On my "new to me" 2001 Legacy wagon 5MT, I have a vibration back up through the steering wheel and in the pedals when turning left. It only happens with the car in gear and in motion and seems to be most noticeable in first gear and before full lock. With the car standing still I can turn back and forth with no problems and with the car out of gear and coasting while swerving slowly back and forth I don't notice it, car is fine once in motion. 

While putting the front O2 sensor on, I noticed the boot cover for the pass side CV joint was not good and had been that way for a while. I'm thinking this is probably the culprit and a new axle assembly on that side is the cure? Makes sense based on what I hear and feel but I've never run across this before and I'm new to AWD and Subarus. 

Any harm to drive it like this till I can get the parts and get it in to be fixed? Realignment required after the work is done? 

It's probably been doing this for a while. I just noticed it when I swapped on some used Yokohama's in place of the equally used Fuzions that made the car vibrate like crazy. I wanted to see what other noises might be under the roar from the Fuzions and I found out, haha. 

Thanks

If it's only happening in one direction then yes it's probably the axle.  Usually worse under load - like accelerating or up an incline while giving it gas...and turning.

 

If it's happening both directions you may have torque bind.

 

Nothing sounds immeidatley dangerous to keep driving it short term and plan your repair.

 

I've been able to clean and regrease inner joints and have them work like new.  One of my current daily drivers had busted inner boots and was vibrating like crazy, almost undrivable, had to stuff grease in the joints at gas stations...which promptly got thrown out, on way back from Colorado because the vibration was so bad.  I cleaned, regreased, and rebooted and the axles have been fine since, that was a few years ago and I drove that car today.

 

If you want to replace it - get a used Subaru axle and reboot it.  Aftermarket axles suck.

www.car-part.com

If it's only happening in one direction then yes it's probably the axle.  Usually worse under load - like accelerating or up an incline while giving it gas...and turning.

 

If it's happening both directions you may have torque bind.

 

Nothing sounds immeidatley dangerous to keep driving it short term and plan your repair.

 

I've been able to clean and regrease inner joints and have them work like new.  One of my current daily drivers had busted inner boots and was vibrating like crazy, almost undrivable, had to stuff grease in the joints at gas stations...which promptly got thrown out, on way back from Colorado because the vibration was so bad.  I cleaned, regreased, and rebooted and the axles have been fine since, that was a few years ago and I drove that car today.

 

If you want to replace it - get a used Subaru axle and reboot it.  Aftermarket axles suck.

www.car-part.com

 

Thanks for the reply.  It's only one direction, I made sure of that.  The boot is totally gone and I'm not sure how long it has been that way.  I'd like to start driving this thing, I'm pretty close to having it sorted so I'll probably do an aftermarket short term and have a good look at the axle once out and see if it's salvageable rather than turn it in for the core.  

Empi, now known as USA axles are a good aftermarket axle. They are brand new so you dont have to turn in your old axles. I have replaced the front axles in my 90 with them and they are high quality and they aren't expensice, I think I paid $67 a peice brand new