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when the gaskets are pretty well shot. You cannot rely on them with a Subaru.

there are three phase 1 head gasket problems. This is fine if you plan for it and just say $1200 or so is cheaper than a bunch of car payments.

but it really sounds like a head gasket.

were between $12,000 to $16,000 that came out of my pocket. I wired them with a manual temp guage, an electric temp guage, and two senders that grounded when hot that I ran to one large red light and one horn for a fire alarm. I suspect that if I had a phase 1 I would at least be tempted to put an additional warning system on. My BMW has a $12,000 engine without a guage for oil pressure and I have temptations to run a guage.

at 1st. Good service and she was nice.

overheating. I know this is from the stone age but it still means time to change it.

a five year old car for me. I do think that now that Subaru is part of GM and may have a few more bucks thrown thier way that this may improve.

and don't forget to polish your Subaru!

but how do they handle it? BMW has had some problems with certain months of M engines with deffective oil pumps. They just replace the engine no questions asked. They have also extended the warranty. I don't have so much of a problem with the fact that there is a defect as I do the handling of the defect.

less head gaskets where you live. There are some major differences in operation in the various areas of the US and Canada.Subarus have been popular in your area for a long time as they were in Maine where I grew up. Here they are almost a fringe vehicle ( and getting more fringe all the time). Frankly this board functions as a survey. If you see a lot of activity on one issue it is a problem whether you have it or not

to change on a Subaru. If the bloody thing fits it is probably fine. What are we talking here, two bolts?

forgotten us?

but if you can't drill a hole in it and insert a sheet metal screw to pull on. Be carefull to clean all bits up after.

is not bashed enough on this board. If it was they might have actually fixed it instead of leaving 2.5 phase 1 owners out in the cold. OK, on my phase 2 Subaru came through in the end to pay for my head gasket job. I have just seen a lot of car companies(including the much maligned GM) come through and fix problems. I am extremely disappointed in Subaru that they have acted like this! We all know this is a problem.

also because my brother in law has a 97 with a 2.2 I have driven quite a bit and it is a tank. The Outbacks I have driven have not been on roads that favored them, but on winding New Zealand highways. I did take one to Burning Man once, but that was mostly highway. I keep seeing posts from folks with Outbacks that have had brake problems that make think that Subaru should have added some more brake size, especially on the later ones. I am sorry but the travials of freinds on this board and folks at work have made me think that the phase 1 2.5 engine is a bit of a crap shoot. There are folks here that I think have done a great job of maintaining the p 1 2.5 and still had problems.

anything on a Subaru except my clutch. I am thinking of several master cyl units I have rebuilt in the past. Many of the later ones were dual circuit brakes and had two pressure lines coming out. Inside these were two seperate pistons sometimes seperated by a spring, sometimes the units were fastened together, and sometimes all one moving piston with two parts. Each would have its own seal for the piston. On ones that were seperated by a spring it was possible for the rear piston to go full forward and not give pressure to the line in the rear of the cyl. If the rear seal fails this is the failure mode which still gives you brakeing pressure to tow wheels, often on opposeing sides of the car. Bench bleed made it easier to see that the dang thing was putting pressure out of both lines before standing on your head to install it in the car and find out it did not work. On VW parts made in Brazil we had about a one in 10 failure rate of rebuilt masters and that was a pain in the butt. You often will get it to work fine without bench bleeding and if the customer was standing there in a hurry we skipped that step.

but back before there was such a thing as codes we still had tranny problems. The most common automatic transmission problem on a trip is overheating, which is why transmission coolers are so popular. If you continue to run it with burnt fluid you can suffer furthur damage. As soon as she smelled the burnt fluid it had to come out of there code or no code. She did what she could on the trip,although we all know it should have a fluid and filter change, maybe a flush, and the codes read to find out why she is overheating her fluid. It can be as simple as running hard with a heavy load on the car.I hope it is simple overheating and just needs a cooler for her sake.

and she can get the oil and tranny filter changed at her leisure. I agree it would not be good to flash codes on such a new car.

and what do you want to spend on satisfaction? It's sort of the old "speed costs money, how fast do you want to go?" thing. The Outback looks better, goes faster, gets worse mileage, has a less reliable engine, parts cost more,and may need a brake upgrade if some of the posts here are correct.Plus it has more miles. Logic does not always enter into a car buying decision. It can be more like lust. The good part is that if you make the trade and it was a mistake the Legacy is unlikly to ask for alimoney.

On some cars the piston can move full forward and limit the stroke. If you bleed each line by pushing on the barke pedal do you get a powerful squirt from each? This is the kind of effect you can get if you install a master cyl without bench bleeding and it does not pick up.

I have a 99 Forester so this only counts for a phase 2 SOHC. Since we know there are at least four basic cam cover designs it may not count for all of them. I am also useing 10-30 Dino oil. On Saturday someone forgot the key to my wife's spa in SF. I ran up there with vigor shall we say, hitting 6,000 RPM on each shift. This is not my normal driving mode. When I got home I checked the oil and it was below the lowest line after sitting for a half hour. I added a half quart and checked it after a couple of hours and it was just below the highest hole. I did not use the car for the rest of the day and all Monday. I checked the oil again before taking the wife to the airport today and it was way over filled dead cold. I am beginning to think if I run it hard it takes at least a day to drain about a half quart down from the valve covers. Because the readings are not linear it is harder to really tell where you are. When I check the oil when it comes back from a dealer oil change it shows slightly overfilled dead cold.

offers some serious bits. My Forester has a small plastic cover between the bumper and the cross member. This is what I thought the owner meant. It should have a few functions improving aerodynamics, and keeping snow and small debis out of the engine compartment. It sure is not going to do much for rocks as the owner says. The only function mine has had so far is to have a fastener fall out and scare me by making frightening sounds on my left front wheel. Stove bolts will function as temporary fasteners by the way.

assumeing you are not referring to orgasm, I would check to see if the tires are all the same diameter first. They have to be extremely close and this is the cheapest thing to fix. Lots of posts on this if you do a search.

and all your plastic pan is for is a slight reduction in drag to increase fuel mileage. I have the Michellins and they are doing fine and getting many miles. You trade a bit of grip for the mileage, but I am not 29 like certain folks. On Greyhound busses we used to lose belly pans with the first oil change. Look at it this way, the belly pan and the water cooled boxer layout and 4 wheels are all in common with the Porsche GT3!

but I have had to use it when doing a repair with few tools. The best and easiest way is a large impact which does not require holding anything. I have also used the old bolt in flywheel holes with a steel bar I drilled to be a stop. I recall the chain method once too. All those mean you need to tie the engine down.