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Comments
Hmmm, a WRX-16.
Greg
-Brian
-juice
Rear wheel steer by wire will be introduced by GM on its large pickups in 2004. Other by wire features are already present in limited places. Most predominant is gas pedal by wire. I can't recall other details from the article but brake by wire and steer by wire will begin to appear rather soon, if not already.
Steer by wire will probably have driver adjustments to alter the feel. Brake by wire will be implemented to mimic the feel of hydraulic brakes. Not as sophisticated but same reasoning behind fly by wire airliners that mimic hydraulic
stick feedback to the pilot.
May still be time to cast your vote to the automakers for your OS preference: Windows or UNIX or LINUX.
Personally I'm currently not ready to move away from "by hydraulic" technology for the near future.
Vince
Can't say I'll be really comfortable with that too.
How many crashes will you get when the "Brake by wire" fails? 8-{
-Dave
-Colin
For those who might say 'but fighter jets use it', be reminded that there is a big difference in the reliability testing, source inspection during fabrication, etc. that man-dependent aerospace grade chips get, as opposed to commercial grade. And fighters do crash anyhow, and military avionics electronics have sometimes been the cause. Pick up a copy of 'Aviation Week and Space Technology' for some of their root-cause analysis of crashes.
The auto industry also lacks the service infrastructure to deal with the electronics revolution. The control systems for ECT transmissions leave most service techs with blank stares. The aerospace industry sinks 10s of thousands of $$$ per person into training to keep the birds flying.
And now a story: I was an young engr working for a Dallas based semiconductor company in the '70's when a US automaker met with us to negotiate specs and price on 8-bit uP's for an engine EEC system. Price was #1. Reliability? Early failure rate was back calculated by one of our guys to basically get them thru the then common 12/12 warranty before becoming a major issue. Long term reliability? Not a concern. Our management was smart enough to show them the door!
Steve
I also mentioned a noise that sounded to me like a tire noise, almost as if one of the tires was out of round or had a broken belt. the sound seemed to accelerate with the speed of the vehicle. They used a stethescope (sp?) and found that my rear bearing was beginning to show "sounds" of failure. I was further told by the Service mngr that this is common with Subes. In fact, my dealer does not use OEM bearings when replacing. So far, non of the replacements have come back. Anyone heard of this with subes? They said I could wait until next service to have it replace under warranty.
BTW...they're calling for +8 degrees celcius next week up here in eastern Ontario!!! Normals are high of -6, low of -16!!! We are supposed to get rain tonight, over the weekend and into early next week. What the heck is going on with this weather??
Ross
oil leaks, minor electrical stuff yes but bearings, transmission, differentials - no
-mike
then again, Subaru changed the spec a few times and finally put much better needle bearings in the 2002 Impreza. hmm.
-Colin
It is unusal to hear of piston slat in the phase11 engine the phase1 did have problems in that area but subaru were supposed have it sorted out in the phase 11,
Cheers Pat.
Ross
Yep, I've heard of a few wheel bearing failures. In fact, our 626 just had that problem, so I can offer an opinion on how it sounds. Ours went "thunk thunk thunk" and sort of changed pitch with speed. It was speed related, but not engine rev related, because the same noise occured in neutral. The hub and bearing cost $820, ouch, but it's a Mazda, not a Subie.
Yuki: keep us posted. Ken had the same service and now has 66k miles or so on it.
-juice
Cheers Pat.
when do you observe pinging?
-Colin
engine pinging is a topic that has received much attention in the past. Subaru has a fix for the problem if your pinging fits the profile that the fix corrected. Corrective action is to load revised engine management software on the ecm (computer). Computer needs to be sent to SoA in NJ for the sw upgrade. If service dept is not aware of the fix have them contact Subara of America.
juice:
Don't know how I overlooked MAC OS especially since its probably the most reliable one.
vince
That's good to hear that Subaru is taking action on it. Are they replacing the entire block and pistons or just the pistons themselves.
In my case, it was just the pistons. The fix pretty much got rid of my piston slap.
Ken
The oil filter price is cheap, stock up. I got lucky, though. Target stopped carrying Car & Driver oil filters, so they cleared them out. I got a dozen for 40 cents each!
They are made by Champion Labs and did well in that oil filter study that circulated a while back.
-juice
Subaru rep. said "a new engine". I may be wrong but I assume an engine assy. without other components, such as alternator, water pump and so on. I will let you know when the work is completed. Yuki.
-mike
I had a Datsun lose it's clutch on me, and in 1st gear climbing a hill you could hear the engine rev faster without the car gaining any speed.
Oddly, it didn't slip much from a standing start. Only under heavy loads (weight or hills) would that happen).
-juice
unfortunately it's a variety of problems. well, not that it's a big deal since clutch labor is enough that most sane people replace everything when they go in there. you wouldn't find anyone but a greasemonkey DIYer tearing things apart for a chattering releasing bearing and leaving the rest of the clutch be.
anyway, the chattering at idle is the release bearing. slipping under power is a glazed or worn clutch disc, which is usually caused by a fatigued clutch cover (aka pressure plate).
if you intend to get parts and do the work yourself or have a trusted indy put it in (they'd probably want to sell you the parts, but just in case) you want a new release bearing, pilot bearing, any clips, clutch disc and pressure plate. if you buy an aftermarket clutch and pressure plate you won't get the bearings and clips.
-Colin
-mike
I believe you basically have the same 5spd as what's under my RS, but since you've got a cable operated clutch things might be a touch different. talk to him to be sure.
anyway, Paul sells ACT and ClutchNet bits. he'll hook you up and no, you don't need the ClutchNet copper 4 puck.
-Colin
-juice
oh yeah Mike, you'll also want a clutch alignment tool. you can buy a plastic one at PepBoys.
they sell the real thing (metal) at spx-kentmoore but why pay that kind of cash... the plastic one is like $5.
-Colin
As the time gets closer to replacement, I'll definitely poll you guys as to which clutch/pressure plate I should get.
-mike
Ken
-Brian
-mike
very few production AWD gearboxes are solid enough to survive repeated abuse, thus they all (pretty much) get a relatively forgiving clutch to try and keep the gears intact.
it's definitely true in subaru's case as the 5MT is the same basic unit that debuted behind a 110HP 1.8 turbo EA82. the six speed finally addressed the issue with a bigger case and bigger gears.
-Colin
-mike
Colin, I am constantly amazed at the depth of your mechanical knowledge. Where do you enearth these gems? Is it "just" reading a lot of i-club, STi mlist? A secret Subaru book? Whatever your source, I'm grateful.
..Mike
..Mike
That's the whole secret.
-Colin
I left my autocross alignment in a little too long this summer and prematurely wore the insides of both front summer tires pretty hard, the right moreso. (camber was even, I must have had toe issues.) anyway, I dialed the excess camber out around October and hoped that my tires would hold until Spring, expecting that I would have been on winter tires long ago.
I should've rotated them in October, because that bad tire is now corded! Oh well, like I said I intend to replace them and overall got great use from them... almost 20k miles, more than two summers.
I better take the car in for an alignment, I don't want to thrash the winter tires like that.
Oh and I also burped my coolant again. I'd noticed that it was getting a little warm idling a long time in traffic the other day, and sure enough there were numerous air bubbles when I ran it with no radiator cap for about 20 minutes.
-Colin
Steve-V
-mike
rear wheel steering on large busses can be turned off with the flick of a switch. Useful when pulling away from a curb to prevent the backend from riding up onto the curb. I don't believe GM pickups will have that capability but like you said the rear steering probably won't be as active.
vince
-mike
I personally was not very happy with their service in 1993-1994, but heard they've improved since then.
I prefer taking my Forester to Subaru Santa Cruz, and if cannot make it that far, to Livermore Subaru.
Kate -- I actually purchased my 98 Forester S at Downtown Subaru. This was before I knew about the better dealerships elsewhere. I had very minor service done there and it wasn't bad. The only thing that bothered me was that they're more a Toyota dealer than a Subaru dealer. I think they also service Saabs as well.
Ken
What the tool does is align the the clutch disc as the pressure plate is bolted on. There is normally a shaft (the transmission input shaft) running through the center of the clutch disc and into a pilot bushing or bearing in the flywheel, but of course when you're replacing the stuff in there that's not the case :-) The alignment tool does the job in its place. It goes through the clutch disc and into the pilot bearing/bushing, thereby aligning the parts; once the pressure plate is bolted tight you take the alignment tool out.
We used to cut the input shafts from busted gearboxes and/or gearbox parts and use them, but anything that's straight and the right diameter will do. I've even turned a broomstick down at the pilot bushing end so that it would fit, then wrapped masking tape around and around it where the the clutch disc was going to be until I had a snug fit there, and that worked just dandy.
Cheers,
-wdb
WDB: you mean you didn't use duct tape? ;-)
-juice