Subaru Crew Problems & Solutions

ateixeira

At that age, 12+ years, I would change all the hoses now regardless. Try that first. The leak is severe enough that may one of them is not even connected.

-juice

ebony5

I too would like to improve the headlights on my '96 OBW. Where can I get plastic polish? How is it applied? Thanks.

stever

Maybe you or Ebony5 can help this reporter out:

prlady1, "Talk to the Press" #1017, 4 May 2006 2:55 pm

Steve, Host

kens

I think Meguiar's has a product called PlastX that's meant to remove oxidation and haze from clear plastics including headlight covers. You should be able to find something at your local auto supply store.

Ken

ebony5

Thanks

npb5

My 2000 Subaru Forester L Automatic has over 130,000 miles on it. I'm about 1,500 miles into my last oil change and the tempature gauge is getting high. I think I need a new water pump. What's a ballpark number to have this done?

once_for_all

I wouldn't throw money at it without digging a little deeper. Frankly the only time I replace a water pump is if the seal is bad, or I have to take it off anyway for some other repair.

It's more likely that you have some plugging issues in the passages and radiator. Give it a good flush. Also check the fins on the radiator for bugs and leaves. Another decent possibility is that the thermostat is not opening all the way. But, take care of this problem ASAP because these alloy block and heads won't tolerate overheating.

John

jfl

Any other symptoms? Coolant loss, conditions when it overheats, etc.? You might want to have the coolant system pressure tested.

My mechanic replaced the water pump and thermostat at the 105k timing belt change.

You can check 1stsubaruparts.com for parts prices, both list and their discounted cost. (One of my local dealers charges 10% ABOVE list!)

Jim

jfl

In post #9469 Stanton used Novus #2. I found it at a plastics shop. I figured that was easier than searching all over a big hardware store!

Jim

rpersico

I would like a schematic type diagram of the inner workings of my driver's side door - '93 Subaru Legacy Wagon. I need to take it apart deeper than just removing the door panel.

I have to unlatch the driver's side door of my '93 Subaru Legacy Wagon from another door in order to get in. I un hooked the activating bar inside the door when I tried to unlock it with a wire coat hanger. I took the door pannel off and was able to see that the outside handle lifts up and pushes a bar down which, in turn, pushes the lever down to unlatch teh door. It seems that the top part has become detached and the bottom part is in the correct positioni. I can not see or feel where the top has to be reconnected. I think I need to take teh door apart even further, but I do not know how to do it. I am thinking that a diagram would help so I do not have to pay a dealer to fix it.

Thanks,
Rocky

grahampeters

G'day

Nice to see our post here where you should get a good range of answers.

Rather than trying to dismantle the door further, why not remove the inner trim from the opposite side door and check out what the mirror image arrangement looks and feels like. Typically, door problems are loose clips or similar and checking against a working door should give you an idea of where everything should fit.

Cheers

Graham

ateixeira

So I pop my hood to add some windshield washer fluid, and notice one of the rubber grommets under the hood looks chewed up. Not torn or worn, chewed.

A squirrel would have done worse, so I think it may have been a mole?

This is the 3rd time I've heard of this, did Subaru baste the wires with au jus sauce or something? LOL

-juice

ateixeira

ateixeira

Owen helped my identify the suspect:



:mad:

-juice

xwesx

Ooooh..... chipmunk. This calls for indiscriminate use of D-Con!!!! Neighborhood cats, dogs, and children beware! :P

Actually, I have a squirrel (or maybe a group) that has taken to stealing insulation from my storage shed. I couldn't figure what they were doing with it all, but a couple weeks ago we found the fruits of their labor.......

A CONDO! in the tree! I swear this thing must be about 2' in diameter.... it completely envelops the stem of the spruce in which it is positioned. It is made up of twigs, grasses, and, primarily, insulation. Hahah... quite a sight. Some friends suggested I get a cat to deal with them and that might be a good idea! I could get 3 or 4 of them and just set them loose. Come winter they'd freeze, but hey, if I got them from the animal shelter I'd be doing a public service and the cats would be doing a public service as well! I am just concerned that they might try going after my rabbits instead of the squirrels...

rpersico

Graham, Thank you for your reply. At the risk of sounding like I know something(which I do not), I did just what you suggested. In fact the passenger side door had this same problem for about 2 years and I just lived with it. after all it is a 1993 and I am usually the only person in the car. when I had to pick up the kids, I would simply reach over and open the door from the inside to let them in. They of course were continually embarrassed to be seen with a "less than perfect" car, but I figure a little humility would co a long way. that is until I broke the driver's side door. Then it was my ox that was getting gored. I took apart the passenger side door and in 30 seconds was able to plainly see that the bottom of the actuator bar had come detached from the latch. I slid it back into place and put a paper clip in the place of the "real" clip that would hold it in place. Feeling more than proud of my self for fixing the problem and at the same time a bit foolish that I had not done it a long time ago, I set out to tackle the driver's side which had the same symptoms. It was there that I learned that my hypothesis was flawed. In the case of the second door, the actuator bar was perfectly attached to the latch at its bottom but was detached at the top by the inside of the door handle. I felt around on the passenger side to see if I could copy it on the driver's side, but to no avail. Clearly, I needed a better view. no amount of light would let me see where the top of the bar met the door handle. It was at this point that I thought that a diagram was needed to give me an x-ray type look into the inner workings that eluded both my vision and my sense of touch. So... the idea made sense to me too, but it did not get me where I need to be. The good news is that one door works great. the bad news is that it is the wrong one as far as convenience goes.

Thanks,

Rocky

rpersico@mhcable.com

jfl

Rocky,

You might check your local library for a Haynes service manual. The illustrations in the factory manuals are quite obscure.

Jim

ateixeira

I'm allergic to cats, they would repel me more than they would repel chip munks! :surprise:

-juice

lilbluewgn02

They probably built it on spec, just like th e condo market here in Florida!!!

xwesx

Hahahhahahha.... probably. They are living it up in that tree, short only a Jacuzzi! :mad:

Juice - I am somewhat allergic myself (though it goes away after a few days of becoming accustomed), but I doubt it would be a problem if the cats never set foot inside the house.

mb789

I just bought a 2006 Subaru Forester X a couple weeks ago. I noticed a couple spots on the paint that looked like bird egg hit it (happened before I bought it).

I thought it was just some bug guts, but as I looked very closely, there are two spots(about as big as U.S. nickels) where the paint is beginning to break down. I showed the dealer, and they agreed to fix them at no cost to me. The dealer suggested to repaint a door on the driver's side and a fender on the passenger side.

How successful do you think the paint will be to match? It is Garnet Red. The dealer says it will be a perfect match. . .

Is repainting the entire door and fender better than just repainting the two small spots? A friend suggested that if the colors do not match exactly to ask the dealer to repaint the entire car. Suggestions??

stantont

The Meguiar's might work as well; I just happened to find the Novus and try it. BTW, Novus also makes a #3 which is listed as a coarser scratch remover, and I bought it as well, thinking it would work faster on the 11-year-old lights on the Aerostar. Nope; the #2 worked faster as well as leaving a clearer surface.

I just put some on a small cloth and used it as if it were very fine rubbing compound or steel wool, turning the cloth as needed and re-wetting with the polish, then finished with a clean, dry cloth. Repeat until any haze, scratches, and pitting disappear.

I'm still trying to understand the physics of a surface that seems only slightly scratched and pitted, which nonethless scatters a major fraction of the light out of the beam. You could see the bulb and stuff inside rather clearly beforehand, but of course it was much clearer afterward.

Stanton

fibber2

I'm still trying to understand the physics of a surface that seems only slightly scratched and pitted, which nonethless scatters a major fraction of the light out of the beam.

We have had a 25+ year running joke between my wife and I about 'fuzzy metal'. It stems from a 1978 summer job while in college, which in part involved running an electron microscope in a semiconductor lab. At a mere 10,000x magnification, 'mirror smooth' metal surfaces look more like the wooly blanket on your bed! A surprisingly large amount of light is scattered about in all directions when exiting a plastic lens with this kind of surface.

Steve

joeb24

I own a 2006 Outback LL Bean 3.0 H6. If I need to use the compact spare, will I possibly damage the AWD system? How about if I need to replace a tire with a new tire? Will I need to replace the tires in pairs? all four?

ateixeira

A dealer painted part of my wife's bumper, I think they feathered it to blend with the rest of the bumper. It's so perfect I can't tell you where they stopped.

-juice

ateixeira

Generally, the rule is you want to keep the tire circumference within about 1/4" of each other. So you can have only minor differences in tread wear. If you need one new tire with 10k miles on the other 3, you're probably OK. But if you have 40k miles and slash one tire, you'll need to get 4 new ones.

But by 40k, the rubber is drying out and starting to crack anyway.

As for the spare, it's really only for temporary use only, 50 miles max I believe.

Forester up until 2005 had a full size spare, but Subaru uses donuts for everything else. I wish they didn't, but the whole industry is moving in that direction, to save weight and space.

-juice

stantont

Steve,

As you saw, any surface, no matter how smooth it appears, can be seen as rough if we magnify it enough. In your electron microscope case, you used an electron beam, with wavelengths far smaller than those of visible light, so new roughnesses showed up. But in my headlight case, the wavelengths are the same: visible light, 400-700Nm. My puzzle is this: if the "scratched" lenses were rough enough to scatter a mjor part of the light out of the beam, why did they appear "clear" when looking inward at the bulb and internal facets in the reflector, etc? I can only conjecture that the human eye (brain) interprets ("sees") the lens as clear as long as the image of the internal parts is sharp enough for the brain to accept. That may be the key: as long as the image is visually "sharp", the eye sees the lens as clear, even though much of the light may be scattered

Not very well-stated, and VERY far afield for this forum, but...

Stanton

gldnhrt

I have a Legacy Brighton L wagon '98... and it takes me 30 mins to fill my tank. I have to pump the gas at a slow trickle or the pump backs up and the overfill shuts the pump off. I put hose clamps on the EVAP canister ( I read that here somewhere) no help. It seems to get progressively worse each time I fill up. Please someone with knowelege post a solution. My local Subaru dealer is a know scam artist.

joeb24

Thanks Juice. With regard to the use of the compact spare, the manual says, when you use the compact spare, you must insert a fuse to engage front wheel drive, and disengage AWD (all-wheel-drive), EXCEPT IF YOU HAVE THE 6-CYLINDER ENGINE. Wonder why you don't have to disengage the AWD with the 6-cylinder?

once_for_all

guessing its because the 6 cyl has VTD?

John

rpersico

Thanks Jim, That is good advice. As a matter of fact I did find an obscure diagram. The diagram (as you point out) did not help much and I still had the problem of not being able to see the area where I had to work.

I finally broke down and went to the local dealer. I really lucked out by going as the service department was opening up. the service manager started to tell me what I had to do to get at it. it involved taking the window apart which looked and sounded like a nightmare. the next thing I knew, he walked away with out a word and came back with a long screw driver and some other tool that looked like a very large dental probe. he reached into the exposed door had me hold the handle up and viola!! He fixed it without taking anything else apart and did not charge me a penny. With his experience and apparent eyes on his finger tips, he was able to put it back where it belonged. I learned a little bit about car door anatomy, but more importantly I know how not to open the door if I ever lock the keys in the car again.

ateixeira

Yeah, I think VTD cannot disengage the way auto-AWD can.

gldnhrt: what if you replace the canister? How much does a new one cost? It could be cracked and have an air leak or something.

-juice

chuckh

Hopefully I've finally posted this in the right place. Thanks to pf_flyer for directing me here.

I have a 1998 Imreza L with the 2.2L engine. I was wondering how many miles I can reasonably expect to get out of this engine and drive train. It's been well maintained with the oil being changed every 3k-4k miles since day one, and the belts have been replaced at the suggested intervals. It currently has 127k miles on the engine and seems to be going strong. I've read stories of Subarus exceeeding 200k miles but I am not sure if these are true or just marketing hype. What do you think?

TIA

once_for_all

if it is well maintained, then it should be good to go for a while.

If it ever got real hot, there could be potential engine trouble.

If it has been thrashed, it may not last much longer.

You can always do an oil sample and have them check for engine conditions.

John

xwesx

I am over 205K on my '96 OBW w/ 2.5L..... and it has had a tough life as far as I can tell. The 2.2L is supposed to be a much more reliable engine, to the point of "bulletproof" by some accounts. You never can tell what will fail and when, but I think you can reasonably expect 200K out of it, though not maintenance free!

kevin111

With regards to donuts, I was using one on my car about 2 years ago (35K miles), waiting for the rims to come in on my WRX. I hate to say it, but drove 800 miles on a donut and the donut was still useable afterwards, also no damage to the drive-axel or anything else.

In terms of tires, if there is more than 1/4" difference in circumference (about 2-3/10ths tread depth) you can shave the new tire down to where the old tires are. The only people I have heard of doing this are Tire Rack and some performance stores. If your tires are around 4/10s, it is about time to replace them anyway.

kevin111

I have an '02 WRX sedan, and have been having inconsistant boost. Sometimes I get almost full boost, even if it takes the needle longer than before to indicate boost, sometimes I do not. At mid-throttle, the boost only goes slightly above zero (on my turbo-boost gauge). I have taken it to a mechanic, and there did not seem to be any loose hoses or anything else. His feeling was that the boost controller needs to be replaced. :confuse:

My question is, does this sound about right, and also, where is the best place to get a good boost controller. I do not care if it is Subaru or aftermarket. I am in SoCal.

Also, any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

xwesx

So, do you notice any difference in the responsiveness of the car when this happens? I am leaning toward agreement with the mechanic and pointing the finger at the controller if the boost really is varying, or the guage if it is not.

locke2c

question: kevin, I think you have a good number of miles on your '02 WRX if I remember right. I also think that I remember you posting a while back about boost problems and that you had gone to some servicer-- a dealership maybe? -- and that they had tightened some loose hoses and everything was happy.

if that's even close to true let's have some more detail about what was done the first time and how long it was before the problem came back.

____

however, to strictly answer your question, I would use a stock boost control solenoid if you want it to behave just as it did when new. if you use anything else there could be some tuning involved which could be fun, sure, but it also could make your car more of a hassle than it has been thus far.

money-no-object, I'd use an Apex'i AVC-R electronic boost control unit.

~Colin

zubaru

Does anyone know the physical differences between the stock 2003 Impreza OB Sport pistons and the updated oversized ones that are currently being installed as a cure for the 2.5L piston slap problem? How much larger in diameter is the updated piston? Is it a different alloy/grade? Is the skirt length different and does the updated one have a moly coating?

rm1813

Where is the PVC valve in a 2001 4-cyl. Subaru Legacy? I recently bought the vehicle and the manual isn't clear. I took it in for an oil change, and the guys there didn't find it, either.

lakepop

Facing the engine it is in the intake manifold, aft of the coil pak, on the left side.

rm1813

I just noticed my typo - I meant the PCV valve. While I have a friend whose 17-year old daughter could take about probably any engine and put it back together again, I'm not that woman. So, on that note, can someone direct me to a diagram? I did not see it in the car's manual. Thanks.

lakepop

Guessed that........the PCV is located where I said. If you neeed a picture I can probably email one...

fibber2

Oh yea, we are getting far afield here, but what the heck! Yes, you got it right (I believe) in the second part of the post. By the limitations of our eye to process the image, the lens looked pretty clear. What you could not measure was ultimately how sharp the image was, or how much light intensity was lost shining thru the lens, and how much made it straight back to our eye. What was scattered was lost, and you have no good way of measuring that. Maybe if you did a back to back comparison, it might register as more significant. Maybe it still wouldn't seem like much.....

In the case of the electron microscope, the resolving power is based on how 'bright' the beam is (pico/nano amperes), the accelerating voltage & landing energy (kV - effects depth of penetration of the primary electron beam and how large an excitation volume), the spot size (related to electromagnetic lens, apertures, working distance), and detector efficiency plus video chain. Today we can produce million X images and achieve single nanometer resolution, but not because we have fundamentally changed the nature of the electrons, just how well we can control their travel & divergance.

You are correct, in that white light is in the 400-700 nanometer range. That creates our resolving limitation with white light optics, and why we rely so heavily on electron microscopy to see sub-micron stuff. Half lamda rule of thumb says that you are just not going to see features below a quarter micron (250 nanometers) with white light. That is why 'printing' illumination has gone to deep uV. But by the same token, a surface roughness on the same order of the wavelength of light will scatter that light to some significant degree. So a surface that looks fuzzy at 10,000x is displaying a surface roughness on the order of a half micron or more. If that were a transmission surface (lens), I believe you would get scattering.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming!

Steve

kevin111

Colin - you are right, I have 82K on the car, and it has been great, except for the boost. I brought it in to a couple of places. The first mechanic was not able to get to the turbo. The second mechanic claimed lack of pressure.

- Jason - Funny think is that I really do not notice a difference between the boost controller and not. The car seems to not be as neck-breaking as before though. It still accelerates well, just not as well as before.

I am guessing it might be a combo of both?

- Colin, considering this car is mainly used to make my commutes more fun (in SoCal you have to drive a good distance to get to anywhere!!!), I would lean more towards less hassel vs. performance. If the aftermarket units like the Gready (sp???) or other units are capable of similiar reliability, with little to no tinkering, after professional install, then I would strongly consider those units, if it will require much more tinkering on my part, I would rather just stick with the stock unit.

Thank you again for your responses. One of the reason I love this forum

Colin - one other note, how is the Evo doing? I remeber you loving it with the cruise control installed, but for commuting, the ride was starting to take its toll.

- Kevin

fibber2

I probably shouldn't try and answer tech questions at night. In retrospect, I took you all around the block, without really answering you. So lets try again!

Now I don't really know what the surface of your lens looks like, so this may or may not be the case. But if it were to look 'wolly' at 10kx as viewed in a SEM, it is exibiting a surface roughness on the order of a micron or so. That would have some scatter effect on white light.

The other possiblity is that the surface might be both rough from impacts, as well as oxidized. A plastic surface (hydrocarbon) can combine with air to form a new material. The material 'interface' can cause scattering, and the new material can have a transmission difference, resulting in absorption of light. Illumination becomes heat. Heat promotes more oxidation....

locke2c

The Evo is great. I have 34,000 miles on it now after roughly 22 months of ownership, so yeah, I'm enjoying it. It hasn't missed a beat yet- absolutely flawless.

It sounds like you still don't have a solid diagnosis on what's up with your WRX. I'd find some locals to you on Nasioc.com or I-Club.com and go to a dealership or independent servicer that they recommend. At 82k miles your WRX isn't a new vehicle anymore but I would still be a bit surprised if the boost solenoid, wastegate, or something like that had failed.

~Colin

glorybid

1993 Impreza: Replaced rusted gas lines, now the car wont start. :sick:

The car ran fine before I changed the lines! Drove the car up on ramps, changed the lines. Engine turns over but wont keep running. Fuel pump comes on. Gas is going to the engine, only trickles. Car will keep running for 15 seconds when spray in starting fluid. Is the fuel system pressurized? If so, how do I pressurize it? I have tried - turning engine over until the battery dies. No signal lights come on in the dash. All the regular lights come on...check engine, oil, door open...like when normally starting it. With the price of gas now :mad: , I cant afford to drive the 1987 Dodge Ram for too long! Please help!

once_for_all

this is just a suggestion, not a diagnosis.

If your lines were rusted, what do you think is going on in the tank?

I had a diesel tractor that would quit on me occasionally (fuel not feeding to fuel pump) and I could always get it going again by blowing back through the fuel line to clear that blockage at the tank outlet. You may have a bunch of junk too. Eventually I took the tank off and cleaned it out, it turned out to be a flat piece of peeled paint.

John