Any ideas on this noise coming from 2000 Subaru Outback, AWD, 2.5L? Noise comes and goes a bit - not sure if it is a pattern problem or if anyone had experience with it.

 

I like that you put the sound on you tube for anyone to hear. You certainly have some sort of "rotational based" sound, that sounds like a bad bearing, perhaps a bad CV joint bearing. When mine went bad on my 99 OBW, it sound a lot like that. If you haven't done so, look and feel around the inner and outer CV joints searching for a torn rubber boot. If you find a torn boot, then I would suspect that dirt and water have damaged the bearing. Replacing the half shaft would be the solution.

Boy, that sound brings back bad memories. I was asking that exact same sound (I think) a few months back. We also have a '00 Outback and it had 123K miles at the time.

 

In our case it was the front wheel bearing. It was very hard for our mechanic to troubleshoot because the wheel did not have any play in it and it didn't sound like traditional bearing noise. He had to remove the axle shaft from the hub to get any movment in the bearing. Not only did he have to replace the bearing, the hub was damaged as well.

 

We had it fixed and were happy, but a few weeks later the other side made the same noise. Guess what, another bad bearing and hub. I'm not saying yours will have the same problem, but try to make sure the other side is still good so you don't end up paying for two alignments like we did.

 

It isn't a cheap fix if it is the bearing/hub. The bearing is about $75 and hub about $125 for Subaru parts and it is rated at 4 hours in the labor book. We were also without a car for a few days each time because our independant mechanic had to order the parts from Subaru (they had the bearings but not the hubs).

 

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Agreed, front wheel bearing. I had the same noise a few weeks back on my 00' OBW with 141k, and also had to take out the axle before I could tell it was a bad bearing. There was no movement on the wheel at all (which I'm not used to for bad bearings) but when I got into it they were wasted...and so was the hub. Job isn't that bad took me less than an hour to get everything apart and a tad more reinstalling after taking the housing to my Bro's shop to press out/in the bearings. Going to do the other side soon for the sake of it.