I just acquired a 1997 legacy outback with a 2.5 and a 5 speed manual transmission. I paid $1050 for it with unknown true mileage (speedo doesnt work) and the valve cover gaskets leaking horribly. The question I have is, does this car have overdrive? I ask because at highway speeds in 5th gear my RPM's are around 3500 which seemed high to me. Thanks in advance.

5th gear is overdrive. 4th is 1:1 or close. That is typical with doing 75-80 in 5th gear. yours may have lower gearing because its an outback.

The outback has a 0.871 5th gear ratio, whereas the other subarus have a 0.780 ratio.

I guess they gave it a shorter 5th gear because they assume you'll be towing or hauling heavy loads with it, and the bigger tires.

Which, I have to say, does help when I'm towing with the outback. It's fun for tooling around back roads too.

But it does suck on the highway, reason I don't like that transmission.

 

FYI, 4th gear is 1.088

I formerly had a '98 Outback with the 2.5 DOHC engine and 5 speed. At 65mph the rpms were around 3200, which drove me nuts because the engine certainly had enough torque to be running slower. My '92 automatic Legacy was about 1000 rpms lower at the same speed. The '02 Outback 2.5 SOHC automatic was 2600 rpms at 65. I was concerned about the '02 Forester I just purchased - I really wanted to return to a 5 speed but didn't want to see significantly higher rpms. I was pleased to see it's 2750 rpm at 65, which is reasonable. I've seen manual transmissions are typically geared slightly higher than automatics.

There's a reason they stopped with the silly 5th gear... It's fine as 5th gear is a 6speed maybe.

I drove 654 miles about 2 weeks ago to Detroit and at 60 I was at 3500 but that's because of no 5th.. still got some decent mileage out of it.

 

I might be the only one that likes the transmission in the outback.. in 4th gear I can still pass without having to downshift where when I had my 95 legacy i always found I needed to downshift so much.

 

4th gear in the outback seems to top out at 105 mph.

I drove 654 miles about 2 weeks ago to Detroit and at 60 I was at 3500 but that's because of no 5th.. still got some decent mileage out of it.

 

I might be the only one that likes the transmission in the outback.. in 4th gear I can still pass without having to downshift where when I had my 95 legacy i always found I needed to downshift so much.

 

4th gear in the outback seems to top out at 105 mph.

 

Why would you drive 654 miles in 4th gear?

Why would you drive 654 miles in 4th gear?

why not?? I don't have 5th gear.. I drove 60 mph pretty much the whole way

why not?? I don't have 5th gear.. I drove 60 mph pretty much the whole way

 

I didn't realize your tranny lost 5th gear...

I didn't realize your tranny lost 5th gear...

it's no big deal I think I'm going to wait until July when my vacation is since I really have no room to store it.. because I have to buy an engine lift so if I pull them both it's going to be better then pulling one now then pulling the other later.

Outback also has 4.11 final drive ratio which raises rpm over the base model Legacy which generally has 3.90 FDR. I don't know whats in my 95 AT wagon, it runs 2750ish at 70mph. My 96 MT sedan turns 3000 at 70.