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Doesn't sound too scarey to me. Look for leaks and if you see none go for it. I always check halfway thorugh my xmas road trip which I start tomorrow myself.

I have a 99 Forester and for the stuff I use it for it is very good. Seems to average 25mpg for me which ain't great but but is not bad for a four wheel drive. I have 120,000 + miles on it and put a lot of maintnence into it at around 90,000 and since then it has been a tank. Every day I run it with no problems I am getting my maintence money back. If I were going to buy again I would buy a newer one with lower miles to avoid the 90,000 mile high maintence mark, but then maybe I wouldn't.. talk to me again in a couple of years. If it keeps going like it is now it is a winner for me. My other driver is a BMW M Roadster which has limitations in room and abuse factor. The Subaru takes a lickin and keeps on tickin. (Where is John Cameron Swazy now that we need him?)

I was just wondering if you were close enough to San Mateo where we could switch cars for a week.

Not really a recall. Subaru offers you a can of sealer for the early phase 2. If you use it they extend the head gasket warranty to 100,000 miles. If you have a phase 1....oh well.

Most of us who partied too hard have these flashbacks. Part of it is overexposure to Rock and Roll at a tender age.

Very few folks got new clutches on warranty I understand. If you really insisted..... They only did it cold and boy could they chatter pretty good. When engaging my car would jerk like a drunk when cold. Warm they were fine and the dealer would never see anything considered warrantable. There is a kit that came out about 2003 I think that fixes it with a new disk and clutch cover. I got the numbers from somebody on the board and had it fitted to mine on major service. I had to give the dealer the numbers I wanted and it is a fairly good fix. i still have a tiny bit of chatter when dead cold, but its not bad at all. i have over 30,000 miles on the fix now. The only thing I have against it was the dealer did not replace the pilot bearing so it had to come apart on my dime again. Since I knew to replace pilot bearings in a clutch job when I was 12 this POed me and I started serviceing the car myself. The idea of these clutches was good in using recyling organic materials but my position currently is that organics are better in the veggie bin.

Keep an eye on the fluids to make sure there is not a small leak. I would not be surprised if the guy put what he thought was the correct amount of fluid in the tranny and then the torque converter filled which left it down. Unfortunately no dealer or mechanic is perfect and it is often best to check thier work. Personally I don't worry if the oil is over a small amount, I have never seen it hurt anything. I will say I have seen a big difference between the work my BMW dealer turns out compared to my Subaru dealer. I think the Bimmer dealer costs a bit more but realizes the average person is not a mechanic. It seems like those folks tried to treat you fairly well but it does seem like more testing and checking is in order in thier work. My dealers both send out surveys that go to National HQs. If you get one I am sure you will have few comments.

Worn injectors that leak are a bit risky. I am not sure if the injector hydraulic lock myth is real because I have not seen it myself. I have wondered how long Subie injectors were going to be good for. It seems like 200,000 plus is pushing it for a wearing item that fires as much as an injector. We used to pull the mechanical ones out of Diesels and get them rebuilt at 150,000 miles.

I agree with Nipper on how I believe they work. The one other thing you might note is that on a worn tranny you often have to select first and reverse and sort of charge them or pump them up with fluid. I have had a couple of cars that would have a slam on engagement when the tranny circulated oil to the clutchs. My Mercedes did this for the last few years before it finally would not shift and required replacement. The clutchs get worn, the pump doesn't quite have all the original pressure, and the seals leak a bit when a tranny is old. But the oil is circulating through the tranny in neutral and park, just a valve in the vlave body has not opened to route the fluid to a clutch.

Sorry when I said up north I meant Oregon and Washington. The colder air thereories could apply or maybe they get better gas. I do like Otis's idea that it would be very interesting to switch cars with two folks that have identical equipment. I am sure driving style has a lot to do with it. The best mileage I ever got from my phone booth, oops Forester, was driving through Big Sur. You would expect lousey mileage but I got my best tank ever at nearly 28. You just can't go fast in that area.... Best mileage I recall was from a woman up north who could hit 30 with one of these. I always though she might be a very smooth driver and live in a good area. I supect the Legacies might do better than my car because although heavier, they look pretty slippery. I think most of the 2.2 folks report a bit better mileage with thier lighter cars and smaller engines.

Foresters and Imps have inadaquate rear bearings. The fix is to use a Legacy bearing for replacement. The noise could be several things but that is common, and you are right that you need a trustworthy garage.

I was going to run a couple tankfuls though to get more premium in there to have less of a mix. I'll pop the battery cable off at the same time and leave it overnight. By the way so far I think the Mobil 1 15-50 has made very little change in my fuel mileage. It may have improved it by less than a half MPG at best over the long run. Remember though this oil is a bit heavier than my former Dino oil and the only real result is less piston slap.

over lunch I thought of a test that might be interesting. I am still doing the 15-50 Mobil 1 oil test but this would not interfere with that. By the way my oil sample is ready to mail to Blackstone but I don't feel like standing in line at the PO until after xmas. I think I will run the next few tankfulls through with premium fuel to see if that makes any difference. a few folks have reported a difference for them so this should be interesting (and fairly cheap). I am not sure why the best mileage I have seen reported by Foresters seems to come from up north. Do they have better fuel or driing conditions? Are the people saner?

That would be about right with the organic clutches Subaru installed in that age range. Mine came with one of those cherries but the new version is not bad at all.

if you were around here I would say come on over and I'll look at it. The only person I have seen who felt his car was bucking had a broken motor mount. Do any of you other guys live near MTBE?

I also have a 99 Forester and other than idleing high when cold it is quite smooth when driving. I would be tempted to try to fix that if it were mine as it kind of sounds like a pain.

and is indicative of what you can get if you find that rare small shop that works on Subies. Sounds like you did your research shopping around. I usually tow cars myself with a towbar or rent a trailer so the expense is not that great. As long as a shop has good references and backs up thier work you should be OK. Metro areas tend to be more expensive because of higher rents, insurance, wages, and more stringent work rules. Here in the Bay Area it is fairly easy to get sticker shock on most items.

Tire pressure is a big subject. On my Forester I go by the door as I believe the manufacturer has done a bit of testing. (I hope). The weight of the car is not the same front to rear and inflation should compensate for that. Since I do everyday driving I use everyday drining numbers. For performance or hauling it would make sense to compensate for that with a bit more air. I personally think the max on the tire is just that.. a maximum pressure not to exceed. Tire Rack's web site has tons of data on this and experts to ask.

I would agree. Just get the oil circulating and drive within a minute or so. Now on our fleet of busses and our trains it is a bit of a different story. Our trains have two engines, one the size of a bus motor to power the heavy electrics (HEP), and the other the size of a ship engine to power the wheel motors. The size of the engine and the actual temp outside can have a lot to do with how long a warm up you need to use. I will defer to our cold weather friends as to what works well on thier cars as the climate is mild here by comparison.

I checked my current mileage on my Forester yesterday. Right now I am on winter fuel here in the Bay Area and I have a five speed which should do a tiny bit better than his car if he has an automatic. It has been raining lately which does not help my mileage as it affects traffic and I run with more electrical load. I got 23.9 on my last tank. This is actually fairly good for winter for me in this area. I have been running this car for 40,000 miles now with no change in the mileage except seasonally and traffic. My car gets checked regularly by me, smogged, and yesterday it went to a friend's shop where they insisted on checking everything becuse I am going on an Xmas trip. Two mechanics ran the checklist on the car and they stuck it on the smog machine to see if the mixture was good. They think this is the best running old Subaru that they see and they do the overflow and smog work for our local dealer. All they charged me was an oil change by the way... This makes me think that my Forester is probably in the ballpark for being an average one for fuel mileage. I think if I was running rich the smog machine would pick it up.

mileage, at least the late ones. My friend Doug does better with his 05 Vette than I do with my BMW M Roadster. You are never going to get truly great fuel mileage out of a boxy little four wheel drive car with a high numerical gear ratio. One of the reasons for the Vette's good mileage is the high rear end and economy and emissions gearing (love that six speed in Doug's car.) I am sure fuel mileage was not a main point of this excercise. What Josh has right now is a little sleeper that did not cost a lot of money and has the pride of building it yourself. It would be nice to get better mileage too but you need to have the parts to do that in the Subaru inventory, and anything that might help is too expensive for a project right now.

for an urban area.

Frankly the numbers I have seen on subie automatics make me think they are pretty good. The GM automatics I have had incude a few turbo 400s, arugueably one of the world's toughest. I usually got between 150,000 and 200,000 before a rebuild except in trucks and cutaway busses. My last Mercedes did about 200,000 before needing a $4,000 or so factory rebuild. I hear folks like Nipper tell me all the time that they are getting 150-200,000 miles out of these things. They don't get a lot better than that on something with wearing gears, clutches, and all those little parts. These things are fairly heavy four wheel drive cars too that often are used for difficult work.

a couple of days unless they have to order a part. If everything goes smooth one day. I won't quote you prices because I am in CA and the cost is more in my area, but perhaps someone near you has a realistic idea.

Metropolitan areas tend to be more expensive. No test works 100% on these head gaskets when they start to go. The problem is they seal up when they are cool. When they get bad enough most of the standard tests work. In your area I would be tempted to haul the car to Vermont or Maine if I could not do it myself. When the engine is torn down the mechanic can see what else needs to be done, if you get a good Subie place they will have good reccomendations. I'd check with the guy from Vermont and see where he had his done.