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Gee, Juice, aren't you glad you do so much of this yourself?
I have notice, however, since the service,a drop in my gas mileage, from 25 mpg to 24 mpg. Coincidence? Can anything they've done impact that?
I installed (and I use the term loosely) the Donnely ECT mirror myself, after ridiculous quotes from 2 subie dealers, that treated it as some accessory form another planet, even though even the regular stock mirror on a Subie says Donnely right on it!
I have grown mechanically inept over the years, but it is easy to install. The OB mirror pops off easily, the new one pops on easily, the plug to run the temp probe through the firewall is real easy to find and trace on the other side and the probe has a clip right on it.
I do have a problem hiding the wires running down the drivers side column, the wires fit under the plastic but don't stay, and no way could I find a wire to clip on to for power, so I just cut it, wrapped it around the radio fuse and shoved it in. I did try to follow the instructions posted here and from Donnely's web site but they didn't always apply.
comments and suggestions are welcome Vince
-Colin
From what I understand, the folks at our customer service center are aware of your case and they are jumping in (I let them know that it was back on again). I'm sure they'll get it resolved.
Thanks for your patience and I'm really sorry your going through this. Hopefully you'll be happy in the end. If not, let us know?
Thanks!
Patti
The seller is having his mechanic look at it and give his opionion, but I have a feeling he will be less than impartial in his diagnosis. Should I insist on the timing belt being changed as well? I have always heard that a leaky cam seal may mean it's time for a new timing belt.
I wish I could afford to buy a new car, I hate dealing with used car salesmen. I am starting to regret putting down the $200 deposit.
Does anyone know if my deposit would be refundable(NY state)if I wanted to back out of the deal ?
About your deposit I don;t see you getting it back unless the vendor is unwilling to carry out the necessary repairs but I may be wrong in this respect.
Cheers Pat.
Mike
-mike
It makes me nervous paying 13G for a car with 72,000 miles, even if it is a Subaru.
I love this message board and I have been doing my best to soak up all the info I can.
Thanks everybody
Thank you, JAYMOOSE, for your Dec 22 post on the location of the trailer wiring. I found it helpful and appreciate your work on this.
For those of you who installed the Hidden Hitch on your OB Wagons, can you recommend an online/catalog dealer? I know J.C. Whitney has them - anyone else?
Let us know how your installation goes!
Jay
I also replaced the two rear wheel bearings and the rear windshield wiper. Do I have a lemon or am I just overreacting?
mjs504: Your case seems like a frustrating case between happiness and lemon law remediation. Of course that's easy for me to say with an older Subaru and few problems: a broken fog light, a shattered window on a back door and a CD player that needs manual extraction of CDs.
I have thought about installing the outlet on my 5-spd OB, but decided not too, with all the unknown factors. Having it get in the way of shifting would limit its use too. Wiring would be the least important issue, since it would be cake to run a 12V line into the console if needed.
If anybody has more details, I'd love to know.
Craig
-mike
-mike
vince14 ( I think)
It happened to work after that. Maybe something was loose, but it has been OK until this storm today. Just thought I'd ask to see if anyone else has trouble keeping the ducts clear. Or if it did come loose, if that's something that happens often.
I never had this problem with my Corolla, which lived through several snow and ice storms. I thought it was strange that this would happen from just a little slush, and want to be prepared if this will be a regular thing.
Cristina
Prestone makes a great additive to add to your existing fluid. It boosts whatever is already
in there by an additional 20 deg.F colder.
It's in a clear bottle and the fluid is clear. I've never had this problem with my OB Sport, but it happens to my wife's OB. The Prestone eliminated the problem. Be careful though. It's strong and smelly. You're supposed to add the full bottle, but maybe try half and then gradually increase it.
It's called Prestone Windshield Melt.
http://www.prestone.com/home/index.html
Dennis
The blue stuff that is so common only protects to a certain temperature. There are better ones for extreme cold. They come in odd colors just to stand out, like yellow or pink. Check the temperature rating on the container.
I've seen these at WalMart, but I'm sure places like Target, Pep Boys, Trak Auto, AutoZone, etc. would have them.
mjs504: how is the dealer treating you? If you feel like you're being pushed around, I'd escalate it. E-mail me and I can put you in touch with someone at SoA if you'd like.
CEL are common. If it's not flashing then usually no big deal. OBDII requires that it lights up for all kinds of reasons. Ask them to see if it's more than just the O2 sensor, though.
Also, the rear wheel bearings are not uncommon. The trick is they are using TOO MUCH TORQUE, and that's exactly what causes them to wear. Ask specifically for them to check the torque specs and insist they follow those guidelines.
It just seems to me these are relatively simple things a good mechanic could fix. You may even want to try another dealership.
-juice
Tom
Well guess what folks... I learned a valuable lesson today...
Replace all 4 tires at the same time....
If you all remember I've had a whine on my Trooper from around 10,000 miles to now (16,000) that could be heard from 30mph->10mph, but only when the TOD or 4wd Lo was engaged. Also had the TOD check engine light come on 2x over the past 6K miles. The 3rd problem was that after being in 4wd Lo, then going into neutral, and disengaging the 4wd Lo, TOD would not re-engage properly until I backed up 30 feet or more.
We thought it was either the TOD unit, or the front Differential.
Turns out, around 10K miles, I had gotten an ir-repairable flat on the right rear tire. I had replace the Bridgestone 684 tires of the same size on my Rodeo about 15K before my lease was up, so when I returned it I saved the relatively new tires from it for the Trooper. When I got the ir-repairable flat on the Trooper I threw on one of the saved rodeo tires and didn't think anything of it. Apparently the tire that I put on was 1/2" smaller than the diameter of the other tires on the truck. Either through wear or the fact that it was a "Made in USA" tire instead of a "Made in Japan" tire that the ones that came on the Trooper were.
This tire diameter problem apparently caused the TOD system to become confused and caused the noise. The re-mounted the spare tire onto the aluminum wheel for me, and bam, problem gone. All of the problems actually.
On this visit they also did the Fuel line recall, and cleaned out the nozzles of the windshield washer that I had jammed up with wax for me.
They whacked me $75 for the mounting of the tires and the balancing of them. Which isn't bad all things considered. I have to take my hat off for Open Road Honda/Isuzu in Edison, NJ for doing a great job diagnosing the problem with the least evasive procedure. Most other dealers would have ripped out the T-case and/or the front differentials and just back charged Isuzu, and in the end, never fix the problem.
So now, my baby is back!
-mike
Craig
We always want to rectify situations without going the LL route. No sense in putting you or us through that when we both have the same goal...a car that does not have repeat problems.
I'll keep my ears out for your case/situation. If you are not satisfied, ask to speak to me directly.
Call us at 1-800-SUBARU3. Thanks!
Patti
Tom: not sure why they swapped. I wasn't even aware of that. Maybe they wanted more frequent plug swap intervals to allow them to see how the engine is running (plugs tell a lot if you look at their color and condition).
I'm sure you could use platinums. Bosch makes them, so does Autolite. There are also fancy ones like the Bosch Platinum+4 and the SplitFires, but the claims seem not so believable.
-juice
Tomorrow will be 1 year to the day that I bought the Forester. I know 17K is a lot in 1 year but I've asked the car to do a lot - and outside the bearing incident, I'm very happy with it.
Good luck,
Ed
Guess mine were torqued properly from the get-go.
-juice
-mike
Ross
There was a shake on acceleration which was caused by an out of spec axle. It was replaced under the powertrain warranty.
We have an appointment in 2 weeks to get the plastic around the power window switch replaced as well as a bulb in the A/C controls on my OBS.
Overall, we had a great service experience at Flemington Subaru in NJ. We just started going there and they have a great service department. There are about 4 or 5 dealers closer but Flemington is the best. Also met the owner but didn't know it until after we left and looked at his card.
Dennis
However you *will* see a performance and economy increase in replacing plugs regularly no matter if they are copper, platinum, silver... whatever. I change mine every 15,000 miles and I use Bosche Platinum, which are pretty inexpensive.
-Colin
I thought that would fix it, but a month ago, I was going down a hill in San Francisco traffic when it happened again. I had three other passengers in with me, tranny in 1st, foot off clutch, brake and gas and at around 3,000RPM -- pop -- the shifter goes into neutral. A couple weeks after that it happened again going down a pretty steep hill.
Anyone have similar experiences? juice?
I'll keep you guys updated on how it goes.
Ken
As I told you before, Fitzgerald Subaru at Kensington, Maryland, told me that the jet-engine like noise in my '01 Forester was due to a bad rear differential. The dealer special ordered a new differential. A few days ago, I was notified by them that the new rear differential had arrived. I have an appointment with the dealer to have the rear differential replaced next week (on January 23, 2001). Ron Rowles is the Subaru service manager that I have deal with. I will keep you posted after the replacement to see whether the replacement took care of the jet-engine noise problem. If not, you will hear from me at 1-800-SUBARU3.
Oldjayhawk
Thanks!
Patti
Patti
Thanks for your attention. Actually, the car is at the dealer right now -- Stevens Creek Auto Imports in San Jose, CA: 408-984-2001. I should be hearing from them soon.
I think must hold a record on having replacement work performed on my Forester under warranty -- 1st gear&synchros, ECU, clutch assembly, pistons, alarm head unit...
The crazy thing is that even after all these problems, I still like my Forester.
Ken
Cheers!
Paul
I'll keep you all posted - pardon the pun!
Cheers! Again!
Paul
Chuck
I opted to get out of that loop and use rainx no more!
-Colin
Bon Ami is not the best idea. Even though it is not very abrasive, it still is abrasive. Otherwise it wouldn't be able to clean most surfaces. Abrasives on glass are not adviseable.
I'm back from the dealer and I'm irritated. Basically, they're giving me the "couldn't replicate it" and "that's a normal operating characteristic" story.
Actually, this was my second day bringing it there. The first day they couldn't find a mechanic to check my Forester so it just sat in their lot all day from 8AM-5PM despite the fact that I had an appointment. I had to go out of my way to bring it in again today.
Anyway, to make a long story short, the service writer didn't accurately capture the conditions I described that caused the problem. I saw the error immediately after he handed me a copy and asked him to correct the RO. I even handed him my previous RO from when they replaced 1st gear the 1st time that had the correct description. Never happened. Of course the mechanic who examined my vehicle didn't put it through the same conditions and couldn't replicate it.
When I pointed out this mistake to him, the service writer began telling me that "that's a normal operating characteristic" and "how often do you engine brake with a full load in 1st gear anyway?". He even continued to ramble on about possible reasons of how it could be my fault for the gear popping out!
Enough said. Stevens Creek Auto Imports has left my RO open so I can go in, again, but this time personally replicate the problem for them. Neither do I have the time to do that nor do I want to deal with them any more.
My questions for you are:
1) Is it really a normal operating characteristic for the manual tranny in a 98 Forester to pop out of 1st gear while engine braking downhill?
Here's the scenario: vehicle has 3 passengers plus myself stopped on an downhill road. I let off the brake, Forester rolls forward and I let up the clutch smoothly without any gas. Forester now rolling in 1st gear, foot still off gas, brake and clutch. Tach approaches 3000RPM, shift lever pops into neutral on it's own.
2)If the answer to 1 is no (I hope), can you help make sure that I can somehow get this problem checked out and looked after properly? I've had it with Stevens Creek (they used to be decent) and I really don't want to deal with their incompetency any more. Carlsen Subaru in Redwood City, CA is the next closest dealership, but they're a bit out of my way.
I can be reached via my e-mail at: kentaros98@yahoo.com
Thanks,
Ken
You'll hear from us soon. The Rep. won't have your number, but I'll make sure she has your e-mail address. I know you'll like her. She is one of our most experienced and thoughtful folks.
Thanks!
Paul: try a little lithium grease. The bushings can get clunky if they're dry or dirty with debris.
Mischa: the trick is to reapply Rain X. At least every two weeks is best, especially if it rains a lot. The more you use it the better it gets. Works even better on side and rear windows.
-juice
-mike
I really think that on the side/rear windows it works better. Maybe because there isn't a wiper stripping it off when it rains.
-juice
Have fun with your training! Let us know if you find anything interesting.
Juice -- You bet I'll be keeping you updated.