brus brother

Anyone ever try ole Scotty Kilmer's remedy. Ivan, care to try this on one of the many that roll thru your shop?

Had my favorite subie tech's ear today and he said that in Subie school, the 0420 is described as much more of a phenomenon here in the northeast. The unanswered question is if it has to do with fuel additives. I'd love to see a spreadsheet of which dealers are installing/selling the cats for these cars and see if there is a geographic pattern. Doubtful if Subaru will give up this info or whether the 0420 problem is even specific to the Subaru brand. I'd love to see the beating the dead horse emoticon added to the title of this post!

googling around found this little tidbit: http://www.cargurus.com/Cars/Discussion-t17299_ds469549 I know there are issues with hills and 2005's cruise control. See here: http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/cruise-control-surges-jerks-downhill-10725.html?t=10725 I don't have the tsb but google 2005 Subaru cruise control problem and you will find some fun reading. Ignore the threads that include issues of check engine light as their problem is unrelated to yours. Cruise stops working if there is a CEL. Not your problem.

I recall there was tsb concerning cruise lunging in this year.

The car will drive well and feel fine in the early stages of a torn cv boot BUT the smell of CV grease is remarkable. As the axle spins, the grease is flung out of cracks in the cv boot landing on the hot engine/exhaust. A car of your vintage is apt to have dried out/torn boots. You may be able to see them from above but more readily from below. There are inner (near the transmission) and outer (near the wheel) boots on the axles. The passenger side usually goes first because it is over the exhaust and the heat fries the boot. Once the grease has all been flung out of the boot THEN you will notice the clicking sounds and drive-ability issues. Then again, you might have just caught a plastic bag or some other debris on your exhaust. Lots of possibilities but certainly check or have someone knowledgeable check the cv boots anyway.

But, isn't that what you meant to do?

OR Chip Foose and the Overhaulin' team is reworking your car right now! Don't forget to act surprised when they return a subaru brz to your driveway. Damn I wish I lived in the PNW with a GD close by.

Go easy gents. You have to consider the missus and daughter factor. If they blow a gasket there can be hell to pay. They selected the new and pretty car. Enuf said! Fitz can also milk the warranty for new HGs and get his timing belt done as well now that he knows better. Peace Love and Woodstock!

That motorcycle hearse looks like... well like a death trap! heh heh

Glad it worked out. Make darn sure before the warranty is up that you check very carefully for oil "seepage" at the bottom of the head gaskets. Subaru might tell you it's nothing to worry about but I was told it eventually leads to failure and insisted that the repair be done on my 05. Adding the 36K warranty to your current 61K puts you at 97K miles and just shy of the 105,000 mile timing belt change. So, once you beat them into submission, pay the extra for parts to do the timing belt while they are in there and you've gotten value added. Remember to use the turbo head gaskets as per many a board recommendation. I have found this board to be a very knowledgeable group of people who are generous with their expertise. Welcome aboard.

Meh... wouldn't be caught "dead" in this! HehHeh

The wear pattern you describe is probably a good indication to use anti-sieze on the moving parts as suggested by others. At 126K miles, my pads have worn a bit of a channel in the rotors but it doesn't seem to have affected performance. I would think that to have the rotors turned would unnecessarily thin out the bulk of the rotor and increase the chance of warpage.

They couldn't care less. You could always say they were vibrating if someone asked.

You may find that the rear pads aren't as worn as the front since the front does most of the braking. I check the rears but usually get two front changes to one rear. I use Duralast Gold from Autozone. A bit dusty but they have a lifetime warranty. Bought the set once and waddayaknow, the same pads fit my 05 and 08 OBs. Replace, return, repeat.

Well if they did the umpteen point inspection, check oil level should have been done. If you are burning or leaking that much oil in one week, it should have been evident. You are due for a timing belt service (water pump, seals etc) at 105K miles so if you can wiggle some room out of a free HG job or even free labor for the HG, you can also supply the parts for the timing belt as that labor is redundant if doing the HGs. This vintage does have external HG oil leaks as you describe which is why the uber-wrenchers here recommend HG change with timing belt. The recommendation is to use the HGs spec'd for the turbo as the design seems more durable. You might end up lookin' pretty smart after all.

Had a shop check the freeze frame data today when the cel was on with p0420. Didn't see much. Trims looked fine but did mention something about the temperature coolant sensor but no code was thrown. Shop owner dismissed it but seemed somewhat puzzled. When I googled p0420 and temp coolant sensor, there are some links that also mention the coincidence of these issues. I will go back to the shop and dig deeper next time the light comes on (it went off on the way home). Just throwing this out there to see if this makes sense to any of the uber-wrenchers here struggling with this demon.

mine is an 05:dead: 0420 hell

Camshaft Belt: Inspect at 30K Replace at 60K http://www.subaru.com/content/downloads/pdf/maintsched/1993_IMP_NA.pdf

OK so here's another twist. Why is it that you only hear about P0420 Bank 1 and NOT bank 2? At least that is my experience reading the forums.

Did you use genuine Subaru cat (1 year warranty??) or aftermarket?

Anyone grabbing freeze frame data with these codes? I just got the code again yesterday after highway driving. I'm going to get the freeze frame data before I clear the code this time and see if someone here can interpret them for me. In the meantime, Lucas is a pretty cheap fix! (fingers crossed) Keep us posted Ivan on your hill climbers.

60K is the timing belt interval although years also play into the equation i.e. you couldn't let a car sit for 20 years in a garage even if it was undriven and not expect the belt to dry rot right off that buggy! If you are not comfortable with the price don't drive down there 6 hours. You'll seem too anxious and needy and you'll never get a date acting like that! Make the seller a firm offer that you are comfortable with and then tell him to call you back if he is interested. Good luck.

KaraK, Squeal may just be the brake "squealer", the metal depth indicator tab that rubs on the disc and tells you hurry up, you've only got a coupla thousand miles left on the pads. See A below. Just removed the squealer on my car today. The pads I had on hand as spec'd by Autozone didn't fit. For some reason my 05 OBi takes pads that are spec'd for the gt. The ones in their system have tabs that are too wide. At least I won't be listening to a screaming banshee until I get back in there.

I have a a very basic scanner that I paid less than $20 that reads the codes and readiness and clears codes so that I can slide by emissions when I need but nothing about freeze frame graphing trim/o2/maf etc. that will aid in a deeper understanding of this P0420 gremlin. The reason I asked about the laptop (or BT as you suggest) is that I am guessing there would be more info available with that interface. I am still curious if any of the heavy wrenchers like Ivan (who seems to be in the middle of an epidemic of these) have run these tests.