September 14, 200322 yr They are heavy. They leak when you lift em up. The torque converter falls on your toe. They have a lot of stupid bolts to the flex plate. They won't come out from under the car on the floor jack. I'm stuck doing one and it's not my car. Good thing I love my GF or I'd have to torch her car about now. Did I mention that auto trannys suck??? LOL.
September 14, 200322 yr Not to mention they're slow, they're sluggish, they're slow and oh yeah... ...they're slow! -Brian
September 14, 200322 yr I have owned 3 cars in my life. My first was a 87 Mazda 626 (not going there:o ), my Legacy is my second, and my XT is my most recent. All 3 of them are manual transmissions. I have a burning hatred for automatics. I don't give a rat's behind if the Subaru AT is better than the MT, I refuse to drive an auto.
September 15, 200322 yr Not sure where you heard that, but the AT is NOT better in any way, shape or form than the MT's. As a matter of fact, if there's one thing FHI ever made a mistake on, it was the way they made their Auto's. Subaru's auto's (for EA82 at least) are very very sluggish, slow and probably rob about 40% of the power from the engine. Ive heard good things about EA81 AT's and EJ AT's, but the EA82 i had with the 3spd was a SLUG! -Brian
September 15, 200322 yr Well...hate to bust some bubbles here...but ther eis a bridge about .2 miles from where i pull onto the main road to go to work...when I had an auto in the GL-10, I made it to 70 when i first hit the bridge....now, I can only manage 63. Maybe thats the engine, idk. But, before the mods i made to the stock turbo motor, the EA82 and before auto are indeed slow, slugglish and rather sloppy. The auto in my dads outback is freaking awesome tho. Very responsive, tough, and quick to shift. I LOVED that auto. Manuals are better for anything sporty.
September 15, 200322 yr Originally posted by TheSubaruJunkie Not sure where you heard that, but the AT is NOT better in any way, shape or form than the MT's. As a matter of fact, if there's one thing FHI ever made a mistake on, it was the way they made their Auto's. Okay, I guess it's just the 4EAT then that Subaru has good for it in the autotranny department... Remember, I'm still a full-fledged 80's Subaru n00b:banghead:, so I don't know anything about the old Subaru autos...
September 15, 200322 yr Well, chances are it was the engine in that GL10. EA82T right? Of course your going to have more power. And the later model GL10's with Turbo come with 4spd AT's which are actually not bad at all. -Brian
September 15, 200322 yr they suck so bad that you have to put in a 2wd to replace the 4wd with the bad diff. but the good thing about them is torque converters and pumpshafts will interchange with eachother. one of the annoying things is having to remove a flexplate off every motor you get, so you can bolt on a flywheel! its like the automatic was an afterthought, so that people who couldnt drive a stick would still buy a subaru!
September 15, 200322 yr Ditto on the slow. I thought my carbed ea82 wagon was slow, but then I began fixing up an SPFI ea82 wagon (which I think actually produces more horsepower than its carbed counterpart) with the s/r 3AT. By definition it is acceleration, but I wouldn't call it that. I will definitely swap in the d/r 5spd from the parts car if I sell this thing to a friend, because friends don't let friends drive autos. If everybody in America would get off their lazy butts and learn to drive stick, we wouldn't have to worry about this!
September 15, 200322 yr Actually, Brian, those automatics were not entirely built by Subaru. I am not quite sure, but I do belive the older 3-speeds and whatnot were Jatco trannies. The one I rebuilt said "L3N71B" on the valve body, just like the valve body I have that is out of an L3N71B, which was used in several vehicles (Mazda RX7, Ford Courier, Datsun pickups, etc..) and it was built by Jatco. The Subaru tranny is a very interesing transmission, 3 speed Ravigneaux gear set, power comes in from the front, through the center on the mainshaft, the oil pump is in the rear of the transmission case, and from there power flows back forward to the front differential, also from there is where the transfer shaft is connected, to transfer power to the transfer clutch and rear output shaft. Fairly decent transmission design wise, but like most automatics, sluggish. And most automatics lose 30-40% through the transmission, the newer ones are better, but manuals still get more power to the ground. For example, our 91 Firechicken we have at school, Tuned Port 350 pushing 270 HP or so, has ~180HP at the rear wheels.
September 15, 200322 yr Originally posted by subyluvr2212 Okay, I guess it's just the 4EAT then that Subaru has good for it in the autotranny department... Remember, I'm still a full-fledged 80's Subaru n00b:banghead:, so I don't know anything about the old Subaru autos... Heck the 4EAT wasnt even that good. They produced more metal shavings then anticipated and were released with inproper filtration for the amount of metal shavings produced! There was an external filter made for a work around to help. Even still they go out before the 5speeds
September 15, 200322 yr even WITH proper maintenance (Fluid and filter change every 30,000 miles -- none of this 100,000 mile crap the manufacturer says! Yes I know that external filter is 35 bucks, but what's cheaper -- 35 bucks or 4 grand for a transmission?) the most I've seen an automatic go is 200 to 250,000 miles, but since most people never change their fluid and filter, most automatics only last 150,000 or so. Manuals, on the other hand, will go for 3-400,000. The one drawback, is an automatic is, for the most part, cheaper and easier to rebuild than a manual.
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