Hello.  I have a 2002 Forester with 175,000 miles.  After I drive the car for about 1/2 hour and the car gets hot, I have a problem when I turn the vehicle.  No issue when I go straight, but when I turn, like going into a parking space, something starts binding.  I can overcome the binding, with more power from the gas pedal.  The tires are and have been good.  I can not tell if the binding is from the front or rear.  The binding will occur either going front or back with the wheels turned.  It almost feels like the brakes are being applied, but it is not.  Any suggestions, please.

The car is a manual transmission

Edited June 10, 201411 yr by DesertAl

Is it an auto or manual trans?

 

The binding is called "torque bind" and is pretty common. The steps to repair it are different for auto vs manual.

Manual I see by the edit... unless you are running mismatched tires or tires with different amounts of wear and fixing that makes the problem stop, the trans rear housing needs to be removed and the and the viscous clutch needs to be replaced. (not sure if this is part of the center diff or available by itself).

 

If you need to live with it for awhile, try to not turn tight.

 

The VC is a sealed unit, so no hope of magic goo helping.

read of these symptoms a few times, seems the manual trans will show torque bind after being warmed-up.

 

the tread may look good - but the tires MUST be the same make/model/size