craigawitt

Thanks much, Fairtax4me. Makes sense. Looks like I'll be buying a used transmission - the search is on.

Thanks to all who have posted. Answers to above: not sure if it sounds like gear teeth or bearings. If I had to guess I would say bearings...but don't know. The sound seems to correspond to wheel speed but only when there is a load on the transmission/trying to accelerate or maintain speed. No noise when coasting, and noise louder at higher speeds. Fairtax4me: it's an automatic.

What would you do? Looking for some advice / thoughts regarding my noisy Outback transmission. Car is otherwise in good working condition and runs well. I'd like to keep it as long as possible before replacing it. My 175K miles 2003 Outback transmission began whining about a year ago, and has gotten noticeably worse in the past 3 months. The noise occurs when there is a load on the transmission (i.e. acceleration but not coasting). There's another Forum post re transmission here at USMB that has a video / sound attachment to illustrate what a bad pinion sounds like...that's the sound I hear while driving. The transmission seems to function just fine...shifts well and smoothly as always, so I don't feel any urgency to fix it (today) but worry it could fail anytime. The transmission noise is not quite deafening, but it's getting there. I've taken the car to my local Lambs Automotive, Aamco, Cottmann Tranmission,and even the Austin subaru dealer and have a whole range of recommendations ($700 to open and then diagnose / repair ($$ unknown); replace with 113K used transmission and 6 month warranty ($3000), install used transmission from 2006 vehicle ($4425 at dealer). I have great trust in one of these repair shops as they have serviced / repaired my four vehicles over the past 15 years (Lambs). The others don't know me from Adam. Thanks in advance for whatever thoughts and ideas you can share. Happy 2016 to all.