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Comments
:-)
-Dennis
I picked up the car last night. After a quick walk around I left the dealer. As I was pulling into a parking spot at a nearby food place I heard a "pop" and thud sound, followed by what sounded like rubbing from the front end. I quickly took the car back to the dealership and left it with the sales area and took the rental back. With a 50 mile trip home I was not going to take any chances.
This morning I received a return call from the service Manager (Diane). She said 2 different techs drove the car. One found nothing. The other heard something like a backfire. I told her I didn't hear anything like that previously to dropping the car off on Sat. Now, I'm waiting to hear back from them. Any ideas?
Mark
-mike
I'm still waiting to hear from the dealer.
Mark
-mike
Could be something completely different, too.
Mark
-juice
-Brian
-juice
I'm knocking on wood (side of head ) now.
mike k
Greg
Is it because of drivetrain or thicker body metal?
How does that affect safety issues like cornering and braking?
-mike
Why so heavy for a relatively small car? I assume it is the AWD components adding weight, the structural rigidity components adding weight, and all the other gew-gaws of comfort and SUV-approximation adding weight.
I am going to look at a 2000 Outback Ltd today. Will check for some of the common problems.
--K9Leader
Our Legacy wagon tips the scales at 3345 pounds. So if weight is a concern just buy one of those.
The Volvo XC weighs 3699 but uses a 5 cylinder turbo, while the allroad quattro weight in at a whopping 4167 lbs! Geuss it's that adjustable height suspension.
-juice
Greg
Hope this doesn't drag, but I don't write often.
I've just passed 90k on my LTD wagon, things have been pretty good except...
Tranny getting sluggish, backing up and switching to drive takes about 2-3 seconds
Had tranny and diff fluid replaced, no improvement but did start getting intermittent burning smell (like latex balloons?)
Do have an intermittent check engine light problem, diagnosed by Subaru and independent as Catalytic converter, 800-1000 to repair as OB's have 2 cats!
Recently, in horrible snow conditions, car seemed more like FWD than AWD, with low-speed turning slippage. I know all cars slide on ice (amazing how most vehicles that drive off the highway are SUV's, have never seen a Subie) but this was more thick, slushy snow. I never felt threatened, but I think I sense more than I should in terms of movement.
How can I be sure that the AWD is even working?
The trail described could be related?
When should I replace the cats?
Hope everyone's well, hope to hear from you soon.
Vince
-mike
If your mechanic has a lift, get all four wheels off the ground and just put it into drive. At least one tire on each axle should spin.
-juice
Ralph
***1999 Subaru Outback Automatic Transmission Problems? by tenkmaniacs Jan 08, 2003 (11:57 am)
I recently purchased a 1999 Subaru Outback Wagon (automatic transmission)....
I've noticed that the car does not want to shift from reverse into drive (the engine will race until it finally shifts into drive). I've taken the car to two different mechanics only to be told that they can't find the problem. Has anyone else experienced a similar problem?
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Otis: not everyone is shopping for a tank/vault for their families. Some folks drive alone and want something sporty that also has some room to haul their stuff when needed.
There are 2 schools of thought - active and passive safety. Weight actually hurts active safety, i.e. there is more inertia, more momentum to overcome when braking or turning to avoid something.
As you say, the weight helps passive safety if a crash is unavoidable, but IMO most collisions are avoidable.
-juice
-mike
You may have service records but that doesn't tell the whole story of the tranny... All I'm saying is that before you go throwing darts at FHI and SOA, you should look back and see if there is either a simple fix, or something that could have caused the problem outside of the control of FHI/SOA.
-mike
Allow me to vent if only to make others aware of the problem or to allow others to offer up valuable insight rather than attacking me for voicing my opinion.
-juice
Keep us posted,
Greg
I am not sure the sensor was placed in a good spot.
You can't physically move the shifter from "Reverse" to "Drive", or you've already shifted to "Drive" but the 4EAT doesn't engage?
If it's the later, the problem would lie in the electronics of the 4EAT, like juice had pointed out earlier. Your mentioning that the engine revs (races) until it shifts, is a thread of the 4EAT when you manually shift pre-maturely. The "gear" will not engage until the proper RPMs are achieved. In your case, the sensors must be thinking that the torque converter is still spinning in reverse mode [OK, I'm mechanically challenged], hence the high revving of the engine to neutralize the transmission and spin in the drive direction.
Someone translate what I'm jibber jabbering about. ;-)
-Dave
the dealer is the first place I brought the check engine light to. Subaru's emissions warranty is for 8 years/8ok, bummer
tires are second set, around 40k on them, tread still looks good, I don't run to the end of warrant on tires, do too much driving not to have good tires on my cars. they're Traction A all-season;
Uniroyal tiger paw touring HR. Not my first choice, but some styles I liked were not available in the odd 16" size for this car.
Any thoughts on sluggish tranny or how long to run with the bad cat? (I know the problem was with only one, but these guys look to replace everything, my local Subaru dealer wanted $40 to replace a burned out headlight! ($5 retail for an H1 in the store)
It's a great car, though, I'd recommend it to anyone!
-mike
As a percentage, there are far more complaints about the clutches, and even some on the manual trannys. But even those fall within the normal range, and lots were modified WRXs making much more than stock power.
-juice
My parents have an '00 Legacy GT wagon that has been, shall we say, less than reliable. This is their second wagon and up until recently they were still flag waiving loyal roo'ers. Their current GT has 115K miles and was purchased Oct '99 - out of all warranties known to man. My Mom's been in to the dealer 5 out of the last 5 business days for one thing or another but the expensive one she's having to deal with right now is her CEL keeps coming on and the dealer diagnosed it as ' inefficient catalytic converters'. I read a while back that the '01-'02s had a service bulletin to reprogram the ECU, so I wasn't surprised when my parents paid $164 for the dealer to 'reprogram' the OBD. (I'm hoping they didn't pay $164 for the dealer to RESET the OBD but that's another story!) Anyway, they sent my mom on her way and said if it came back on they'd likely have to replace the cats/O2 sensors to a tune of $1900!
Now here's the problem, they haven't had any driveability problems, and they pass their Maryland emissions inspections. A couple of times over the last year or so they've had the cold start stalling problem I've seen here as well but there's nothing to lead me to believe that they need to throw big $$$ back at the dealer. My parents are fanatical with their maintenance. They always have the dealer do all the work (including oil changes) and always seek out the name brand gas stations. They do travel a lot but it's easy highway miles.
Let me take this time to say that I am by no means trolling. I'm the guy that wrote the Miata.net garage article on brake pad changes (thanks for the previous mention on this board). I'm every bit a 'car-guy' as they come, but I've never been a fan of my parents Legacy wagons. They like 'em and that's all that matters...I'm just hoping to help them a little along the way.
thanks for listening,
keith
True. As I age I prefer the weight. When I was in my 20s I loved my 76Rabbit because it was light weight and I could chirp the sucker in 2nd gear!
And yes, the weight of an Outback can be a little tougher to stop and control when avoiding an accident. I agree.
Ralph
Any idea of the level of techs at the dealer? Mine has several Master and Senior Master Techs. These guys were able to diagnose a tranny problem with my manual OB Sport that my previous dealer couldn't (Subaru Newbies:-) ).
-Dennis
Seriously, though, it really passed MD inspection? Now they are actually checking the OBDII computers to pick up codes - so yours is the exact type of situation the MD test is supposed to fail.
Still, you can ignore it for 2 years since it already passed. Or just try a Bosch O2 sensor, they run about $70 vs. $149 retail for the Subaru OE part. See if that helps.
If the cat is clogged up, you'll get sluggish performance from a choking engine (literally, choking). So if power is OK my guess is you're ok with the cat. Besides, measured emissions were within the norm. I would *not* change the expensive cat that seems to be working.
I never suspected you were trolling, BTW.
-juice
Greg
nygreg - I agree that I think Subaru should pick up the tab for the 2 hours labor if they did the 'reprogramming' of the ECU the first time, though from what I've read here the service bulletin only covers '01 & '02 cars. If someone can tell me their '00 was reprogrammed free a certain service writer will be hearing from me.
...And here's today's update: My parent's are traveling from the DC area down to Florida today so my discussion with them was brief. My mom told me yesterday afternoon (this would be after she got the car back from the dealership with a 'reset' ECU) that when she started the car from a cold state, it sputtered and bucked so bad that she immediately shut it off. She waited another minute and re-tried it and things were smoother. I'm hoping that was just a case of the ECU trying to establish a baseline after a hard reset. Either way my dad humbugged is way into taking the car on the trip against my wishes. At least they have AAA but I don't like the idea of senior citizens stranded on I95 because the dealer told them to just drive it and ignore the CEL!!!
So that brings me to my beef with subarus. It seems like the 2 that my parents have had were the ones built at 5pm on a Friday. The '95 Legacy wagon they had left them stranded a few times during the warranty period because of electronics problems (I wanna say the alternators were weak on the '95s?) and they had repeated overheating problems. I was surprised when they got the '00 GT wagon but they thought it was sporty and I'll admit that the newer engine is a lot smoother than the '95 was. To Subaru's credit, they had only minor issues during the warranty period on the '00. What bugs me is that they should be able to go for more than 3.5 years before ECU problems show up. OBDII had been out for what, 2 years already, right? Even if it is the cats, 115K miles is way too short knowing the gas they buy is always name brand.
My hope out of this would be I can replace the O2 sensor with a bosch unit when they get back and have their problems go away. While I've enjoyed the last week of lunches with my mom (her dealer is near where I work) I'd like to see them drive for another 50K or so without major expense! Every car they've had for the last 25 years has turned 200K effortlessly and I'd like to see the GT hit it too. And anyone wondering where the '95 is - my brother has it. The overheating finally warped the heads and the deck beyond milling and they put a new engine in it a few months ago (at nearly 175K miles). My brother is a 'starving artist' and that's all he can afford...that whole engine thing definitely didn't improve my opinions.
sorry for being so wordy.
You might want to call 800-SUBARU3 about the labor they were charged for, but it's probably a bit late now. Just keep that number handy for future use.
175k is a long life, I wouldn't complain about that if I could get that out of all my cars. We tend to get anywhere from 75k to 107k miles before big enough problems creep along that we trade them in.
-juice
Greg
Disclaimer: Major problems mean, any major work to engine or transmission, power steering, etc. Replacing a water pump, CV joints and the like I consider OK after 120K miles.
I agree with Juice, anything over 100K miles and you are doing well if you have no major repairs.
-mike
As for the alternator in the '95 I believe there was a recall on them last year on the '95-'97 alternators.
-mike
Thing is, though, replacing an A/C compressor might set you back a grand or so, and if the car has over 100k miles you have to ask yourself if it's worth it.
To me, usually the answer is no.
-juice
An 8 year old Asian car has about 80 problems per 100 vehicles, about the same as a 4 year old domestic. But by then the graph has really turned the corner and the rate of problems is rising significantly (though still not exponentially).
They don't show data beyond the 8th year, but my guess is by year 10 even Asian cars are not reliable.
The average car is driven 12k miles per year, 9k average for females, 15k for males by the way (more useless trivia).
So, I would project that by 120k miles, no car would pass my standards for being "reliable". They might or might not make it beyond that, but odds are you're gonna be putting up with a lot of little idiosyncracies, at least one per year at that point.
-juice
Ralph
Greg