fishy

I'm in the rust belt on the Canadian side of the border. Nova Scotia to be exact. Not only do we use obscene amounts of salt on the roads here but there's also no point in my province where you can be more than 50km (35mi) away from the ocean. Draw your own conclusions but most cars here seem to disintegrate before they stop working. Heck, the salt even destroys our road infrastructure like bridges and such. There was a study done that showed (I'm going to invent the numbers out of thin air because I forget the exact ones) using salt was a cost savings over newer better technology that doesn't ruin metal or at least not nearly as quickly. The government was saving something like $100/tonne by using salt... and that's great but the salt was causing an estimated $900/tonne in infrastructure damage. In any case it's sickening.

Two things to check that I haven't seen mentioned specifically: brake pads loose in the calipers rattling around(probably not that one) or swaybar related things: for instance the endlink bushings go bad and they clunk and rattle and make a heck of a racket. I've even heard of swaybar bushings going bad to a similar noisy effect.

Are you handy with cars? Do you have some tools? Got a budget for improvements? Any specific problems you want to address? here are some things you could do to help but they depend on how much you want to get into changing your car. You could upsize your tires a little perhaps just to help them roll the bumps and holes better. You could do an Outback/Forester strut swap lift and upsize your tires a bit more and you'd gain more clearance and more tire... This place should be full of ideas, but perhaps a little more info will help everyone with more directed ideas.

The dealer probably wants to pull the intake manifold to do the job or something... I don't know if the ebay sensors are "just as good" as OEM but in my experience they are "good enough". I've got a $15 ebay sensor in my car and I've probably put 10,000km on it by now with no troubles. As with many things I made a little video about the replacement process. Part of the video is a discussion about the orientation of the sensor, maybe it will help you out:

Thanks, that's very helpful! I was certainly assuming that the job would take me two or three times longer than Ivan because I have no experience at it. Having an idea of how the job goes might give me the confidence to make the attempt though!

Hey Ivan, Is there any chance you can give us a quick rundown of the filler neck replacement procedure? I've got one I need to replace and I know a shop would want to charge me for many hours of work where you say you're doing them in 35 minutes.

If, by your own admission, you're not a lead foot or hotrod driver I would suggest avoiding the turbo model. I've owned and driven both turbo and non-turbo subarus and the turbo ones without a doubt put a bigger smile on the face... but with fuel prices these days they burrow a MUCH deeper hole in the wallet. Not worth it in my opinion unless you want the rig for sporty driving, in which case you'd probably want something sportier than the Baja anyway. I have a 2005 Outback 2.5i non-turbo (automatic) and I never feel like I don't have a safe enough amount of power. It's not a speed machine but it's sufficient for any sensible (and some less sensible) use I've encountered thus far. Heck, I've got a 1998 2.2L automatic Impreza and that's got enough power too... at least it did before I lifted it and put bigger tires on it... oops.

I think a Baja would make a great camping and adventure runabout vehicle... but I'm not so sure about the logistics of towing one around. Hopefully someone else here can enlighten all of us about that. If you can't tell by looking at them they're basically an Outback wagon with some nip and tuck work in the rear end. I think you could test out a similar year Outback somewhere and get a general idea of what the car is like to drive and comfort levels. The Baja is somewhat rare because they didn't sell very well and hence weren't sold for many years. This saddens me greatly because I'd love to own a Baja but any that come up for sale anywhere near me are both high mileage AND way overpriced.

Good mention about blankets. After Christmas I bought a few holiday patterned fleece blankets for mega-cheap. I keep one in each car for whatever emergency might arise.

Hey gang, I'm a new gen subaru guy but I saw this in my youtube feed and wanted to make sure you guys had a go at it: cheers!

Well done! I've unstuck 2 cars with my 98 Impreza thus far. One out of a snowy ditch and one out of a really snowy parking lot (FWD LOL). In fact I have a milk crate full of what I call my "recovery gear" which includes gloves, tow rope, snatch strap, shackles, etc. When we get a big snow storm I usually chuck my recovery gear into my Impreza and go out hunting for stuck people to help. It's a weird hobby but it's better than Rob Ford's hobbies at least.

I have two thoughts about that right off the bat: 1. wheels and tires: but if it smooths out when you get off the gas that probably isn't it... 2. carrier bearing / ujoint in the driveshaft down the centre of the car. I had one of those fail in my 05 Outback last year and the symptoms were very similar to what you describe.

Something sure isn't right. you should be getting up over 14v at the battery terminals with the engine running. I'm certainly no genius but I'd guess alternator was going bad if my car had those symptoms. Anyone else want to pile-on here?

I had this happen so many times in my 99 Legacy (with 100% stock headlight configuration) that I actually used to carry a spare socket and bulb in the car. Make sure you've got good connections and good grounds in the area. Once that connection has melted the pins on the other end are probably contaminated and nasty so clean those up before installing a new end. Also: before I retired my 99 I was looking around and was able to find some heavy duty versions of those plugs on ebay (I think). The parts store ones I had been using were pretty cheap and flimsy looking. Might want to look for heavy duty plugs to use instead.

I'm out past the airport in East Hants

Thanks, I'll try to get a look at that soon. -10 this morning... could have used warmer feet

2005 Outback 2.5i (no fancy auto-climate control, just the basics) It seems like I'm not getting any heat diverting to my feet and these winter mornings up in Canuckistan are getting mighty chilly. I'm getting good heat everywhere else and the HVAC system switches from defrost to vent back and forth just fine. Is there a cable or linkage or the hair from a magical troll or something that operates the heater vent that commonly fails in this way?

I'd guess that started with the new generation in 05. My 05 does it but my friend's 03 doesn't.

The excellent picture above shows what you need but I also did a somewhat educational video about this process last year:

Is the flat spot just flat or somewhat surge-y? My 98 Impreza had a bad knock sensor that wasn't bad enough to throw a code but still affected performance. Cheap and easy to replace if it hasn't been covered already. I think surging is the hallmark of a knock sensor issue though. The other advice here about general tune-up things is always a good idea though.

In my opinion the Civic and Corolla are great transportation appliances. They faithfully and efficiently convert gasoline into distance. Subarus, on the other hand, might have a slightly higher cost of ownership or have the occasional maintenance required but they have metric tonnes of personality and soul. I'm sure one of those newer 2.0L Imprezas would easily go 150,000miles if you take care of it. If you're not concerned with the slight drop in MPG for having a beautiful AWD system and you're actually interested in cars to some degree: go Subaru. If you don't really care about cars and just need to get between home, and work on as little fuel as possible I'd go Civic or Corolla.

I'm no expert but I would think that since the unibody itself didn't change from what?? 1993 to 2001? the panels and trim bits would probably swap around pretty easily. If not a direct bolt-on job they'd be close enough that some minor adjustments here and there should get R done.

Check around for someone who sells/imports 'southern' gas tanks in your area. I lucked out and found such a place near me when my 99 Legacy needed a tank, I believe the rust-free southern tank cost me about $150.

I'm going to copy and paste in some input from a topic I started ages ago about ej25 weight. might give you some insight: "I happened to have an ej25block (loaded with innards, flywheel and oil pan but no heads, accessories, or manifolds). That's a short block, right? Anyway I was moving it inside off my lawn due to impending rain and unsightly premises complaints(j/k) and I put it on a scale: 140lbs" I think the heads weigh about 25lbs each. add those plus an intake manifold and some accessories and you'd easily make 220+pounds I can't really imagine there being very much weight difference between an ej22 and an ej25. they're so close to the same castings that most of the parts are interchangable

1998 Impreza wagon Brighton. 2.2 4eat - 1998 Forester struts and springs (rears swapped with the original Impreza tophats) - 215/70/15 Goodyear snow tires - rear doglegs "adjusted" forward instead of swapping the trailing arm brackets - 10.5" clearance to the oilpan, 11" to the rear diff. - rear swaybar currently disconnected, front stock one in use