5th. The after surgical instructions say I can drive when comfortable, but I think I wont drive for the all important first 6 weeks of healing, as ild be terrified of getting rear ended again during this time. I have the outback with the cold weather package. Jan and feburary are our coldest time of year. After christmas ill get the oil changed, fill the tank, and add some gas stabalizer. I dont have a garage. I was thinking of just throwing a trickle charger on the battery to keep the battery happy, as the rest of the car seems healthy. If this was spring or summer I wouldnt worry about it all that much, and would have no problem with having a freind take the car for a run. On icey roads and the way my freinds drive, car is much safer parked in winter. i was thinking of using the block heater if it gets below 25 here. Any other suggestions nipper

try a higher range thermostat? i had a old civic like this, and i had to cover 1/2 the raidiator with cardboard to get heat. Are your electric cooling fans on by any chance? nipper

BINGO! nipper

Ok this is odd the turn signals and brake lights are normally independent circuits on the car. Unless you have an electronic black box for the trailer lights to convert the two wire system to a one wire system, you are getting a back feed thru the trailer connector somehow. My bet is its in th trailer harness connector. Did the trailer have one lense for turn/brake or two. nipper

You need to remove the entire door panel. Its not that hard, just be gntle with it. There are two screws in the arm rest, one at the door handle. Pop off the plastic triangles or tweeters at the mirrors. Gently start at the bottom of the door panel, prying it up. i use a thin screwdriver and feel for the retainer, then start there and pry, and then the next and so on. the panel then lifts up off the door. nipper

it may be a weak altenator, or a bad/dying bettery. ON my 1988 i had this weird problem which drove me nuts, almost the same thing, complete with a false high temp reading with the ac off. i decided to replace the raditaor (all the cooling fins were gone) the quite by accident i checked the elecrric cooling fan. It was tiff and hard to turn, so i replaced that and the problem went away. It seems the cooling fan was drawing too much current, and making the dash act odd. I am not saying this is your problem, but if you have a heavy electrical load, like a calcified or shorted battery, it will show the same thing. nipper

there is inside wear, there is feathering, there is cupping, and there is outside wear. Inside and outside wear are obvious. Feathering looks like feathers on one of the edges of the tires, almost choppy. Cupping is when there are depressinons in the middle of the tire. Cupping is indicative of a bad trut or shock, and is caused only by that. All the others can also be caused bu a bad strut, but only cupping is 100% a strut. If you can, stand behind the car, and have someone else dirve the car away slowly. look at how the tires track, and the rear of the car. Iinside or outside wear, is the angle the tire contacts the road with. Feathering is caused by the tire being poinetd in from the 3-9 oclock refernce point. Usually rear alignment is pretty solid, since they usually are fairly fixed in the angles they move. But as stated before, sometimes algnements just go out. Alsoe shocks wear, bushings fail. Does the car track right from the drivers seat. Do you need to hold the steering whell slightly off center to make the car go straight. If the rear track is out, you wont feel a pull like the front, but you will have to correct for it. And sometimes stuff happens nipper

thats a new one, i never heard of that before nipper

a bad strut or shock wil make the tire wear. a bad busing in the rear suspension. at that mileage i would suspect a strut. describe the wear if you can nipper

FYI i never had one either Its hard to differntiate a bad booster vs a bad master cylinder as they have almost the same symptons. Thats the only way to tell sometimes. nipper

ok just checking DId you do the booster test? with the car off, pump the brak pedal oh .. 10-15 times. With your foot on the brake pedal start the car, the pedal should go down. If it doesnt you have a bad booster. If you think its the booster, and it sounds dangerous enough to risk the "throw money at the part" theory. i rarely advocate that, but if your 80% sure, ild risk it. nipper