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Showing content with the highest reputation on 11/11/21 in all areas

  1. Dear ultimate Subaru forum users, And especially long time users like GD, Nipper, 1 Lucky Texan (and many others of course as well), But after well over 22 years of driving with various Subaru cars I will step out and lock the doors of my 2009 OBW for the last time in two weeks. I have had three cars in this time, an old 91 legacy EJ20 4EAT 2WD followed by an 99 impreza EJ16 MT running on LPG and later a OBW BL 09 4EAT VTD running on LPG. In the Netherlands/Holland driving these high CO2 cars is, even on LPG, a very expensive habit. This is then also the main reason for changing to a 2017 Toyota Auris 1.2T CVT. Here road tax goes by weight, emission and fuel type. Gasoline being the cheapest, then LPG and then Diesel. And car insurance is determined by new car sales value. And here is the trick, or unlucky part. A car has a base price, and then for every gram of CO2 per km above 105g you pay 235 euros extra (per gram!!! 26k euro tax, then 21% normal tax on a 31k euro car). Hence a 215g/km Outback has a very high sales price. About double of that in USA! This is of course the main reason why most cars in Netherlands are Mini and Micro sized cars, according to US size standards. An other problem is the rare-ness of Subaru in the Netherlands, of the 2003-2009 OBW only 2500 have been sold. YES!!! The market is so small and spare 2nd hand parts are impossible to source. Additionally, original spare parts are insanely priced to the added very high workmanship price. And due to the rarity, almost no un-branded garage knows much about the tech and tools. The OBW just became a little bit to expensive to drive on both road tax and maintenance cost. In general I have not had any significant breakdowns or issues, showing reliability and durability is there. Even running on LPG had no major consequences on reliability, and many Polish and Italians will agree to this. The worst problem I had was with the OBW and was due to a leak in the exhaust pipe making the ATF temperature sensor go mad. The seal between the front and back pipe came out. Instead of reading high the sensor read low and force the gearbox to run in 3rd gear. After, re-setting and fixing the exhaust it never returned. We have been through many places, both very temps, and low temps the OBW always worked. I will miss the very limited 25y anniversary model with all (yes all, including HID and self levelling suspension) options, red leather upholstery of very good quality (not a single wear mark after 160k miles). Maybe, hopefully, I will be back in future, that will be electric then, as there is no other way how any ICE car can remain affordable here. (Current electric cars pay no road tax and if you make your own electricity you drive for free). I am looking forward what the Solterra will bring. But with this all I want to thank you forum members as always being a valuable input, helpful and friendly. See you hopefully in future. Remco Picking up the trailer on holiday Getting LPG at -16F in Latvia. After I first got it, about 4 years old. Interior
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  2. Worn seal. Happens a lot on those 90’s automatics from my viewpoint. It will require the transmission be removed.
    1 point
  3. I’ve repaired a few of these. clean the flat faces and surfaces the pulley mates up to. File/sandpaper it smooth and so the pulley sits perpendicular. Then crank the bolt TIGHT. Like use a 2 foot cheater pipe and LET HER RIP. Steel bolt, steel crank, you won’t strip it. I don’t have a torque value but I tighten them all those way and don’t have even use a torque wrench on this bolt. But I’ve done hundreds of them. Id get another timing sprocket, lower cogged (toothed) timing idler, and replace the sprocket, idler, and timing belt. Sprocket because it may be damaged if it looks fine then reuse jt Belt - because You want a new Subaru belt anyway. current belt may be aftermarket and may have been heat soaked from the harmonic failure circus. The lower cogged idler is by far the most likely timing part to fail and make your valves do the bendy dance. So I’d just replace that because it’s smart and $35 and easy with the belt off anyway. I’m not suggesting replace it because it was damaged by the balancer failure, it’s just kind of asinine not to replace it now you absolutely do NOT need the key way there. No matter what anyone says. Yes it’s nice and clean and you can use a proper torque wrench if it’s all perfect. But it’s an old cheap car, you’ve got options. You don’t adjust timing anymore off the crank and it won’t come off if you tighten it like I suggested. I’ve done dozens like that. No big deal if you crank it tight. Make sure to let anyone else know if you sell it or have a shop work on it. That’s the downside but I do all my own work and remember this stuff The timing belt looks untouched and looks to be intact so I’m assuming timing isn’t hosed. And this is the norm - the clatter and issues caused by a loose harmonic balancer usually render the car and driver useless to continue driving it until catastrophic timing belt interference issues. But we can’t really tell - maybe that belt is floppy loose and it is hosed. I can’t touch it. But that conveniently huge hole and great picture looks like an intact belt. Id just press on the belt and make sure it’s not obviously loose and floppy and use that to assume valve timing is okay technically the car should start and run like shown in the photo with no balancer or belts if you jump start it - it just needs another car or battery with jumper cables since there’s no alternator operating without belts. So you could slap jumper cables on it - and crank it and see if it starts without any funny buiisness if the owner agrees.
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  4. It was actually a combo of problems. First: connector B12 was not even plugged in, like I convinced my self many times "Of course that's in, how could I forget that?" Well I did forget, even had tucked one end up behind the rest at the firewall. Second: the brain, ECU, was coming out of a 2yr. coma and spitting out all kinds of CELs. Third: Wore down batt. narrowing causes for no start. The odd fans and fuel pump timing was result of batt. Charge being lower than multimeter was saying and poor grounding. My mm was getting like 30-40 ohms when checking grounds. Plus parking lights no work either switch. All other lights wrk, turn, brake, reverse and headlights. All of the chassis grounds were garbage. Welded on some stainless bolts, in appropriate locations. Added extra ground cable from battery to strut tower. All new gnd locals tested <5ohm. Still hunting down park lights no wrk issue, but cars starts easily now.
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  5. idosubaru is absolutely correct. That's why I said the XT is terrifying to drive. Every other vehicle looks like a skyscraper driving past you and the roads are absolutely full of morons on their phones and screens built into their cars. This is part of why my daily is a lifted K5 Jimmy on 35's and my recreational vehicle is an Army LMTV that weighs 21,000 lbs. I'm not about to get taken out by some soccer mom in a Suburban. GD
    1 point
  6. Doesn’t matter. What Id recommend is buy the car and take note of what is actually killing and severely maiming people on the roads. Then do your best to drive appropriately knowing you’re at an enormous disadvantage in the event of an accident. View it more like a motorcycle than a truck. Seriously if you want it you’re better off getting it and realizing what you have and what your risks are, and drive appropriately, rather than trying to anecdotally look for one ancient, out of context, weak data point to prove your case. That’s a false sense of security and avoids a real world practical approach that would help you. What you’re doing won’t be accurate or meaningful. But maybe if you’re trying to convince parents that doesn’t matter?! The single biggest factor in vehicle safety and DEATH by a long shot is vehicle weight. Period. It’s light relative to what will be encountered on the road today and has no drivers air bag. Light and no air bags. There’s literally nothing to talk about. Economists at UC Berkeley I think showed 47% increase in deaths for 1,000 pound weight differential or something like that. Wealthy people (and probably others) know this and talk about it and are buying large cars for this explicit reason - just to be the biggest, and thereby safest, on the road. I’ve heard the statements in person. Average vehicle weight since the 1980s XT has increased like 1,000 pounds. And that doesn’t take into account miles driven by large vehicles which I think has ramped up drastically as well. Meaning the extremities of sizes - commercial trucks (we love our low cost China products and Amazon), hummers, Yukon’s, Trucks and how many miles these large vehicles are driving to their cabin or second beach home have increased dramatically and soccer mom people buying these things drive a lot. New car consumers obsession for heavier is correlated with cheap gas which seems to be the rule in the US. But that’s an only indirectly related tangent. Large vehicles dominate road ways, drive like they know it, and have latest safety improvements when the XT doesn’t even have a basic airbag to save your neck when a texting person rear ends you. Which happens all the time. We are lucky airbags preceded cell phones or wed have a lot more deaths and paralysis. Average speeds are increasing, distracted driving (screens) are through the roof (and killed a friend of mine who got rear ended at 60 mph while waiting to turn left). Populations are migrating to cities at high rates increasing congestion and incidents. All of these disproportionately impact small car safety in ways a crash test from 40 years ago won’t show A 37 year old XT crash test is more akin to history than accurate data. Im not saying don’t get it. I’ve owned an XT since 1992. But data and basic physics tell us there’s nothing safe about a small 1987 sedan/coupe with no airbags in 2022. And an old crash test won’t bear much of this out And it’s not a bad idea to realize all of this even if you get a hummer
    1 point
  7. Maybe Subaru should export a Kei car to the Netherlands... anyway, safe travels!
    1 point
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