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although its better to use heat on a rusted bolt before you screw it up. You can do some amazing things you shouldn't with an oxy aceteleyne torch. I have cut out truck kingpins without damaging the axle. Here in CA we don't have anywhere near the battle you do in salt states. When I pulled the supension in my Subaru last year I didn't use heat or oil and it came right apart. In rare cases an extractor will pull a rounded off bolt when you cut the head off. The tension is then removed, but if it is the threads that are rusted you are still screwed.

I supect I may have had Excide batteries I didn't even know I had. The one in my old GTO is probably an Excide by this list.

The car is still one of Subaru's more trouble prone efforts.

For a turbo engine I have heard they are pretty reliable. Have fun!

but it has rear drums which have been eating shoes a bit. It got about 80,000 miles on the first set of shoes and pads. When I got it I had a local garage do a brake job anfd they turned the rear trums oversize. The car still vibrated on braking so after a bout 10,000 miles I put new rotors pads and tried to do drums. Of course the drums did not fit so I had to put new shoes on the turned drums. Now I will have to fit new drums this summer as the shoes are wearing on the ends of the arc. Just inspect your brakes at every major service and replace them in the order that your car and driving habits dictate.

at the meeting. I am not sure at all that Dilbert is fictional. Since I am often the guy who has to take an old device and keep it going way after the manufacturer thinks it is junk I tend to err on the side of caution. I'm the guy who has to spend my money and get dirty when it fails so if possible I'll go with the spec that makes me sure it won't. It may anyway, but at least I tried.

Than the usual race and bearing combo. I think they are going to be a sealed bearing race unit. As you know that means you won't actually have the hub seperate unless you take the assembly off the car. This means it would be a misery on the garage floor with a hammer. I'll leave this to somebody who has actually done the job to clarify. So far I've been lucky enough not to have done mine.

are tested to a certain standard. Subaru has determined that these couplings can take a certain amount of heat before they get so hot the silicone fails. Since they are always constantly compensating for differences in revoloution they are going to build up heat that is acceptable. If you ask them to compensate more than the requirements you head to the failure threshold. All you have to do is cause them to overheat and they are dead. The standards are there to keep you from destroying these couplings, and if it did not cause problems nobody would care what size tires you put on the car. I personally do not have to hit myself in the head with a hammer to determine that it would hurt. Other people have done this and I am willing to believe them.

cal them troublechargers. As well as the coking problem it is one more major component you need to keep overhauled. That said they are a lot of fun when they are on boost, but it is going to cost you some money for that performance. They old saying is "speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?"

I think you will have to press them in or use what we used to call a bearing buddy. They are a press fit application if I recall. Hammering wheel bearings in can be done in an emergency, but the failure rate is much higher.The endwrench has an article on installing wheel bearings I think, and you should search the archives here. A number of folks have given notes on thier installation. I have paid attention to this because my Forester has only been saved so far by the smooth roards here in CA. I was trying to decide to wether to change them as preventitive maintence last time I had it apart. This is something I know I will have problems with eventually because there is just not enough bearing in there.

It's nice to see an easy fix happen once in a while!

I changed the whole front downpipe. After I heard from you guys how easy it was to fix the next one cost me a sheet metal screw. Next one gets another screw from the parts bin in the garage. If I go high tech I may use a stainless one.

now and from the above post of the relabeled Optima it sounds like they buy them from Optima.

The heat shields are a really common noise maker. I was in a parking building today with the windows down and noticed mine are starting to act up again. I will be under there soon with a rubber mallet whacking the shields to see which is the rattler this time. If it is the shield it is really easy to fix with a sheet metal screw.

They use ball bearings. The legacys are roller. Any time these are replaced they should use Legacy bearings. The problem is worse on Foresters as they are used to haul things a great deal.

This is just curiosity anyway. Thanks blitzer.

It would be most interesting to find out exactly where it is. I suspect that if it was in an accessible area Subaru would just change it instead of changing the whole tranny. I used to be able to do certain fixes on Turbo 400s and 350s like change the mechanical governor from the outside. You could also change the entire valve body in the car. I would be very tempted to do a search on this symptom and discuss this with my local automatic tranny shop to see if they think it might be possible to do a repair without a complete teardown.

If the car was my everyday driver and I expected it to last for several years I would want no turbo and the least stress on the engine possible. If I was giving it to a teenage driver I would also want to give them a chance to survive thier teenage years. I think my BMW M Roadster has about the same speed numbers as a WRX. I can tell you for sure that I would never have made it through my teenage years with this car. If it was my choice the kid would get the 2.5, which is a plenty fast car, and the best stereo available to make the car cool. One of the local football star kids was just killed here in a VW going about 100 in a 35 zone so this may be coloring my thinking.

fairly seriously. This is probably why I have better automotive luck than some of my friends. There have been a few folks on the board in the past that posted that they had thier VCs fail. By keeping my tires as close to the same size as possible I hope to do my best not to join them. Here in CA there are flea markets and junkyards that have a good selection of used tire when you need to match up a used one. the San Jose flea market and the one in Oakland have a pretty good size tire selection. Sometimes you can even find a similar used tire at the local gas station. One of my last Jeeps had this problem. I bought it used and dead with about three brands of tires on it. Since it had quadratrac I had to match up used ones by measureing them. This worked for about the first three years until I finally rewarded it with new tires for the last few years I had it. There is really no sense in argueing about it. One should just try to keep the tires as close to spec as possible.

I think we might be appalled to find out where some of our parts come from. I am fairly sure the Interstate in my BMW is an Excide product. The BMW Z3s and Ms use an odd size rear mounted battery that requires a vent tube. I have been told that Excide is one of the few producers of this odd size, and I have seen a couple of discount brands that are identical except for the label. Making batteries is such a dangerous and environmentally sensitive field that the local firms that used to service many areas have folded. We had two manufacturers that I used to buy from in the Bay area here that are just marketing outfits for batteries made by others on contract now. Johnson Controls makes an amazing amount of products for others. We have a branch in South San Francisco that ships all over.

When I was a kid the advantages of the Optima would have sold it to me for sure. I also like deep cycle boat batteries and used to run diesel batteries for a while. In the 190 E Mercedes I had the battery for the diesel was a drop in. I used those all the time I had that car. I think you are right that you can easily get a battery that will handle your needs at a discount auto chain. When I was a kid in Maine I used to run two batteries in parallel to get my six volt VW to start at 20 below.These subies start pretty nicely when it's cold. Mine only gets a bit of cold at Xmas and New Years at my friend's place up north. The Subie is the first car I have not worried about starting up there. That was why I gave the Mercedes the diesel battery. I currently have the biggest Interstate they had in stock that fit the Subie's battery tray with no mods. Does your brother have a list of who Excide makes batteries for?

certain that's not just a fuse. Richie does it every day so I vote for following his advice.

there are only a few manufacturers left. You can buy one from Pep Boys that may be identical to an Interstate and the only difference is the label. Batteries are so superior these days compared to the ones I grew up with that they are all pretty good. I used to use Diehards when they were the only plastic case because they had more plate area in a given size. Now everybody is on that bandwagon. For the past ten years I used Interstates becuse they always had a battery for every application, and the local distributor was a friend of mine. Now that Jim has retired I may just go to a store like Pep Boys as there is not much challenge to this climate.

That one made me laugh out loud. they probably think I'm even more nuts here now.

I have been very tempted by Optimas since they came out. The last time I looked at one I figured out that I could buy two oversized Interstates for the same price, and since I don't race and rarely roll my car over many of the benefits would be hard to realize. Regardless gel batteries just seem like a better idea. I change my battery about every four years with the biggest one I can get in the tray and that seems fine for this mild climate. Let us know what happens!