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I'd probably run a fused wire from the hot in the fuse box to the lighter plug with a switch to go between normal and always on operation. It really wouldn't be THAT hard. Just probe around till you find a hot wire, put a fuse, and run a line to the plug.

The only problem with doing that is, a lot of other stuff is on the accessory circuit. Power seats, heated seats, windshield wipers, radio, etc. It would be really easy to accidentally drain the battery

Unless it has auto climate control, the heat selector moves a cable.

Why does it matter if you run it low or not? Regardless, it's still sucking fuel from the bottom of the tank.

Well since I'm poor and my tank is always been 1/4 and the gas light coming on, I guess I've been safe from this one! haha.

Just give it a try. The rear seat is only held in by a couple bolts.

I can look a the bearing and see who made it. Although, with 170k miles there no telling if it's original or not. What's odd to me is one side was black and nasty, the other side was clean and happy. The happy looking side was the inboard side where the axle goes in. I'd think that would get the most moisture. The side that failed was the one covered by all the brake hardware.

It's so quiet now!!! I can't hear myself think.

This is the rear. The front still uses the same pressed in taper roller bearings like the 2nd gen and impreza use. I really don't understand subaru. They put ball bearings in the front of the GL, and realized that sucked. So they changed to rollers in the Legacy. Then they had lots of rear bearing failures because the seals sucked, so they went to a unit bearing. Which is great, but they had to make it a ball bearing again. These bearings must be sealed separately on each race. Because I beat the other race out, and the grease was still a nice yellow. It was a little bit surprising to see that.

I'll let the pictures tell the story...

I try to refrain from doing that. I'm always afraid it's gonna come off the jack stands and kill me. It's definitely coming from the back, and I did one bearing. So if it is a wheel bearing, it's hopefully the other one.

Definitely gonna try that with some other wheels first. If nothing else, it'll confirm to me I'm not wasting my time going one route or the other.

The tires are actually worn really well. They've obviously been rotated because the back ones have a bit more wear than the front. Which only makes sense if those used to be the fronts. But they're getting low on tread, and old tires do make more road noise. I looked them up (goodyear viva 2), and someone on another forum said "I thought a had a horrible wheel bearing problem, then I got new tires and it went away." So I'm gonna have to try another set of wheels before I condemn the other wheel bearing. If it is the tires, I'm glad you saved me from changing another bearing. If it is the bearing, I have one already. So it's cheaper to do that than tires. Hah.

I can hear it from about 5mph up. It changes a bit cornering hard, that's why I ruled out diff. I could put the wheels from my 98LGT on it. They have the wrong size tires, but whatever. Just for a test. Those are decently quiet.

To be honest, I was wondering if it was just bad tire noise. But it's SO loud I can't imagine it's all tires.

This can also point you to the wrong wheel, or not actually happen even if the wheel bearing is making a lot of noise... Look a few posts down for my 2000 outback

Yea, and then I thought about doing it twice. lol

They didn't really change anything with the 03/04 facelift in terms of suspension. I dunno if/when the forester changed to rear unit bearings. It's an impreza, and the impreza used the old style suspension until 08. I know that the 02 impreza GD uses pressed in horrible PITA bearings, so it wouldn't have been until probably 04 anything changed. Starting with the 00 legacy/outback they changed to that weird rear suspension that sorta sucks to deal with. The problem with a used bearing is, there's no way of getting it out without ruining it. When you take the 4 bolts out that hold it in, it doesn't just fall out. It's stuck in there with rust. The best way to get it out is to attach a slide hammer to the hub and yank it out, but that kind of attention is really bad for bearings and pretty much kills them. It smashes the balls into the race and pits them both. If GD shows up in here, I'm sure he'll say the same thing. The only way to get one out would be to remove the axle and beat it out from the outer bearing casing from the back. With all that hassle, I may as well just do it right and be done with it. Although it's fairly easy to change one of these, getting the brake bracket off really sucks, everything is tight. It's not worth wasting a couple hours when I could just do it right and be done. I almost wish it was a bad diff bearing because I have a spare one of those, but it's not a diff noise. heh.

Yea, the 3rd gen started with bolt on unit bearings. I'm not gonna event attempt to get the trailing arm/hub/lateral link assembly off. It's a gigantic massive piece on the 3rd gen that I have no interest in touching. Heh. It doesn't sound like brakes. It would make the noise all the time, probably. Speaking of brakes... Subaru.... What's wrong with you making it almost impossible to access the rear caliper bracket bolts on the 3rd gen:banghead:

I wish it was possible to remove the bearing assembly from a junk yard car without ruining it. That way I could see if that was the issue for $10. But it's hard to get a unit bearing out without abusing it. Maybe if I removed the axle and hammered on it from the back side carefully it would work.... I just don't want to spend a lot more money right now.

All along I thought it was the pass side. But only the driver's side vibrated. So I replaced the driver's side, and to be honest, I'm not even sure that one was bad. It seems quieter, but I have nothing to compare to, so maybe I just forget how loud it was or wasn't. Hrumph. A bit disgruntled, but hey, I should never have to do rear wheel bearings in this again...

I just bought this 2000 outback and it had a HORRIBLE rear end noise. I jacked it up, spun the wheels and touched the coil spring to test for a bad wheel bearing. The driver's side vibrated meaning that wheel bearing is bad. I replaced it (thank you god of all things subaru and holy for rear unit bearings), and now the noise is about half as bad. It still sounds like there's a bad wheel bearing, but when I spin the pass side wheel, it doesn't make the coil spring vibrate like a bad bearing usually will, what's going on here? Should I spend another $70 and do that side, too? I feel like I'm just throwing parts at it.

^ yep. The rarely fail, so junk yard is a great option. Not the plastic on the bottom of the steering column. It's the kick pannel. What your knee bangs into if you put the seat too far forward. Kind of a crappy pic I googled up, I think it's a 2nd gen. But same thing. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3319/3492181911_2c313122ed.jpg

So I got the car registered and stuff today. Which is awesome. I went for a ride to fill it up with gas and just drive it around. It's gonna need front brakes at some point, feels like there's some air in the system. It needs another damn back wheel bearing. It runs and drives awesome and perfectly straight. It already threw a p0420 code, but I don't care because I'm not in cumby county. Within the first 10 miles of driving it, the hydraulic clutch system failed. I have no idea why it failed, but I have the old master/slave from dan's rs. I bench bled that system and installed it. Apparently the outback is more fat and bloated than a 2.5rs, because the hardline was too short. I bent it a bit and ziptied the mount on. It works again... Stupid subarus.

Hah, I'm in the same boat as you. I have a 98lgt, 2000 outback, and 89 lifted GL. For the last month the GL has been the only car on the road, and not one problem at all with it.