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As a former software engineer that was, once upon a time, asked to implement SDK's for fingerprint scanners, and "facial recognition" among other insidious invasive hardware/software (circa ~Y2K), I can 100% inform you that any internet connected device is PRIMARILY used to sell product. What product you ask? Your data is the product. Where you go, what you do (how long you spend there) and any other habits that can be gleaned from the sensors connected to your vehicle. It's an ongoing revenue stream from hundreds of thousands of vehicles willingly purchased and happily connected to the IOF (Internet of Things) and reporting everything it can back to the mothership. This data is collected, processed, and used against you to sell you more products and services that you never knew you needed..... GD

I'm calling it quits for the night. All I have to do is hook the exhaust back up and put some water in the radiator. I'll post tomorrow after work.

How confident are you/him this is an axle noise? Maybe it's the CVT making the noise? Let's assume his diagnosis is correct for a moment: Excellent. A dipstick check isn't very conclusive or condemning. Change the fluid, have the fluid dumped into a clean container and inspect the fluid. Blackstone labs I think can test the particulate matter of CVT fluid and tell you what it is and whether it's more indicative of wear or worse issues. If the noise is an axle and there's no transmission noises then there's a reasonable chance of not having any issues either. CVT's aren't very good at failing quietly. You didn't ask but do not use any parts store axles. They all suck no matter what rando review you read on line. You will not find the holy grail you, or others, think exist. They all suck. Regrease/reboot your original, or install a rebooted/regreased used Subaru axle. Aftermarkets are total trash. All of them. Unless you like gambling with insanely high failure rates and wasting your time swapping axles multiple times. Install a Subaru axle or reboot/regrease the original. They typically last the life of the car. The ones I've regreased/rebooted the old grease just pours out and is absolultely trashy...or it's mostly empty/dry. I've never rebooted a noisy/clicking Subaru OEM axle that didn't drive like new afterwards. I of course avoid ones that have eggregious issues, I don't blindly regrease ones filled with sand (which I've seen before)

We brought it in for some noise in the front drivetrain, and he diagnosed that as a bad CV axle. I can easily swap that out, but in the process of diagnosing that he looked at the CVT fluid. He didn't drain it to check it, just looking at the fluid with the dipstick. So maybe the next step would be to really flush the fluid out to take a look at it, and see if it really does have *shavings,* and not just an expected amount of "glitter." BTW we've had this car for several years. I'm not sure we would go for spending $8K on a new transmission, because to be honest I don't know how durable the rest of the car is. So with the long-term future of owning this car in doubt, if it turns out this tranny is circling the drain, I'll probably just get a low mileage used unit to replace it with.

OTA software updates for cars creep me TFO.