Rick James

So the battery was too dead to even start the car, yesterday, due to driving the thing the previous night with lights on, to a place where I could work on it. I had an alternator laying around over from another Loyale and did the switch. I had to jump the car, but all warning lights have disappeared and the car is back to running smooth as silk. Thanks for reassuring me that this is the place to come to first. What should I do with the alternator I just pulled? Take it in for rebuild? Is that worth it? My next question about this car is regarding the fan speed adjustments. #s 1 & 2 don't work. # 3 and 4 work but these are more than I need most times during the winter. Any easy fix to get this back to normal? This has probably been discussed elsewhere, though.

Thanks very much for the specific info....on a related note, I had burn burning up headlights ( low beams always went first) on a regular basis, or at least every two months. When driving down the road at night, I would notice voltage increase and lights would get brighter... not burn out, but just get brighter and then go back to normal...eventually one would burn up before it's time. This had been happening for months. Lights were cheap, so I just kept spares on hand. Guess it's the alternator, huh? Is it normal for an alternator to crap out at 78,000 miles?

Thanks, I'm still searching and finding some good info, I think,...strange that the three warning lights came on at once as if connected (and there is nothing wrong with brake fliud or brakes) Unfotunately in my searching there is just so very many possible causes...hopefully it's just an alternator replacement...something I think I might have already from another Loyale.

This just happened today...1993 Loyale with 78,000 miles...had a two hour ride to do on the highway and un-wisely chose to use my AC all the way... warning lights eventually came on regarding charging/brake fluid and parking brake. These all came on at the same time, flickered a little, then went off. I turned AC off and braved the heat(note..I never use AC..really). All was fine 'til near the end of trip, when these lights came back on and stayed on. I just drove at night(lights were very dim, power windows very slow) to the gas staion and am lucky I was able to start the car after the refill. Help. Where do I start? I feel the AC stressed this baby out. Do I need a new alternator? And yeah, I'll be doing a search here, but am throwing this out while I do that...thanks RJ.....BTCH

************.......sounds just like me..you sure you're not me?

Thanks for all the replies. This year I went with a spare set of rims and have a designated winter and summer set up........so I may actually do the switch like you suggest. I've got almost 1000 miles on my new Hakas and it's driving me nuts thinking of the wear while we don't have any snow. The dump from a few weeks ago melted. Have to do a highway trip for big bird day.....I'll be damned if I put more wear on these babies without snow. Of course, that's when a storm will hit, on the way back. Maybe I'll be real anal and drive around with the Hakas in the back and whip em out when I need em.

A lot has happened to my ‘93 Loyale 4wd FI in the past few weeks and I’ve just noticed a dramatic drop in gas mileage. Probably the biggest change is the Nokia Hakapallitas snow tires. I was getting 27-29mpg around town and 30-32mpg highway and now just barely see 24mpg around town and 26 highway. Please tell me this is normal. I did a search and found one guy getting the same mileage with "sticky snows" but just want someone to say "you put snows on , ya lose gas mileage"…..or not. maybe that wasn't so hidden.....

"now if your some high calss doc/lawyer or educated idiot, you might not get that of great service, I will admit that." IM RICK JAMES!!!!! BYTCH!!!!!! and that's a ************ed up attitude...

Right......I'll be pulln out my dipstick tomorrow.

I also had a right front blinker not working....so the guy says, "do you want us to fix that"?..... I figure I'm here, it's only been out a few days, let em do it. On the way home, right hand turn....the frkn right hand front blinker is goin warp speed just like it had been yesterday and the day before. It didn't show up on the bill as fixed but I had to roll my frkn eyes when makn that turn.....

Whoa...left myself logged in...may as well say sumthn... So I was driving by a Jiffy Lube today.... instead of letting their guys slack off collecting a check when they don't have customers, this particular business sends their guys out to the curb with a sign saying "NO WAIT"....most of the time it appears these guys are trying to hide their face behind the sign. Anyway, I'm 1000 miles over and I know I'm not going to get to it myself...there's no wait and I've got some slack time to pull in (guess sending em out curbside works). I've only had this Suby Loyale one year....they pull out my air filter, show it to me and suggest a new one....it honestly didn't look all that bad and I probably would have blown it out with a compressor but I figured what the hell, do me a new one. So I'm home looking over the bill for the "Signature Service" and all the ************ they claim they did (vaccuumed?..yeah right.). If something got added it was noted as a change, like topping off some fluids...brakes, windsheild wash. I see that I was charged for a new filter but didn't see it as a "change item" on bill so I began to think that maybe, with the seemingly five guys scrambling over this car, that the left hand took out my old filter but the right hand didn't put in the new one....SO I get under the hood to check... open the filter housing, and yeah there's some new flimsly looking piece of crap in there, not like the rugged one removed. I pull it out just to observe the "quality" and I look into the housing and I see some mouse has been stock piling seeds there. And these Jiffy Luber ************ers just threw that new filter in with out even mentioning to me this was happening, let alone clean it out. WTF!!!!! Oh yeah and what's the significance of the rubberized "cover plate" over the intake? Ya know the one that says "Subaru F. I. S."( i realize it means fuel injected).......it looked as though it was about to come loose so I peeled it off to reinstall properly and was surprised to see it had a metal flexible plate attached to the back side. I can't see that this serves any purpose other than a logo display. ??

I had the bottom plugs out (two 2 1/4" dia. rubber plugs)....I see the road.

I'm just more curious as to why the plugs are there.They're not really tight and can be removed easily. I figure if it was a window leak the surface carpet, over the trunk, would be wet also. Thanks for the input. I'll keep lookn.

I have a near mint 93 Loyale Wagon 4wd with 52,000 miles. I went to the trunk couple weeks ago to retrieve a manual and found the pages damp and the carpet/pad that live there saturated. I dried everything out, kept the pad out and continued driving waiting to see if it happens again. Sure enough this was a very wet week and the trunk has puddles in it. I'm thinking road splash is working its way through the rubber seals. There are two that lay on the floor @ 2 1/4" dia. and four on the side walls(two per side) @ 1" dia., plus three plastic seal/plugs on the front wall. Can anyone tell me why these are there and can I caulk these tight? Thanks

On a side note, I heard on the radio recently that there's an elected official or a guy hoping to be elected, down south, Alabama, I think, who has his sign out in his yard. His name is Rick James. He has to put up with all the neighborhood kids riding their bikes by yelling, I'M RICK JAMES, ***************. I don't have a TV but caught that Chappelle show on a road trip. My crew and I made good use of that line on our job site next day and still throw it around at times to lighten the mood. If I offended anyone, I'm sorry, but I'M RICK JAMES *************** Anyway, Suby questions coming but I'll do some searchs first.

I'd just like to say how happy it makes me feel that this site is here. I've had two 93 Loyales and the latest one only has 52,000 miles. The first one has 148,000 miles but rusted badly. I hope to maintain the new one long enough to hit 300,000 miles. I have many questions, but for now, I just wanted to introduce myself and say thanks for being out there .