dpoppeli

With a 98, I bet he had to prematurely replace a wheel bearing or two, re-solder an overhead clock contact, and secure the special coolant additive from the dealer.

Should have bought a forester. Same engine, less weight = vroom vroom. Does your Outback have the aluminum hood or was that for 2006?

Browsing the local bookstore, noticed that Consumer Reports rated the Outback a little doggy because of high 0-60 times. Don't know if this was tested before Subaru started making hood from aluminum and adding a few HP through engine massaging. I own both Outback and Forester and Forester has more get-up-and-go. I'd say both have equal kid-carrying capacity (I have 2 elementary age). Course, the SUV form-factor is "out" and the crossover is "in" so that may affect your buying decision.

Here is iroshman's link, corrected... http://mobile.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/04/29/201227&tid=102 Hope they get some more capable sand tires in addition to the lift kit...course plenty of sand in central florida to simulate southwest environment...

Have to wonder if this sort of thing is going to drive up value of Subarus? They are good alternative to truck based SUV's with recent gas prices. Wish I had a more recent model to gain the additional ground clearance though.

Thanks and apologies for not having done a search through previous board messages as I find a lot of discussion on the topic.

I see "factory service manuals on CD" available on Ebay. Are these worth having for the average shade-tree mechanic? I understand that they aren't comparable to Autozone/Alldata subscription but seems like they would be a step above the usual Haynes/Chiltons (which aren't made for more recent model Subarus anyway). Seems like a deal at less then $10.

An interesting discussion... bringing out the engineers. I'm by no means an automotive engineer but I pulled Marks handbook and they state 85% as the low end for "high output aircraft engines at rated speeds". Would this put a 4 banger a little lower, say 80%?

Well maybe I can make it through the winter... hope for the 80k's before it needs to be replaced. Perhaps a silly question but does it matter whether I wait until it's slipping ? Also through other posts I've noticed that it makes sense to replace any seals while the transmission is dropped, eg oil pump, misc bearings, others?

Was curious myself... so Googled it: Money Factor:A term commonly used in auto leasing industry. Under typical auto leasing terms, the interest rate can be approximated by the money factor multiplied by 24. When a dealer quotes a money factor k, the customer should have the confidence of knowing that he/she is getting an interest rate slightly better (lower) than 2400 k %. and... Important:When a car dealer quotes you a Money Factor, you can always multiply that by 2400 to get a very good feeling about the actual interest rate %. Also, the monthly payment calculated by the Money Factor is always slightly lower than that calculated by the 'real' formula. For example, if a dealer tells you his lease Money Factor is .0025, then you simply multiply that by 2400 to get 6. Now you know that the actual interest rate behind this Money Factor is slightly below 6%. Sometimes a dealer will give you a Money Factor like 3.1 so it sounds like a low interest rate. In this case you just multiply that number by 2.4 and immediately know that the interest rate is about 7.44%.

'99 Forester, 75k miles, manual. Trying to track down source of a smell which sort of reminds me of what I've smelled coming from braking trucks (it's not that "CV-joint grease dripping on the exhaust" smell). There is no visible smoke. It's not coming out the tailpipe. It first happened last winter after going to and from town through almost a foot of snow. Found bunch of debris clogged between the exhaust guarding and figured it was due to this. Recently however I noticed it when I was backing a log-splitter down a grassy hill where I was riding the clutch a lot. Smell went away after a few hours. Don't notice any slipping in clutch howver I am suspecting that due to very occasional clutch "stuttering" when starting out in first gear.

Here are some ideas... - Big plastic "skid plate" which covers the oil-pan. On my Forester I run tie-wraps through the corners near the wheels since somebody probably lost the bolts a few dozen oil changes ago. - the seals on the front of the windows. On our Outback you have to pinch this closed occasionally (while window is down) otherwise it starts to make air-noise approaching highway speeds.

I owned a Chrysler minivan which went through quite a few idler pulleys, and weee.. there goes the serpentine. I also lost the belt on the same van once when I went through a large puddle. Don't have a Subaru engine in front of me but do the 2.5's really have a tensioner on the timing belt?? Also, anyone know if the o&m manual have a replacement interval for any tensioners?

I'm no expert but here's what I've found: compressor will not turn on/off when sensing low refrigerant pressure. Easiest way to try a fix is to try and charge the circuit. This year car probably takes 134A. Costs about $7 a can at Kmart or wherever. Also need to buy the piercing vavle+hose ($15?). Just screw this onto the low press side (the only valve of correct size) and screw it on. Some teflon tape on threads of the car and can seem to help prevent wasting the stuff. You can use a gage and refeernce a service manual (Haynes publishes a general auto regrigerant manual) as well but I just turn the car on, AC to high, and turn the can upside down until the compressor starts cycling again and cold air starts blasting. You can stick a temp gage in the vents to see what you're getting. Should be in the 50's. I've put some of the stop-leak junk in older cars and it's worked great - I'd hate to do this on anything you really like.