unobtainium

Useful, good pics, thanks. The milling marks can disappear because there's motion or because the hot gases from the cylinder erode them. There was a time when you'd find "gas cutting" on Alfa cylinder heads from an endemic HG problem (2L engines, long stroke, open deck + wet liners). The problem surfaced on the 2L engines because of the increased stroke over the 1750s, making for a longer block. Changing the HG every 60 k miles was just considered preventive maintenance. What year car was this from? There is a vaunted fix for the '03 and later EJ25s and I'm wondering if the problem's going to surface on my '05 LGT in spite of that fix.

'93 L AWD wagon 5MT, 232k miles. Engine never apart; I'm on the original clutch, too. Two helpings of timing belts. This car isn't babied and it has dents and things, but I would drive it on a 1k mile trip without any worries.

I entirely agree. That is such a wack failure that continuing to replace transmissions seems bone-headed. There's another cause, and the dealer's failure to find it says incompetent dealer.

This turned up in a Metafilter thread: http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/52194 "the car downshifted quite suddenly while on the freeway, and then started to make horrible grating sounds at lower speeds. We took it back to the dealership that installed the transmission, who replaced it for free, as it was well within the 1 year warranty. And that's the pattern; transmission is replaced, a few weeks later the car downshifts suddenly on the freeway, and the transmission is shredded." I've never heard of such a thing. It sounds to me like the TCU, not the transmission, is at fault but I only have 5MTs. Can anyone shed light into what's going on here?

It's a common problem. "Bad batch" of bulbs. Subaru has been pretty generous with replacements, if you don't mind going to the dealer for them. http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12570&highlight=headlight+bulb

Looking good. I really like the first generation Legacy wagons. Mine has "only" 230K miles but I wouldn't hesitate to take it on a long trip. I bet you'll like it a lot, backwoodsboy. When you get out on the highway and set the cruise, that car will just eat up the miles - and if you have the room you'll be surprised just how comfortable it is at 100+.

1. There is so much ***************ing about the Subaru nav that unless you're very fussy about the interior look, aftermarket will serve you better. The ***************ing concerns old maps and too much key-pushing. 3. Some injectors make this noise. If the tick tick is much faster than the engine's going around (3x in your case) it might be nothing more than noisy injectors. 4. Your mileage will probably increase by 20% when the car's broken in. You can check some of this stuff out on legacygt.com.

Just broken in, too. If it is your first Subie you'll be impressed with how it goes in the snow. Welcome.

The recommended timing belt interval is 60k. The first one was due on my '93 at 105k for some reason (did they use a better belt? If so, how come you can't buy it from the dealer?) http://www.cars101.com/subaru/subaru_maintenance.html shows maintenance intervals right out of the books. You're going to post up some pictures of this car, right?

First, the Legacy will handle better than the Outback, it's what you get when you trade off ground clearance. The recent turbos from Subaru have fairly careful designs to cool them off. There are no special requirements in the manual. For the sake of being conservative I let the turbo spool down before shutting the car off (2000 rpm or less for the last minute or two of driving) but the manual doesn't even specify that. Good practice says you won't give the car a bootful of throttle when it's cold, NA or turbo. The LGT requires premium fuel, it is a little thirstier than a 2.2 NA (long term mileage on my '93 L is 25.1 mpg, on my LGT it is 22.9, with similar usage) and even though there's no special suggestion in the manual I change the synthetic oil in the LGT every 4000 miles. The main difference is the $7k and the fun you have when the boost comes up.

You couldn't steal it that cheap, backwoodsboy, good one. The 2.2 might need a timing belt. If you have records you will be able to tell. If not look carefully at the oil pump and water pump when the belt's off. If you live someplace where they salt the roads you might look at the fuel plumbing under a plastic cover in the right rear wheel well.

ericem, both of my Subies are Legacy wagons. I expect the LGT to be much stiffer in terms of body flex than the '93 and it is. I didn't expect to spend a month driving a Peugeot 206, which is a terrific car BTW, and then get back into the '93 and notice the body flex, but that's what happened. The '93 has KYB AGXs on it. It's definitely not a weak suspension. It's torsional flex that I feel. The '93 has 229K miles on it, it's getting old and I kind of expect rattles to develop. At this age the car feels much better than I would have expected it to. It's not as though I am dissatisfied with it - it's simply that I do notice the chassis motions.

Sometimes when I come back to my '93 after driving other cars for a while I notice the body flex. My car doesn't make a cracking noise, though. There is a squeak from one of the trailing arms and there's a buzz from the plastic cowling around the steering wheel, but that's about it.

Those Torque Master plugs look a whole lot like the Lodge plugs used in Alfas. http://www.international-auto.com/index.cfm/fa/p/pid/2527/sc/8140 Alfas, BTW, are where I learned to follow manufacturer's recommendations. The Alfa engine really wanted Lodge plugs, and tinkering with other ones was a waste of money.

There are two fuel senders in your car because the tank has a hump in the middle. Your symptoms are like mine were before I took both senders out and cleaned (carefully!) the potentiometers. The needle would point to empty at 260 miles and the yellow "low fuel" light would go on at about 275. Then the car would take only about twelve gallons of the 15.9 it's supposed to accept. After cleaning, the needle points to 1/4 at about 275 miles and the yellow light goes on at 320. That is much more reasonable. BTW my car (the '93) gets 25-26 MPG calculated as discussed in this thread.