four-fleet-feet

I probably should have mentioned the $1900 quote was to have a headgasket repair I did not need, the full timing belt/water pump/gasket etc. replacement, and plugs, plus the intake/exhaust seals needed when doing the headgasket replacement. It would have been $750 for the timing belt/water pump/plugs/gaskets/seals alone, what they called a full timing belt service. We now know the timing belt service would have fixed my leak and the headgasket was just silly overkill caution on the part of the local dealer (or they thought they were dealing with a female turnip, which I am not!) They were also adding things like $25 for 3 quarts of coolant (the Imp has just over 6 qt capacity in the cooling system), $28 for 4.2 quarts of 5-30, and other things of that ridiculous ilk. They wanted $18 for 4 NGK plugs. I bought them myself from National (not even a mile from the dealer) for $10. Now, far be it from me to shake a finger at you, but I think you're getting the same snow job. Sure, the dealer will do other things, but even $2500 sounds high! Oh, yes, they're doing you a favor... off of their already inflated price! Ask around for Subaru mechanic recommendations - I ask every time I gas up, or even every time I park at a Fred Meyers - Subarus are everywhere in the NW. I'm sure someone in Texas can do the labor and give you a better price, and even if you don't get your parts off eBay like we did, you can do much better than the stealership quote. If you have the tools, it isn't hard. We're probably into 8 hours total labor for everything (actual working time), and that's with a few broken/missing parts surprises. You can always ask on this board and people will fall all over themselves to help you. Well, unless you like throwing money at a shredder, then please ignore me and go ahead straight to the (stealer) dealer...

Don't dump your car! (Well, if you were in WA aircraft-engineer says he'd buy it, but you're not...) My 97 Imp is getting sealed back up right now. Local Sub dealer stated I needed $1900 worth of work, to fix my oil leak, more diagnosis time needed (and more $$$) to figure out the growl in the back area (might be a bearing? Yeah, I already knew that much once they'd passed the rear diff). Water leak: $90/hour to diagnose. I smiled, said 'thanks, bye' and went for a drive to aircraft-engineer's driveway. What I really needed: $40. hub/bearing assembly from a junkyard for the bad rear pax bearing. Sub-$200 parts kit off of eBay for a complete timing belt replacement, with all gaskets/belts/la dee dah. Some $30 in assorted anaerobic, threadlocker, blah blah this and that. Stuff to fix the taillight leak: free for asking from a windshield place, and 15 minutes of time. Some labor hours here and there over a 2-week period, mostly due to weather and the fact that neither of us have worked on a Subie before. Fix one thing, wait a few days for clear weather, go on. Now that it's been done once... hey! A bit of cotton in my ears was necessary when aircraft-engineer let me know the last mechanic to work on Dragon was not mentally fit to hold a wrench, let alone apply it to a nice Subie. NOWHERE near the doom-and-gloom the local dealer was giving me. Don't give up on a really nice car just because *one* shop stated you were in for spending the $$$$$. Find a mechanic if you don't want to do it yourself, but fix your car. Then again, if you were local, I know one mechanically-inclined engineer who'd be interested in your OBS! You'll get buyers even in Texas, that's for sure, but then you'll be giving up one sweet ride.

No, no, no you're not. Unless you're in a college town or a place rife with beach bums, Subaru parts/junkers for parts/dealers/service shops who actually speak Subie are far between. You will lose your mind. I know whereof I speak. Why do you think I bought my Chevy S-10 instead of getting a Subaru back in 1990? My father retired in Arizona... in '85 I think there were 2 dealers in the entire state south of Flagstaff. One of them went out of business about the time I bought my truck. I needed one to move my stuff home to Washington, and since I had a loan, I kept it (a poor reason I admit). I have since bought the car I wanted all along! The only Subies I see on I-10 are from out-of-state!

Check your manual for severe weather adjustments while using your interior heater/defroster. My Impreza manual gives specific settings for cold temp defogging which includes using the A/C to get the interior air as dry as possible to reduce nightly interior frost-up. Don't worry, you'll still get nice and toasty once your engine's hot. A side bonus is getting your A/C seals lubed at the same time, something you'll be grateful for when you kick it on sometime in the summer. Your gas mileage goes in the toilet, but you won't have to sit on a white frosty seat in the AM - or spend as much time scraping the INSIDE of your windshield as you do the outer. Not to mention avoiding the very favorite occurrence (not) of the window glass deciding to seal itself iced/weathertite to the INSIDE edge of the molding, where warm water won't reach it...

Wow - fast reply! Danke schoen, Parakalo, Grazie, Merci, Domo arigato, Thank you! Ya gotta love this board.

Well, of course you love your new Subie. D'oh! That said, here's my 2 cents. 4. Bulb change on the controls is a bear but it can be done. Be good to yourself and CHANGE THEM ALL. Getting the control unit out is the hardest part - why do it again if you don't need to? Test each bulb after putting it in to make sure it was just a burned out bulb. Good? Lights? Go on to the next one. 6. Sticky buttons? I'd say your controls had a dose of sticky soda at least once. You can carefully take it apart and scrub it down with a gentle degreaser and an old soft toothbrush and light cotton cloth (Dawn comes to mind, or something like Formula 409 - I don't know that I'd pull out the stronger degreasers for this). Keep the pieces as dry as possible - don't saturate and dunk them! The slider might be a different issue - after all, we Washingtonians do have to make use of the 'hot' side of the selector more often than you Californians! You might be able to tell more once it's off and cleaned. Hopefully someone who's had to take one off can tell you exactly what they did. I stopped at cleaning my wheels - mine doesn't have a slider - and that took care of my *sticky* issue. If this was a smoking car, and the issue is nicotine residue, Cottonelle wet wipes or nonoily baby wipes get that yellow nicotine goop off fast with no sloppy wet water to deal with.

Found a set of 4 15" stock wheels off a 98 OBW (not Sport). Anyone know if these will fit my 97 Impreza wagon? I want to ditch the American Racing wheels Dragon has on and get a set of Subie wheels. TIA, four-fleet, rescuing the Dragon from the previous-owner Maiden, one item at a time...

Waah! After I bought Dragon I found out my old '92 Yakima Rocketbox wouldn't go on the roof. Now I need one of these and you got one cheap... $75 in Seattle? Dream onnnnnn... Yeah, Craigslist rocks. It's how I found Dragon the day of listing, a mere 1 1/2 miles from my house at a nifty price. My first time on Craigslist, no less

You might test your theory this way: next time the light comes on, after you stop and turn off the car, move the seat yourself! If the light is off on your restart, you've got a real wiring issue somewhere. (Yes, you still have a sensor problem, anyway, according to the code.) Did you have any work done on the seats? Are you the only owner? Have you noticed you need to replace certain fuses regularly, or you smell something *weird* in the car? I'd say the on-again-off-again light may be due to a wiring issue; the fact that it is on at all (and your other problems) tells me you have a definite problem going on under the hood. Once you track down a sensor and put it in, clear the code and run the car. If the light stays out but the overheating issue remains, I think you already know what we'll say. Have your compression checked at that point, if you aren't planning on doing it now to find out anyway. Now that you know the codes can be read for free by any AutoZone or Schuck's in Washington (or any other location nationwide), if the light goes on do not wait two months before having it read! Please. That light is there for a reason, and ignoring it can be costly. Ignoring one problem can turn into a cascade of others over time. Another parts place to try: Aaron's Auto is a Subaru-only junkyard in Burien, not too far from Sea-Tac airport. Call 1-800-541-7271 M-F, 8:30 to 5:00 PST, if you need something you can't afford new, or can't find locally anywhere else. They have a website, aaronsauto.com, but calling is easier, faster, and more accurate. FYI: they don't take American Express.

Any idea how the Forester ended up with 'a bad motor?' If it's a teenager with a leadfoot and other issues, I wouldn't count on the trans for diddly. If it was a headgasket, that's different. Front-ender? That's another issue. Is the frame/drivetrain in good shape? Anything serious enough to take out an engine means you should have the vehicle checked out by someone who knows their dead cars. Your current insurance agent might know someone. If you know, or can find out, please let us know what killed the motor.

Hey! Please don't scare the newbie with all the *2.5 headgasket* stuff. Not yet! How 'bout we just see what Schucks or AZ say before we get all doom-and-gloom here, eh? As far as the 'will Schucks do it for free' bit, I do believe I said they would in my very first post! Schucks won't give you that nice printout of all possible causes of the code like AutoZone, so make sure you stand right there while it's been done and write down all the codes (hopefully not more than one, but...) Both places can give you a fast rundown of what the code means, but this board will give you a better idea of what can be done/must be done/what you should not do once you tell us the code(s), which AZ or Schucks won't. What neither one will do is clear the code (no store in WA state, anyway). At all. But that's a simple do-it-yourself. Undo the battery for 10 minutes. Hook it back up. Done! (Don't say one minute. It takes longer. Trust me.) Program your radio again time. BUT: Don't do it until you have the problem fixed! Once you clear those codes, if the CEL rears its ugly head again you're back getting the darn thing read AGAIN, you don't know if it's the same problem back again or a whole new one...

Did you have your CEL code(s) pulled? If not, go to Auto Zone (or Schuck's) and get that done pronto, first. I recommend Auto Zone first because they can give you a printout of whatever error codes popped up, and Schuck's can't. They'll do it for free - nada, gratis. No appointment necessary. Once you know the codes you're throwing, come back and let us know. Once we have more info, we can tell you where to start looking!

Yes! Result! Enjoy your new ride.

Thanks for the reply! I'll just remember to add them when I drive the Al-Can. Now back to our regularly-scheduled driveway madness... Aircraft-engineer: 'Where's the socket? Where's the wrench? Where's the manual? Go away and shut up. Come here and get this. Gaah, I don't have it, gotta make a parts run... again' Or, in other words, my sanity goes on another regularly-scheduled car-repair-driven vacation in self-preservation...

Dragon is being taken apart by aircraft-engineer as I type. All the pieces of the timing belt cover are grooved for gaskets, but all are missing. Are they necessary, or can we reassemble without them when we finish? No rattles were apparent without them up until now. Info: 97 Imp L wagon, 2.2, 163000 mi.

Sounds like one, according to my service manual. If I were you I'd ask this question in its own thread, or *someone* might think you were talking about the EGR solenoid... Time to go a-junkyarding, methinks.

No, same size, we checked that first. Note: these aren't the 'new' roller bearings, but the original OEM ball bearings.

As far as being disappointed with Carfax, I can second that. I'd never seen a report until I saw the one Farmers ran on my totaled truck. The three emissions failures were on there (and that they were a week apart) but not why - defective gasket on the EGR, then vac hose leak, then bad replacement EGR valve . I'd also been in a extended-cab-hit t-bone when my truck was less than 6 months old, and Farmers had refused to total it in '91 - Carfax had no info about it - Jan 1991 accident didn't show on the Carfax report pulled on Totaled Day - August 30, 2007. Neither did the front-ender gotten when someone had gone into reverse at a stop sign (again, :eek: ) and they also had Farmers (2002). Even Farmers had no info about the accidents, and both were fully-paid claims! Not that I minded, or they would have probably taken longer than 3 months to get me any money at all. If my truck hadn't been a total loss, and I'd fixed her up and sold her/traded her without revealing the previous damage, nobody would have known she'd been in 2 accidents before the last and final one. I don't know if it's the fault of the body shops (first one the selling Chevy dealer's, second one an aftermarket), Farmers Insurance, or Carfax, but seeing my truck's report shook my faith about how accurate their reports are. They're better than nothing, but I can state with knowledge and honesty that in one case I can swear is true Carfax was so far off it boggles my mind (and scares the :eek: out of my wallet). I hope your trip gets you a nice Dogmobile!

May I also suggest being anal about checking EVERY compartment? I had 'check jack' on my list of things to inspect before buying Dragon. If I'd remembered, we'd have found the water leak the previous owner stated the car didn't have; by the time we did find it we wanted to throttle ourselves, not just the blonde Dragon had escaped from. Pull the spare and look at it closely. Well-used? I'd ask why. Flat? If it's flat, what else didn't get maintained? See if there's a manual. If there isn't, the owner has been doing things without knowing the specs or the how-to (I speak of the FWD fuse here -especially if there's significant use on that spare). If there's been maintenance, remember to see the receipts and ask questions of the current owner! Aircraft-engineer and I can now prove Dragon didn't have any dealer timing belt service 'two years ago'... sheesh... will post on that later! Ask what their use of the car was, as well. 50k under their ownership at mostly freeway miles is better than 50k in the city. Dragon's my first used car in 22 years - the experience is ending happier than most, but I want you to get a good one from the get-go! Here's to your new Legacy!

97 Impreza L Wagon. I've already bought the NGK v-notch plugs, and WILL buy OEM wires (which aircraft-engineer says I don't need to spend for) because everyone on the board is adamant the OEM wires are the only good choice. It's not running rough, and I was headed downhill when the light came on (with the brakes on or running under its own weight). After the light came on I went to the nearest Schuck's (2 miles) with no trouble, back to the freeway and a 4 mile flat run, and then climbed a pretty steep 2 mile hill (still freeway) at 55-60 MPH with no trouble (as far as I can tell - until we get the bearing(s) replaced in the back the growl is louder than the engine). The Schucks guy checked the wires after I did, and said he might have felt a bit of loose play on the rear driver's side wire. I wonder if Subaru of Puyallup checked all the wires a week ago and one wiggled loose? It's been one week exactly since they diagnosed the oil leak/bearing problems. They mentioned I needed new plugs, didn't mention wires at all.

My dear old truck had a mouse problem as soon as it would snow. I fought the little buggers for 17 years ... and here's what worked for me. Mice HATE mint. Despise it. Go to your nearest health food store or natural foods store and get a bottle of spearmint essential oil. Sprinkle it where the mice are found (nests, etc.) and they will leave the area! If you keep it inside your vehicle while it is in storage or in a long-term parking space they won't come in, either. Put it on something which isn't flammable and wire it to accessible parts of your engine. Dab it on any access points you think they might be using, save your tires. Most of the oils won't do anything good to rubber or other hoses. Works in your house or garage, too, and won't make other animals sick. You may find guests in your car may wonder why it smells like a mint farm, but it's more pleasant than mothballs or dead mouska. Or even hantavirus. (I will admit I'd also done the One Bite on my manifold - as in 'you won't leave while I'm polite? Eat this, rodentia!') Dang things ate up my engine heat liner down to the metal, but it WAS snowing a horrific ice storm in WA at the time...

Hey, I'd even buy this one, and I already have a car! Hope you can reach the current owner before he unloads your new ride on someone else! Have fun working on your great find - and, if you tire of it, I don't think you'll have any problem selling your semi-snowcat to many on this board. Maybe even have a bidding war...

Oh, forgot the rest of the check: other than a rear wheel bearing needing replaced, nothing else was wrong -I mentioned the crack in the tail light, so they ignored the minor water trail - and they gave her a nice detail and bath for free. So, once we get the oil leak fixed (I consider bearings a messy annoyance and time waster, but no real problem), and reseal the tail light, I should be good to get on the road. Just wondering if we can safely ignore the what-seems-to-be-extreme repair list in light of the eyeball inspections we've done on the parts the dealer says are leaking, and seeing no evidence of it...

After a free safety/diagnostic check from my local dealer, here's what they found... They agree with the cam/crank/T belt replacement. We'd already figured they were the problem. What they also want to do is the following: Headgasket, intake/exhaust gaskets, and the valve cover gaskets. Spark plugs and a PCV (and assorted other minutiae included - fluids, etc.). We're headshaking over this list. We couldn't find any leaks on the valve cover gaskets, I have no gunk in the radiator, no compression problems (they didn't mention it was off, only that the plugs were worn. I know they're 2 years old, was already planning on putting in new ones, and have already bought them). The PCV is absolutely new - I put it in the day I registered her! That said, I can't figure out why they're recommending the headgasket. Although aircraft-engineer called to talk to the mechanic right away, he'd already gone home for the day. So... How many of you would recommend the overkill list on a 162k engine with spotty (perhaps nonexistent) maintenance? Dragon runs nicely, no problems save a slight hesitation off full stop, and I think new plugs (and maybe wires) will clear that up. I don't have signs of a massive oil leak, maybe taking 1/2 quart every 500-1000 miles, and no more. The leaks are quarter-sized, even when she's been sitting for hours, and not pools - just spots, four in a line, behind the bumper, from right to left. I'm running 5-30 Pennzoil with a bottle of Slick 50 (regular, not hi-mileage). We could do the overkill list, but the labor hours are the problem; there isn't enough good weather in Seattle this time of year, and we'd have to work outdoors. What would take the shop 12 hours is going to take us DAYS. And we don't want to do work I just don't need done! Having the dealer do it is out: $408 in parts, $1584 in labor. On a $3500. car this just seems extreme... I already love Dragon. I wouldn't sell her if I won the lottery tomorrow! I'd rather have her than a new Subie. Fixing parts which need fixed is no problem, it's what one does on an older car. But I can't seen throwing money at the shredder if I don't have to. Any thoughts on what you'd do if you were in my shoes?

I need to ask if this is just lucky? Everywhere I go I get stuff for free or get stuff done for free... no kidding. A Subaru dealer told me I could get a full safety checkup gratis and they'd diagnose my oil leak for free. They're annoyed they did the timing belt on her 2 years back and she's leaking already. I go in this afternoon. A Spanaway junkyard gave me a new jack, crank, accessory kit, Forester rubber cargo mat (mat a little dirty, but everything else cherry), all for free, and a factory radio in perfectly new condition for $20. Les Schwab pulled a tire, checked for some hub ring I was missing, plopped it back on, and waved me no charge, good-bye. Not even their tires. I would have died before anyone would have done this for my old Chevy truck, so it can't be that I'm a woman or my handicapped plates. So, I have to ask: is everyone being unusually nice, or is this normal for people with Subies? And then there is this: the dealer service manager at Subaru of Puyallup asked me if I'd taken Dragon out in the snow yet. When I replied 'kinda' he shook his head at me. "Never owned a Subaru before? Well, ma'am, you must take your car out in the snow. You have to feed and water your Subie some snow as much as possible or it'll get unhappy." Of course, Seattle saw lots of snow last week. A dusting during the Superbowl. None since. :-\ Maybe I should buy her a popsicle. Anyone ever heard this before??