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Driving a greyhound bus SF to NYC for 10 years took a lot of the thrill out of it for me. As BB King says "The thrill is gone.'

My Michies on the Forester definately don't help the noise. On certain smooth pavement they are quiet bu the tread is a tiny bit aggressive. Tires can make a huge difference.

Cool, if that Outback has all the stuff you should be fine. Sometimes the light has been sabotaged so you might have harness problems too.

I can see nip now...out on the highway with his hands glued to the vibrating wheel, teeth clenched, blowing by semis....

Found it, please close this one moderator.

Hate to say it but that happens. Another bad thing is people put phoney airbags in for cheap collision repairs. Good luck on finding bits for it.

I'd like to say I've never left a wire or the big hose under the air cleaner off, but... This seems to take the place of timeing the engine to the wrong cylinder like we used to do to frustrate ourselve with an engine swap. After you work on it for twelve hours and are in the dark except for a drop light you can make a lot of errors that clear right up with daylight and a good night's sleep.

Thanks, that's bound to help somebody!

I finally found the Nipper Tripper thread. old car, broken tire belts at 100, old head gaskets, and they think fighter pilots are brave.....

Flush it and make sure the tires are the same first. Do a search, should be a ton of info on flushing.

He probaly can't hear over the sound of his praying.

Where's the Nipper Tripper thread? Anybody spot it?

I went from a 15 mpg Jeep to the 25 MPG Forester. I had the hybrid feeling for a long time when I filled up. Now I just expect 25 mpg and grumble when I don't get it.

To tell ya the truth guy I'd do a bit of research on the trail. I used to be a Jeep guy as some of the board folks are. I have been on a number of Jeep trails that I would not take my Forester on unless it was two weeks before I planned to junk it.

I'd look for a wire off. A cam or crank sensor being off causes a similar symptom.

That was probably the last thing they changed and it finally worked. It does make sense but you never know if it was the problem in the first place. When they swapped trannies they may have needed the TCU that came with the tranny to get it to work right. Your car was probably a fiasco for those guys. I'd like to say I have not been there but I have. After you finally get it to work you usually find you expended five times the effort you needed to. I once changed a bus muffler in Oakland and the bus overheated on the Bay Brigde to SF. I figured it had to be a deffective muffler and put the old one back on. It still overheated and I started pulling everything else apart from the thermostat, 300 lb radiator, the 100lb shutters, etc. I finally found the water pump drive had just happened to shear off on the trip back. Then I got to put it all back together including switch the muffler again. If the muffler had not weighed 200 lbs and been behind the engine in a Greyhound bus it might have been easy. When a job goes to%#@& it really goes to *^#@!

It sounds like they were having a bad time with your car. Most of the times jobs go well but when they go down the tubes they seem to snowball. It sounds like they chased the problem on your car and just kept changing parts until they got it to work.

Often when a tranny is rebuilt the shift point can change. This is becuse the clutches are now at maximum thickness and although the shift is triggered at the same time the engagement point changes.

One trick that works with some cars is to take the entire top off the air cleaner and run it. Sometimes you leave the element in, sometimes not depending on design. A short run won't hurt and if the whistling stops you know where to look. Do not perform this test in a gravel pit.

I had the organic clutch in my 99 when I got it and they sure do chatter. I have the replacement type now and most chatter is gone except for when the car is quite cold. By the way, cross your fingers for Nipper's head gaskets. He pm ed me from Missouri with a naya naya the other day!

Much depends on how much time you have. I used to love to buy cars with a blown engine as then after I rebuilt them I knew exactly what I had. From the age I suspect it will be ready for suspension and brakes and maybe a tranny. Figure for the worst in you calcualtions.

some folks have changed the gaskets without removing the engine. You would have a lot more clearance and could change some of the seals which should be due about now if you removed it though.

Gas guages are rarely linear.

Oil sure can make a difference in a tranny as well as an engine. I was whineing about my tranny being the next thing out on my Subaru about 40,000 miles ago and had the tranny oil changed. It cut noise about 50% when going for original fill with about 90,000 miles on it to new oil. this was nothing spechial, just dealer stock. Setright was one of the folks who told me the 5 speed might whine on forever and right now it looks like it might. All modern oils are very good but some are just a bit better than others for particular purposes. I've noticed improved shifting on my BMW when changing from Redline to Specialty Lubes MTF Glide. Recently trying Havoline in my Forester seems to have cut piston slap. Oil is somewhat cheap to experiment with.

Many things can cause misfires, but carbon build up is a cheap one to check. You can use Seafoam or just trickle water in like we used to in the old days. Then there is always sprinkling water over the plugwires at night to look for sparks.