forester2002s

My 2002 Forester has plastic grilles covering the front of the fog lights. I removed these, and this helps a bit. But overall, these fog lights are next to useless.

I use a solid silicone-lubricant stick. Lasts for years. I run the stick along the rubber seals, and then go over it with a piece of paper towel. Don't apply too much, or else the silicone smears the windows.

When I bought my new Forester, I told the dealer verbally but also wrote it in on the agreement (at the offer stage): "No dealer decals or badges on vehicle." It worked. I agree with a previous post, that the best thing to do would be to not accept delivery, if your instructions are not followed. Another approach might be to offer to keep the decals at a price, say $100/week, and see what the response is!

I tend to agree with Frag, that this sounds like a fuel-starvation problem. I had a similar experience with a 1968 Ford Mustang (oh, those were the days!). But that was a carburetted engine. The fuel-filter was clogged, but allowed just enough fuel through to slowly fill the float-chamber; hence the car would start for a few seconds, running off the residual fuel in the float-chamber, and die a few seconds later. If I cranked it hard, it would restart and then die again. Since we were miles from anywhere, with 3 small kids in the back, I had to do something quickly. So I borrowed one of my wife's knitting needles, and pierced a hole through the fuel-filter element, reassembled it, and away we went! Could this type of temporary fuel-starvation happen on a fuel-injected engine? I don't know.

Quite few years ago, Consumer Reports did a study on engine oils (if I remember correctly, this was about conventional oils, not synthetic). Amongst other things, they reported two key findings: 1. Provided the oil had the correct API designation, then was no significant difference between 'Brand X' and the more expensive brand names. 2. That all multigrade oils lost their mutigrade properties in time; and that the wider apart the two numbers, then the faster the multigrade properties were lost; i.e. a 5W40 oil will lose it properties faster than will a 10W30 oil. Since reading that report (I think that it was probably 20 years ago), I have always bought the cheapest oil that I could find, and changed the oil and filter frequently (every 3000 km). I have never had any oil-related engine problems.

Go to this site, to see if your Factory Service Manual is available on-line: http://techinfo.subaru.com/html/index.jsp You can either pay individually for specific documents, or do as I did, and pay US$20 for 72 hours free access to any and all publications that you care to download. One word of warning: the download can be quite time-consuming, even with a fast internet connection. Be sure to rename each PDF file with a meaningful description (the original file names are just a string of numbers), and download into a set of appropriately-named folders. This makes retrieval and reading much easier.

My seat heaters work fine. I don't use them a lot, except on really cold mornings, and then only for 10-minutes or so. However, the way that they are wired is problematic: - The toggle switches that operate the seat heaters are just that, simple switches. Once switched on, they stay on for ever. Even if accidently switched on by an errant elbow, they stay on. Even if the car is parked overnight, and then restarted, the switches are still on. - The seat-heaters work on both the IGN and ACC ignition-switch circuits. That means that if you stop for a while (e.g. waiting for a ferry), with the engine off but the ignition set to ACC (to listen to the radio), then the seat-heaters are still on, and will drain the battery in time. A better wiring arrangement would be to control the seat-heaters by means of a timer-switch (similar to the timer-switch used on the rear-window defogger). When timed-out (say after 10 minutes), the circuit would switch off, and would not re-energise until the switch is reactivated. That way, one couldn't forget about the heaters being on, nor would it matter if they were accidently switched-on, or left on from the day before. Subaru, are you listening?

I have a 2002 Forester 5MT: - Mixed highway/city I get about 11 L/100km (21.4 mpg). - On long runs I get about 8 L/100km (29.5 mpg), or slightly better. BTW, for those interested, the conversion factors are: mpg (US) = 235.2 divided by L/100km mpg (UK) = 282.5 divided by L/100km

Welcome to the Zen world of car maintenance!

Calling a mobile locksmith may be cheaper than calling for a tow-truck.

My 2002 Forester (MT) hesitates when I drive on or off the car-ferry. Typically, the engine is warm when I line up for the ferry. After a 15-30 minute wait, the ferry arrives and I restart the engine to drive aboard at slow speed. The car lurches/hesitates in 1st gear, most notably when I ease off or on the throttle. Sometimes the hesitation is so bad that I deal with it by coasting with the clutch depressed in 2nd gear, and just give a little forward acceleration every few seconds to keep the speed up. The same hesitation happens when I drive off the ferry, after a 30-minute sailing with the engine off. This is usually the only time that I have noticed the hesitation. Although once, on a long journey, with the engine behaving flawlessly, I stopped in a rest area for about 3 minutes and then immediately resumed my journey. The hesitation was there at high speeds, when I eased off the throttle; it felt like a loose CV-joint! After I stopped for gas many miles later, the hesitation disappeared. After reading previous posts, I wonder if I need to reset the ECU?

I am planning to buy an OBDII scanner for my Subie. Does anyone own a Dyno-Scan tool (USD300 from Auterra)? It connects to most Palm-powered PDAs; it seems to be quite versatile, but before buying, I would be interested in hearing of other people's experiences with this tool.