SOUTHBAYeric

I have also heard and read that this noise is quite common amongst these models does that seem correct?

The tranny does not grind in the classic sense of the dog teeth on the synchros not meshing. The noise is more like a rubbing and muffled grinding noise that only happens on downshifts when the clutch is let out and the noise goes along with engine speed. I live in San Francisco so tight turns are always necessary. What does torque bind feel like?

My GL wagon finally crapped out on me and I am looking at mid to late 90s impreza AWD wagons. I was wondering if there is a durability issue between auto and manual transmissions. All things being equal, fluids changed regularly etc. what is more durable? Do the auto transmissions have any inherent problems? Is a manual more reliable? I test drove a manual tranny car and when I would downshift there seemed to be a grinding/rubbing noise that was engine speed related and went away when I put the clutch back in. The owner said it was just the gears in the trans, do they all make this noise? What is some average mileage to expect? Is there anything in particular that I should make sure is in good order before buying one of these cars? Thanks in advance

Hi I picked up an 85 GL wagon with 150k miles about a week ago. On the drive home while I was on the freeway the car started to misfire badly but ran fine at WOT. So I got it home and started to look at timing and checking compression and resetting the timing somehow magically fixed it. So after a bit of around town driving I took it back on the freeway and it was running great for a while and then started missing again. I couldn't get it running right by resetting the timing so I drove it through first and second gears at WOT and it was magically fixed once again. Now on the way back to my parents house it happened again, misfiring. But now I cannot fix it no matter what I try. I have a very good feeling that it is ignition related. Has anybody had this problem before and is there any advice anybody can give? The car is not passing smog either and I am pretty much positive that the catalytic converter is shot. Are there any reputable parts houses that you can reccomend. Thanks eric