Looking at buying a 1995 legacy L wagon auto trans. It has 213,000 on it and had the timing set, idler pulley, water pump, thermostat, battery and head gaskets done at 190,000. Engine codes are o2 sensor, and speed sensor. It drives without any noticeable vibration, and idles super smooth until you shift to drive and remain at a stop. It also has a very slight hard shift from first to second. I forgot to look at the driveline mounts (namely trans mount) but it has a driver's side cv joint clicking pretty bad, and ive read plenty of posts about the very same idle issue after cv joint replacement with sub standard half shafts. So i thought maybe that the bad cv joint would be causing the rough idle, and the bad speed sensor is causing the hard shift.

Any opinions? Thanks in advance.

A bad CV can cause a vibration at idle, does it do the same thing in reverse? If the vibration is different you probably have a CV issue. Especially if the engine runs smooth in park/neutral.

These transmissions all tend to shift hard from 1st to 2nd at low throttle, even when the speed sensors work correctly (there are two of them). Make sure the transmission doesn't slip from 2nd to 3rd. Also take it to a paved parking lot and do some full lock low speed turns in both directions to make sure the center transfer clutches aren't binding. If it is binding, it'll feel like a 4x4 truck in 4wd.

 

If the vss code is p0500, this may be the casue: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/115677-p0500-repair/

 

Although the aluminum two-wire speed sensors tend to fail because the square drive thingy internal to them wears out.

Edited July 18, 20169 yr by 987687