edrach

Last piece of advice. Don't be afraid to walk away from the deal. Lots of nice '06 cars out there. This one has enough "what ifs" to make me think more than twice about signing off on it. The salesman will call you if you walk away to offer you a better deal. The last new car I bought, I walked away 9 times. Got a call from the salesman within 24 hours each time with a slightly better deal. Finally bought the car when the price met my guidelines (brand new Mazda pickup truck back in 1988).

$1280 for the remaining warranty! Sounds a bit high to me also. I would think the original owner already paid for the full 5/75K warranty when he bought it; why should you pay any more? Secondly, with the miles on the car now, all warranty issues should have surfaced and been resolved already. The likelihood of additional issues now is pretty remote (unless the car has been abused or the tire issue isn't recent)

Three things: Run a carfax on the car. I'm assuming 45K on the car which seems quite high for a 2 year old car, but not impossible. With that mileage, all the OEM tires should still be good; not sure why two were already replaced. Go to www.nadaguides.com and check the proper price for this model car with the miles on it. I really don't believe that any dealer would limit himself to $300 profit on an '06 car. They are not that stupid. Lastly, if you do buy the car, GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING AND SIGNED BY A PERSON IN AN UPPER MANGAGEMENT POSITION (preferably the owner) AT THE DEALER. Include the fact it came with mis-matched tires when you first saw it whether they replace the tires or not. Make sure that any remaining warranty is detailed in the written statement. Good luck with your new car.

Stopped by Lynnwood today. Sadly the white hatch reported in carfreak's thread has gone to the crusher:banghead: . The good news is that an '83 wagon with a pristine body (bright shiny metallic green finish with no dents or scrapes), good tail-lights has taken its place. Also a newly arrived EA82 wagon is parked next to it.

Does the Brat have a weber carb? They are prone to have the primary ice up in cold weather. I recently experienced that on my Brat. The tipoff is the frosty coating on iced mist on one side of the barrel; pretty obvious once you know it's possible. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=82646&highlight=weber I suspect the Hitachi can have similar issues. Does the carb still have the plastic shield in front of it? That was there to prevent the carburetor from icing up. Over the years that shield has usually dissappeared. As a matter of fact I'm looking for one for my Brat.

Boy, I didn't pick up on the vibration being in the rear until now. Sorry. Just to start over, which model do you drive and how many miles on your car? Automatic or manual transmission? I don't think I'd pull back the boots to check the grease. I've never needed to do that and you may create another problem doing that.

A torn boot is often a real sign of failure, but I would think you'd have noticed that. I agree with GD on it's being the front axles although I'm puzzled by the lack of the classic symptom.

Does the vibration come and go with when you accelerate? E.G. it vibrates when you are on the gas and accelerating, but it instantly stops as you let off the gas and coast. If this is the case, it's a bad DOJ (inner joint) on one or both axles. Classic symptom for a bad DOJ.

Rocker panels are rust free; driver's side is perfect; passenger side has a dent in the middle where they put it down on the support. Bring a strong friend or two if you need the passenger side (to lift it off the support).

The likely reason that they snapped off is they were tightened without a torque stick on the impact tool. 600 ft-lbs with an air impact tool does a great job stretching the studs and ruining the threads. I had a similar problem on my son's BMW. He had a local shop do a pre-buy inspection on it and brought it over here to install some fine alloy wheels with new tires. I couldn't get the first lugnut off with a 3/4" breaker bar with a 5 foot pipe on it:eek: . My son took it back to the shop and they broke 4 of the studs removing the lugnuts:mad: . Needless to say my son never went back to that shop.

Rent a tool is your best bet. I'll be there today and check on the rocker panel.

I don't see any problem with re-torquing. I would loosen one and re-tighten it properly and then go to the next in an alternating sequence. I use a portable electric impact tool (thank you harbor freight) and a torque stick since I change wheels and tires all the time when I run rallycross events. I use a torque wrench after the torque stick tightening to make sure it's correct. After 300 to 500 miles, I re-check all the lugnuts with the torque wrench.

Ditto on the crappy aftermarket axles. The axles on my brat that felt like the transmission was falling out were replaced and the brat has since run over 40K miles without transmission problems; of course I didn't run the brat too many miles with those axles.

It was a white hatch; had a pretty decent body as I remember it. It's near the end of the 2nd row. Get there soon since that row wil go to the crusher sometime next week.

Stopped by Lynnwood today and pulled the rear hatch off the Impreza; not a bad job but it was cold. Almost froze my fingers off. Another Legacy wagon was added today.

Our PAP's never move a car unless it's sold intact (very rare) or taken to the crusher.

Glad you found the trouble; even more glad GD and I gave you the right advice. It's just amazing how a bad DOJ affects the car. The first time I had an issue with our '86 wagon the vibration was so slight that our mechanic insisted there wasn't a problem (n.b. this was before I learned how to do my own axles). The second time was with a newly rebuilt axle and the vibration was so bad I thought the transmission would fall out of the car. Both times the tip off was the vibration happened only during positive throttle and acceleration. The vibration stopped completely as soon as I let off on the throttle and coasted. Keep your paperwork and try to get some satisfaction from Advance America. I've gone to MWE for my axles now. I usually keep a Pull a Part spare on hand for unexpected failures to tide me over until I can order a "new" one.

I've taken any of our cars through state inspection for 20 years now in WA (with three sons and a wife with each one having their own car); never have they lifted the hood. I've owned our weberized Brat for about 8 years now and never had trouble passing emissions except for one year when I had the delta cam rebuilt motor; that one required some "diligence" by the emissions guru to get to pass. And when that one failed "big-time" when we first took it through, they didn't look under the hood either.

And you walked right by the blue '94 Impreza wagon in the first row!

Carfreak is correct. WA only wants it to pass a sniffer test and a weber is often more easily tweaked to pass than the old Hitachi. The emissions guru in Seattle (I've posted about him before) has re-tweaked our car every time it came up for emissions testing and didn't pass the first time through. We currently have two weberized Brats which both passed during the last inspection.

Lets hope we're correct; it's the least expensive cause...especially if it's the new axle. My opinion isn't 100% sure, but I've seen the same symptoms on at least a half dozen subarus over the last 10 years and it was always the axle. Once when I brought the "new" axles back to the shop where I bought them (a wholesale supplier of auto parts) I just put the axles on the counter and before I even said anything, the partsman had another rebuilt set for me; he didn't even ask me for an explanation or paperwork. Fortunately the 2nd set worked just fine; but I did change suppliers. Good luck with it.

I'm with GD on the bad DOJ. Typical symptom is vibration under acceleration which goes away on trailing throttle. It can be a minor vibration or so bad one thinks the transmission is falling out. I've even seen it on axles which I just installed. I would not suggest driving any distance with the front axles removed.

If anyone still has a current carfax account, if you could run this for me I'd be grateful. Thanks. JF1SF635X2G716938

Spark, you have an early Legacy. You can pull the door handle off any early Legacy at pull a part, change the lock tumbler to yours, and re-install. Last time I pulled a handle and lock tumbler it cost me 30 minutes and $6.....the door went to the crusher:eek: . Besides if you screw it up, you get to practice on another car! Better than messing up your car. And trust me, it pays to practice first.

Take your XT key to a locksmith and ask what key blank he needs to make a duplicate. If it's a DA25 use the p/n from the original post, get the LED key, and take it back to the locksmith and have him cut it for you.