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You can try a thermostat, and a cooler one might work for a while for short trips. In the end the heads have to come off.

this is a classic head gasket failure. This can be very hard to find as the gasket closes up as it cools.

where I saw some Japanese market subies I have not seen before. If there are any Kiwis on the board they may be able to help. A magazine article I read says that Kiwi has so many different models because they accept all major auto standards. European, US, Japanese, and Austrailian.

but no subies. Usually it is caused by band wear or pump or seal wear. I would try cycleing the car through to second and third gear on the warmup allowing a second or two for pump up at each position. I had a Mercedes do this for nearly 100,00 miles before I needed to redo the tranny.

too stupid to notice. When I press the seperate AC burron I can feel it kick in, but on defrost not at all. Mine is a 99 and they may be more sophisticated on the later ones, or perhaps I don't notice because when my windows are frosted I am never driving in performance mode.

after driving a 2.2 legacy wagon across New Zealand last week it reafirmed my liking this car. My brother in law has had no trouble at all with it at over 120,000 kms. This is a big change from my 99 2.5 which has required over $4,000 US to make right at about the same mileage. I would have been happy to sacrifice a few HP for the reliability of the 2.2. To answer the question about why the 2.5s have head gasket failure I think it is the overbore and open deck myself, but I am sure Subaru would like to know for sure too. They have had several years to cure it and I sure hope they have it now as I am riding on thier latest gaskets.

my windows are clear anyway. We are not exactly the great white north here. I usually put the AC on once a week in the winter to keep it happy. I will give this a try the next damp day.

driving in the SF area. We are on winter gas now and this and the fact that traffic is moving pretty well and we have no need for AC in this weather. This is about as good as I expect from this car. It is a 99 forester by the way.

that Foresters have 2.5s down there too. Over here in the US the fuel is quite different, even changes a lot from state to state or pollouted urban areas. Here in the SF area we are currently still on the oxegenated fuel we get in the summer, just using the alst of it at the pumps I think. This means that over the winter our mileage will pick up at bit, but I don't think we will reach the numbers you are seeing. Out in the country here on good fuel folks are reporting better. I am off to New Zealand tomeorrow and it will be interesting to see if the high octane fuel is still for sale there.

there are a ton of options here. Just get an isolator that is rated higher than what you plan to draw through it. I used to just double up my batteries when I lived in Maine. Wire two sixes in parralell for a six volt system, or the same with twelves. Then I started working on commercial equipment and found that trucks and busses had come to the same soloution.

but I would start with the battery connections and then go to the ignition switch. The switch controls those circuits and is a wearing item. Does anything trigger it like a bump?

toward the pressure plate. Do you have an alignement tool? the alignment of the clutch disc is critical when you install the engine. If it is not centered exactly you will be unable to pull the engine and transmission together without damage. I found the best alignment tools where made when I pulled the mainshaft from an old transmission. The adjustable tools with little spacers are a pain in the butt and not that accurate.

them to my forester as they are the only thing my wife likes in a car besides a roof. It seems pretty wimpy to be considering them around here.

It goes from very hot to warm after warming up and goes off when the car is shut off. No reason Subaru could not do this.

87 in my car and do not have any pinging. I have rather wondered if going to a higher octane would help my mileage. In theory it should not, but if my engine is retarding the timing a bit to compensate it might. I know several of you folks have reported better mileage than I get, but I have been getting about what I expect with summer formulated fuel running AC on short trips in traffic. My BMW does a bit better in spite of lots more HP because the car is so tiny. If you live in an area with oxegenated fuel don't forget to take that into account.

buy Amanda's Forester and have her drive it for you. I am sure sitting in traffic completly stopped with my AC on ruins my mileage. It is actually more rare for me to get a good run at a steady high speed, and perhaps other Bay Area folks can give opinions here. When we finally get going in traffic on the way into SF we go 75 or so as long as we can, then we all stop. I have only taken the Forester out of the SF area on holidays and so I always have holiday traffic to contend with. I am assumeing that Amanda is a careful driver in a situation with few actual traffic jams and may well be near the top of possible Forester mileage. I am a former Greyhound bus driver and often have my foot to the floor in terrible traffic. SF is, I believe, the second worst traffic on the West Coast, and third worst nationwide. I may represent the worst you are likley to get out of a Forester without moving to LA or NYC.

It occured to me that one way to test for hydraulic problem would be to depress the clutch several time before selecting reverse. If it does go into reverse easily then it means that you have a hydraulic problem.

even the dealer breaks them here. This is in CA where we do not even recognise snow. The cover on mine was broken by the dealer and it had never been off before. If it cannot be removed without breaking here it is not likely to be easy in a salt state. This is one of those things that if I ever remove myself I would be likely to refit in brass. For years I have used brass nuts on exhaust systems, especially manifolds, and it really pays if you have to remove them yourself later.

that a number fo folks posted on this not long ago. In SF we have a lot of traffic that brings mine down to the lower numbers. You are in the range I would expect, it really can depend on how much steady cruiseing your car sees. These things are 4wd and the Forester is not the slickest shape that ever hit the highway, but if it was it would not fit all the stuff I put in it.

it is only a 12 volt fan. There are probably a ton of similar size motors out there. Check to see if it gets power to the motor when it is hot and the AC is on before you go to a lot of work.

a bit of a classic. Picking up a low mileage example of one of the last ones might be good while you still can. That is what I would have done if our hauling needs did not dictate the Forester shape.

a block of wood and a sledgehammer? I did a flathead Ford that way, honed heck out of it. Put in a piston and ring set from a jankyard and drove it till I sold the truck. It burned very little oil all the time I had it.

wondered about that. The Subaru does not lend itself to an easy retorque, but if it would save head gaskets it sure would be worth the pain.

because on the BMW forem i read for my other car we all hate the paint. the BMW stuff chips very easily becuase it is water based. I have two 99s, a Forester and an M Roadster. The Forester paint seems fairly normal, but the M scatches if you look at it. I think this is because it is water based and supposed to be environmentally friendly to apply. Both cars are about the same color, but so far the Subaru paint seems better.

but if I am in a parking building with the windows down it sounds pretty loud. It is annoying but causes little harm. When I was a kid we would rebuild engines without enough money to bore them and put in new pistons. You frequently ended up with piston slap but the suckers would run another 100,000 miles.