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I picked up a foot or so of soft plastic tubing at the hardware store to lengthen the snout on the fluid bottle the last time I changed mine. You can then hold the bottle up above the diff and give a good squeeze. Took a few minutes to empty it, but saved the cost of a pump.
Oh, and warm that lube up well if you are doing this job outside in the winter! It flows like... well, not at all... when very cold. And it stinks, so wear plastic gloves.
I took it apart (three little sheet metal screws hold each plastic ends in place), and pulled out the inner assembly. Basically, this is very similar to a rollup window shade, and at first I was tempted to just 're-engineer' a scrap window shade that I had in the cellar to replace the core. But being curious, I tore it down. It has a wound spring that attaches to a central steel rod, and hooks to the outer barrel with a plastic insert that serves as an anchor and a bearing/spacer. The plastic sheared into two. Fortunately, both ends use the same part, and with some effort (they crimp the rod flat at the ends to keep it from rotating) I swapped them. A few twists to re-tension it before capping the ends, and it is basically as good as new.
Note: I didn't tension it quite as stiff as it was, as I expect that the aging plastic replacement end is likely to fail early if I did.
My 98 Forester was excellent.
Our 02 Legacy L was terrible. Outbacks of similar age were better (dad has one).
Our 09 Forester is very good.
The bike has helped me keep my sanity, and I miss getting away for that half hour in the winter.
Yeah, I bet! You do keep yourself plenty busy.
My '10 Forester is the first of my Subaru vehicles with "privacy glass" and it works very well. Unless someone makes an effort, it is difficult to see into the rear portion of the vehicle. Since I usually don't carry much in the back other than an emergency tote (with some auto fluids, tow strap, tie downs, tool kit, etc), which looks old and ratty, I didn't feel the >$100 price tag for the cover was worth it. Any time I carry something else, it ends up being large enough that the cover would just have to be stowed anyway.
Whew! Now you know how much of a pain they can be! I had the same problem with my '96 Outback the first time I changed the fluid - actually, it may have been the only time, I can't remember. Anyway, I had pulled the rear of the car onto a set of ramps (about 8" increase?) and still could not get the leverage I needed to break it loose. I ended up taking it over to a friend's place, where an impact wrench was available, and broke the top one loose that way.
The bottom plug came out with no problem whatsoever.
Problems in standard transmisions are more evident in difficulty of shifting just like worn out shifter bushings.
That humming and noise from the back was a bad bearing. It had reached end-of-life and was about to seize. Was it bad maintenance or the fact that it had 311,675 miles on it. That is the $495.37 question.
Now they only did the driver/roadside. The passenger/curbside was replaced early on so it had 250K+ miles on it. Since it was done about a year after I got the car and was covered by the warranty. The dealer said today that it is close to going. I am going to have a local garage do that one.
Now I can do more that 55 on the highway will way less noise. I can now hear the radio.
Gar! I should have thought about the wheel bearing, as I had one fail on a '69 Econoline van after it clunked and hummed for a few hundred miles. As it was, I ended up stranded fifty miles south of the Alaska Highway on Highway 37 (Cassiar) in northern Britich Columbia. I was back on my after four days and $500, but boy was that an expensive lesson to learn. :sick:
Bearings wear out with age - that is just the way of it. I am not sure that Subaru bearings have a maintenance schedule, meaning you can repack them, etc., but it is something I do on my older rigs every 50,000 miles or so. Over a quarter-million miles on a bearing seems like a pretty decent lifespan to me.
They don't build Subarus like they used to.
Does anybody know if it is a smart option on a Forester?
Thanks.
Poor Phil. He made it to the moon, but only a portion of the way back! Marooned...
So far, these bearings begin to run low around 200K on grease. Being large bearings, the low does not really make them run hot for some time longer. I have seen most of them close to failure around 240K. It requires a press to change them out. If you run them too long, it will distort the hub assembly. If it is not replaced, it will cause the next set to fail early. Use a good quality synthetic grease such as Valvoline part number VV986. Make sure any grease it came with is carefully cleaned out and repacked with this. Bottom line, not enough grease equals failure.
I am hoping to come up with a way to inject grease into the assemblies when ever the half shaft is being pulled. It is a pain to replace these bearings, front or rear.
Over time fine metal particules accumulate in the lubricants around moving parts. This sludges acts like sandpaper and overtime wears down those parts swimming in the oils and greases. By changing these fluids you slow the wearing process down (but not eliminated it).
Wheel bears were once removed from the vehicle, cleaned, and packed with fresh grease (I still have a tub in my garage). But now that bearings are sealed, that semi-abrasive sludge wears down the part until it fails (for me around 310K) and catastrophic failure (seizure) in another 5K.
All bearings in a vehicle should be replaced periodically based on this line of thinking. For wheel bearings, I would say around 250K miles.
I wouldn't mind doing a longevity test. The problem is that I keep starting at zero. I just passed a whopping 7,000 on my 2010, though! Maybe I will get the car to 300,000 by the time my daughter is eighteen. To put that into perspective, she is now two.
There are a couple of reasons, I have not followed your foot steps.
I do not like car payments. I got tired of driving the car for the bank. And when you have a major repair, you still have to make payments along with the cost of the repair. I took out the purchase price from the 401K and paid cash. Now that I am close to retirement, I can not do that now.
With the size of my family, I would need a minivan. So another Forester would be out of the question right now.
And finally since I keep adding up the miles, I want to be the guy with the most mileage as an original ower or any type for that matter. In five and a half years, I want to be able to post 500 thousand miles on this site.
Wes's Ford E-series might have suffered something similar.
While I also do not like car payments, this was a good time to become an original owner due to the electrical gremlins plaguing my van (which meant my wife would not use it due to not trusting it), interest rates, etc. Assuming no catastrophes, we look forward to getting many years of enjoyment out of the car. I really wasn't joking, though, when I said it will likely be 15-16 years before we hit the 300,000 mark! :P
On a separate note, I just added a 1/2 quart of oil to the car last night after 4,500 miles since the last oil change. The dipstick read just a smidge under half-way between the "add" and "fill" marks. As the bit of oil I added was the last of a gallon bottle, I figured it was a good time to do it.
I asked them to loosen the transaxle drain and fill plugs.
They did it on the manual transmission, I still can't change the rear transaxle fluid.
I guess if I paid them to change it, they would have gotten the right one.
Thanks.
The only reason it was tougher than my Miata was that it had dual piston calipers, so it's a bit more effort to retract those.
I don't intend on changing the brake fluid quite yet......just need a fix for about a month or so
Thanks again.
Moving through the gears going forward seems the slightest bit more clunky lately but it could be b/c I'm trying to pay attention to it.
Thanks in advance.
Below that spot, but above the steering box is a greyish curved heavy piece of metal that is part of the subframe. The cutout in this brace is what enables you to see down to the steering box. It looks coated in green and quite dirty as well - almost exactly as mine did. Guess what the 'green' is....
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I think you already knew the score.
I don't like it, but I am coming to understand it.
Tranny fluid on this auto was very yellow by 15K miles. I did a partial change (3 drains, fills), that helped, changed the $40 filter last week, that improved things too but still getting that hard clunk shift sometimes (but fluid-filter definitely helped).
Is this typical in anyway or do I have a tranny failure coming? (under 6/60 warranty I hope). Thanks for any opinion or advice.
However, see my post above yours for the possible outcome if the dealer doesn't agree that the tranny is bad! I went thru this exact same scenario on a Toyota for multiple visits until just beyond the 5/60 warranty. Amazingly at something like 62k, the tranny was now declared a total loss, and the district mgr denied the claim! I don't think Subaru would be so arrogant, but it's best to build your case carefully and methodically. Note that I don't presently own a Toyota....
Cheers!
Paul
Unfortunately, I am on the unlucky end of the spectrum, and have had two failures - first at 15k, then again at 63k. Even though my car is an '02, my VIN was exempted from the extended warranty. Only '00 & '01 were covered in full, '02 partially, yet SOA picked up the full tab. I have a friend with a '99 that was also taken care of as a courtesy.
My suggestion is that you call 1-800-Subaru3 and open a case prior to bringing it in for service. When you take it in, give the service mgr the case number, and ask them to call SOA and go to bat for you. If you have any kind of positive relationship at all with the dealer, you might get at least some of it covered.
While mine was apart, I had them do the timing & accessory belts, paying only for these extra parts. It all has to come off anyhow, so it's the time to do it. Labor was already covered.
See if you can turn your 'lemons' into lemonade and get to drive the car a while longer.
Search for a TSB on that, though I don't think it was as recent as model year 2002.