With an air bag installed on my steering wheel, I have little interest in finding a noise that could blow up in my face. That said, my '03 Outback VDC H6 Wagon has a sound coming from the base of the steering wheel (not shaft) that sounds like a bag full of dry dirty reciprocating bearings! The car has less than 50K miles on it and is kept reasonably clean. Before I pay someone to investigate, does anyone have some experience with this problem and what to expect? (Thanks in advance JD)

Spray some silicone lube on it and see if that is a fix.

Sounds tempting. What about any electrical contacts etc in spray's way? Shooting a spray in there, would probably be a temp solution. I want to fix the problem. Any more noise's out there?

I have not seen it on a Subie but BMWs have squeak in cold weather in the wheel to column form too little clearance. The cure is to spray silicone lube and I have never heard of a problem from it. If it is not rubbing and is an actual dry bearing this won't help.