TheBrian

Whoever says you can't have it both ways just isn't thinking hard enough. Good thinking, Al. The problem with every theory presented here except TinyClark's is that you all say the oil has to be hot to flow out of the engine, carrying gunk with it. Well, it is, in fact, hot, when it begins to drain into the oil pan when I shut the car off at night. It carries contaminants and gunk down into the oil pan. So I guess the reason to drain the oil while it's hot is so as to have a hot oil pan. I pulled the drain plug at the beginning of my lunch hour. 40 minutes later, it was still dripping, with one drip every several seconds. I went back to work with the oil catch pan under the car. Six hours later, it was *still* dripping, though only one drip every few minutes. This is 10w30 at about 3oC. Note, a good reason to change the oil when it's hot is that you'd much rather have 35oC oil on your fingers than 0oC oil.

SubieGal is right. Tires are probably the most important and most easily felt performance and safety modification you can make to your car. Braking and cornering are both limited by your tires. But to answer your question, I was in Wal-Mart today, and I noticed they sell tires. It seems like theirs are cheaper than PepBoys'. Dunno if they're any good, though. I'd search for reviews before you buy.

I've always been told, when you're changing oil, you do it with the oil hot. Not so hot that it burns you, but as hot as possible so it drains down into the oil pan better. Why don't we change our oil first thing in the morning, when it's had all night to drain into the oil pan? I'm going to try out synthetic, so I'm interested in getting as much of the old oil as possible out this time.

There was a recall done on my car's coil springs. The paint would flake off, and the springs would rust. Well, guess what? The revised paint has all flaked off, too.

I have 80w90 in my 5mt, and it's fine in the summer, but it sucks in the winter. When it gets cold, it's really, really hard to get into 2nd, and it's hard to get into the other gears as well, until it warms up. I don't know if it snows much in Oregon, but I would spend the $25 on the specified gear oil.

Beauty shot. Their product fits on the Impreza, plus the Impreza doesn't have a sales-killing "Diesel Fuel Only" warning inside the fuel door. If you have a problem remembering not to put gasoline in your diesel, paint your gas cap yellow or something. How many different warnings can you need?

You can find a lot of information about performance upgrades at the forums at NASIOC.com. The people there are more in to that. You can make more power than stock, but it's at the expense of having a noisier car, using more gas, reduced driveability, and/or reduced longevity. I find most of the compromises Subaru made were reasonable. Though I might someday replace the intake baffling (black ABS box in the right fender) with a straight pipe. *Forced induction is too risky. *Running rich all the time (such as with a resistor replacing the IAT sensor, or with more sophisticated chipping) will reduce the service life of various components that live in your exhaust, and the gas will find its way in to your oil, requiring a shorter oil change interval. Besides which, you use more gas per horsepower the richer you're running. *The factory Subaru air intake breathes cold enough air through a pretty big filter, so there's little room for improvement there. *The exhaust seems big enough, considering the size of the engine. So, you can do a few mods if you like, but I don't think they'll end up making the car powerful enough to justify the cost, in general.

Let rust and the wrong flavor tranny be dealbreakers. There's plenty of Subarus to choose from, and you'll be living with your decision for a long time to come. Better to shop around, even if it means a road trip.

Keep it because: It's a well taken care of car, with (I presume) mostly highway miles. It's a lot younger than most cars with that many miles on the odo. A '96 2.2L with a 5MT? The last year for the non-interference version of the longest-lasting Subaru engine ever, the EJ22. Plus, no slushbox to wear out. But: That's a lot of miles for any car. You can see it's getting expensive to mantain, with the annual repair cost greater than the value of the car. It would be a great car for someone who works on his own car. Sell it to a college student or a friend or family member who turns his own wrenches, and someone new will fall in love with Subarus.

Maybe it's going all over the driveway. Park over a sheet of cardboard at night and see. Also see if there's stains descending from the water pump's weep hole, though 1/2 cup seems like a lot to weep. I think.

I wonder if the Turbo Parallel Hybrid system was rendered redundant by the sale of GM's stake to Toyota. It would make sense for Fuji to borrow Toyota's electric motor and computer logic, and lend their batteries to Toyota. So, maybe we'll see a hybrid Fuji/Toyota hybrid Subaru in 2007 or so.

'96 Legacy wagon. Mine's leaking, too. As far as I can tell, the filler neck attaches to the bottom of the tank. I must have a different filler neck than you, because it looks like I'm going to have to completely drain at least the passenger's side of the tank. If I'm reading Haynes correctly, the fuel pump sits on the passenger's side, and there's a "jet pump" which presumably pumps gas from the driver's side of the tank to the passenger's, when the fuel level drops below the axle. Right? Is it easy / possible to siphon from my tank?

Well, it's a very slow leak, so it takes a while for me to decide whether the oily coating on my ignition wire and valve cover is from the filler neck or somewhere else. I threw a new O-ring at it on my lunch break yesterday. The o-ring we had on there really was on the small side. Give me another two weeks to tell you if it worked. Sure, Seafoam, ATF, IPA, kerosene. I'll throw some thing in the crankcase before the upcoming oil change.

I presume we're talking about an auto-tranny here. If you can find a good, low-mileage used transmission, that would definately save you money, especially if you're installing it yourself. Your tranny let go at 180kmi. If you buy one with 120kmi, chances are, it's about 2/3 of the way to behaving like your tranny does now. It's also a possibility that a used tranny that you buy might shift roughly from day one. I'd say a rebuilt tranny would probably be overkill in a Legacy with 180kmi on it. $/50, Brian

You can either remove the entire dashboard (large project) to get at the heater core so you can replace it, or you can plumb the heater core out of the system. J. C. Whitney sells 12V electric heaters, though most of them are pretty weak.

I've never used that stuff. It's $6 for a half-ounce, but it may do the trick. Of course, they don't make Subaru green, but Chevy Green will look better than rust. I was hoping for some kind of brush-on enamel or something that bonds well to metal, and that I could buy by the pint or half-pint. I don't have much experience with paint.

Oh. Is that why steam comes out when I open the oil cap? And why is there a picture of a red magic lamp on the dash? Setright's probably correct. Hmm. Yes, I recently installed an aftermarket oil pressure gauge, and I also attempted (unsuccessfully) to stop the leak where the oil filler neck meets the valve cover with some sillicone. However, that sillicone would have to get past the leaking filler neck o-ring to get into the engine. I guess I'll throw a quart of ATF in the crankcase and do the oil change next week. I'll use a $6 filter this time.

I have more dings and scratches than it's practical to mask and spray. For example, the very rusty bottom end of one of my hatch shocks popped off last night. While I fumbled around in the dark to get it back together so I could close the hatch and go home, I scratched the paint in multiple locations. The driver's door has a few mystery scratches, one of which has steel showing through, etc. Ideally, I'd have a nail polish bottle full of tough, greenish paint I could use to cover these gaps in the paint before they turn to rust. Any thoughts?

Yes, I have experience with AutoZone's reman alternators. I've worked at AutoZone for about a year. Get the lifetime warranty. A substantial number of these (basically used) alternators fail within a couple years of purchase. It's easy enough to change the alternator on a Subaru, and I assume if you're driving an '83, you can cope with alternator failure. So, if the junkyard wants more than $30 for one, I'd say get the AutoZone one.

Incorrect. Factory sizes are 21 and 19. Thus, auto parts stores will list a 20" and an 18" for winter blades. I run 22 and 19 summer, 22 and 18 winter, with no issues. No float, no collisions, just extra visibility. :-)In the rear, only a 15" will fit under the wiper arm, though a 16" would fit on the window.

goes my EJ22. When you first start it up, it's smooth and quiet, but when it gets up to temp, there's a quiet ticking that you can hear at a stop light with the windows down, and it's plain as day with the hood up. My automotive stethoscope says it's coming from the heads of all four cylinders. I understand that the following can cause valvetrain noise: Ill-adjsuted valves. But mine are not adjustable. Low oil pressure. But the gauge reads 15-19psi per 1000rpm. That is within spec, right? (at startup) Too thick of oil, or a poor oil filter antidrainback valve. But my problem isn't at startup. Dirty valves. This might be contributing to my problem. Though the sound is heard roughly equally in all cylinders. What else can cause valvetrain noise? And what do you think is causing mine? You might say "It's a Subaru engine. Don't worry until it *stops* ticking." Well, I'm not terribly worried. Still, ticking is the sound of wear. If I can do something about it, why not? And now's the time to do something about it. I plan on doing my first oil change since I installed the oil pressure gauge, somtime this week.

What *is* the window-in-window setup for? The only thing I can think of is that it allows a lower window sill. Does anyone know?

Well, it makes sense that you won't see Subarus in Phoenix - what good is AWD in Arizona unless you're going to be driving on the open sand? Here in upstate NY, there are loads of Subarus. They seem to be as common as Hondas on the roads around here.

My car does the same. The motor mounts / driveline slop theories are interesting, and they make sense. There's not much one can do about it on a reasonable budget, though.

Kevin's probably right. Even so, if the belt goes, there goes your engine. If the teeth on the belt show any kind of wear or cracks beginning to form, get it replaced.