jseabolt

Dumb question but on manuals, isn't the front differential built into the transmission (uses the same oil)? Where on automatics, they use a separare front differential? The owner's manual indicated that on automatics there was a front differential but only mentioned a rear on manuals.

No photos but I'm sure other Bajas have suffered from the same issue. The leather has split on the bolster on the driver's side and there is a section that is missing. It's about three inches long. I think this is a common issue with all cars. I guess this happens from getting in and out of the vehicle. I tried repairing it with some of that heatless leather/vinyl stuff I bought somewhere. Well it didn't work. So I tried gluing a patch over top of the missing leather. Well that eventually failed as well. Anybody know of any long term fixes?

I'm thinking about parking my Baja in my garage and dropping the liability/collision but keep comp on it and not drive it again until November. I'm having to pay almost $2000 a year to insure a 2003 Subaru Baja, 2014 Nissan Cube (wife's car), 1998 Chevy van and a 2006 Ford Explorer. That's just way too much money to pay out to the insurance company if you ask me. If these cars were all driven on a daily basis, then I'd say OK. I can't drive more than one of them at a time! I'm thinking about just paying my premiums on the Baja, van and Explorer every three months on an "as driven basis". My wife wanted my parent's conversion van for trips so it's only driven three months out of the year. We don't need it! I told her the Explorer was good enough and if we needed to haul our luggage I could build a box to go on my 4X8 wagon. I might as well park the Baja and Explorer and drive the van this summer to work and for family outings since I know it's not going to snow between the months of May and November. Well at least I hope it doesn't! Besides I have several "classic cars" I like to drive during the summer over my Baja. Luckily I have Hagerty's insurance on them so they are only $350 a year for three cars. They tell me because East Tennessee is in an earthquake zone because it's at the base of the Appalachian mountain range, I have to get a special policy in case of an earthquake or my home owner's won't cover it. But in case of a tornado or fire it would. I suppose if I lived in the midwest, I'd have to get special tornado insurance? Or fire insurance if I lived in Southern California? As far as doing anything special some of the methods I've heard of seem like overkill to me. I guess if you were talking about storing the car for 5 years, I might suggest pulling the plugs and pooring oil into the cylinders, and other methods mentioned but for less than a year, I'd just park it and hook a trickle charger to the battery and if outside throw a car cover over it and make sure the tires don't go flat. I never saw the logic behind putting a car up on jackstands for long term storage. When I mean long term storage, I mean for less than a year. I own several older cars that maybe driven 1000 to 2000 miles a year. I've never put up them on jackstands over the winter. I do make sure the tires don't go flat. If they go flat, that will destroy a tire. We get snow but not like up north so I do get them out occasionly during the winter months. They may also get an oil change every three years. The big oil companies recommend you change your oil every 6 months just like the tire companies recommend replacing your tires every 6 years. All that is overkill if you ask me. I mean a tire will go bad if the car is parked outside but not in a garage. I replaced the tires on my Baja about eight years ago. They only have 25,000 miles on them so I'm not going to replace them just on account of that. These cars are kept in my garage so they don't suffer from UV damage. Except for the van and Explorer. I have a 68 Ford Fairlane with 54,000 original miles. It may get driven 10 days out of the year. It was my Grandmother's car and just can't seem to part with it for sentimental reasons. One thing I DO recommend is investing in a trickle charger to keep the battery from going flat. Batteries these days are junk anyway and once they go flat about three times, they won't hold a charge. I've used Sta-Bil but I'm not really sure if this stuff actually works. I do know E-10 is one of the worst fuel blends every invented. I run E-10 in my fuel injected cars but would never run this garbage in anything with a gravity feed fuel system like a lawnmower or tractor. I've had to tear into numorous carbs from where this stuff absorbs water and sinks to the bottom and clogs the float valves up. If you can get non ethanol where you live, I would fill the tank up with it instead of E-10. I know it may sound like I don't keep up mainteince on my vehicles but I can't see changing the oil every 6 months even if the oil only has less than 1000 miles on it, not placing them on jackstands, etc has every really caused me any problems. I do need to change the antifreeze in my Subaru this summer. It's been 8 years since it was changed!

I replaced the manual transmission and differential oils the other day in my 2003 Baja. The Haynes manual said to use GL-5 in the transmission. I was like "What, HUH?". I thought GL-5 was a no no in the transmission because the additives are bad on "yellow metals". In other words it would eat the brass syncros up. Unless the transmission oil was not "EP" but still classified as a GL-5. I've owned numorous older Fiats that call for GL-1 90 which is a straight weight mineral oil with no additives. Allot of idiots would use GL-5 instead of GL-1 and just about every Fiat I've purchased had problems with the sycrnos. Although GL-1 is not readily available at most autopart stores, is actually cheap if you know where to find it. Like Tractor Supply at $13 for 2 gallon jug. So I checked the owner's manual just to confirm and it also said to use GL-5. I forget the weight but I used the correct weights based on what the owner's manual said to use. I got my oils from O'Reily's. I got by with conventional oil for the differential at $5.00 a quart but they guy said the transmission oil was only available in synthetic at $10 a quart. I don't recall the bottle mentioning anything about "EP" which is what you are supposed to use in a typical hyploid differential but not the transmission. I'm not sure what type of differential the Subaru uses. If it's a typical hyploid type or something different. I'd imagine it's not like a typical RWD differential being AWD.

Sounds allot like my Baja (mustard color). First of all I must have one of the lowest mileage Bajas on the road. It just turned over 75K the other day and I bought it new about 2 week before Christmas in 2002. The bulk of those miles were during my "dating" years. Since I got married, I bet I've only put 20K miles the car in the past seven years! And it's actually driven daily in the winter, eight miles to work and eight miles back. Not so much in the summertime, that's when I drive my collector cars. Yes most Bajas have well over 100,000 miles on it. 150,000 miles seems to be more than norm than 75K miles. I have heard Bajas in good condition well fetch more than book value if they are in great condition due to the fact they only built 30,000 of them. The Baja is actually a few inches longer than the wagon. Not much maybe 4". They were a hard sell considering the same dealership which sold Chevrolets had a 4X4 pickup on their lot that listed for $18K where mine listed for $25. Although not as nice and lacking all wheel drive but more payload space. Mine has been very reliable so far. I had to replace a blown inner CV joint and O2 sensor which were an easy fix. I don't think I've ever gotten a recall letter on mine. Although mine is a 5 speed I think some of the automatics had some issues.

Yeah I got turned off when they wanted something like $30 just for wiper blade refills not long after the Baja was introduced and had to order them so I went to an autopart store replaced the entire arms with Bosch. Last time I went to the dealership was to buy a plastic screw cover for the tailgate trim for my Baja. Just that piece was $9.00 . I need this piece that holds the weatherstripping in place. I haven't been back to the local dealer to see what this is going to cost. Since it's much smaller and in a less conspicous location, I thought I might try an autopaint store to see if there is something close that would fit it.

Thanks! I was just planning on ordering new springs since the suspension on my car only has 75K miles on it and is in great shape. Not to sound like I am too good to use a part from a junkyard (I've done that many times in the past on other cars), I'd just rather not use a used suspension part on my Baja. Especially one that might have been totaled in an accident. If I could find some new ones at a good price. I've seen springs for Imprezas on Ebay for $70 but for Legacy, the cheapest I found was around $200. I don't know why. Maybe I need to just keep looking. I wanted to confirm that the Legacys and Bajas even used the same strut assemblies. Even though the Baja is based on the Legacy. In other words the 2003 Baja sits higher than a Legacy sedan (and the 2004+ models sits higher than the 2003 models) but wasn't sure if they used the same springs but simply relocated the spring perches on the struts so the ride height is actually higher. If that were the case then using a set of factory springs from even a Legacy GT might not drop the ride height at all ! Does that make any sense? I could understand why the suspension on a Legacy and Impreza would be different. I would imagine I would need to use the rear springs from a wagon since wagons typically have a higher spring rate than sedans.

Primitive's website is currently not working correctly (or it's my computer). I did look up King Springs but all they are showing are for the Impreza.

I'm wanting to do about a 1.75" to 2" drop on my Baja. I tried doing a search on Ebay and Google (keywords: Subaru Baja lowering springs) but have not turned up anything. I did find a complete suspension setup for $900 which would be OK but it's way out of my price range. I'm leaning more toward just replacing the springs and reusing my strut assemblies. http://www.ebay.com/itm/2005-2006-Subaru-Baja-Megan-Racing-Street-Series-Coilovers-Lowering-Coils-Set-/271800463433?fits=Make%3ASubaru%7CModel%3ABaja&hash=item3f4891f049&vxp=mtr So far I have not found just the springs. I would think Subaru used the suspension/springs from an Outback because the Baja sits higher than a standard Legacy. But I would imagine I could use a set of lowering springs intended for a Legacy Wagon 2.5 liter. But who knows, the Baja springs maybe unique all together. Just wondering if a set intended for a 2003 Legacy wagon 2.5 liter would fit my strutt assemblies. Here is a set for a GT wagon. http://www.ebay.com/itm/H-R-SPORT-LOWERING-SPRINGS-1999-2004-SUBARU-LEGACY-WAGON-TYP-BE-BH/271483702040?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D30084%26meid%3D9628d06cf61445a4b9227f8211b04057%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D291090697986&rt=nc Most of these springs say they do not fit an Outback. Why is that?

Here is the one I use on my 2003 Baja. Actron Autoscanner plus. Every vehicle from 1995 should have an OBD II port. So far it has plugged into a 1995 Ford Explorer, 1998 Chevy van, 2006 Buick, 2003 Ford F-150. I should say from 1995 and up on vehicles sold in the United States. I'm not sure about OZ or elsewhere. A little pricey compared to their other models but felt like it was worth it in case I needed to diagnois anti-lock brakes. Unfortunately it did not diagnosis which wheel was at fault on my wife's 2006 Buick after the ABS light came on. Later I discovered I accidently unplugged the sensor on the passenger side front wheel when I replaced the brake pads. And it did not tell me which cylinder was missfiiring on my 98 Chevrolet van but so far has told me which cylinder was misfiring on my Subaru and which oxygen sensor was bad. Either this machine does not like GM vehicles or when they do flash a code, they are not very specific. Here recently the check engine light kicked on my Subaru a couple of times and my code reader said it was the idle air control valve. One time the code reset itself and the last time I reset the code with my scanner. It hasn't come back on in 6 months. All I know is I installed a new fuel filter and allot of weird things went away...

Photos: Actually it's easier if you open the door, roll down the window and stand on the outside of the door while squeezing.

Well if that's the best a block heater will do (just make the engine easier to start) then I don't need one. Last winter it got down to 4F one morning and it started up just as easy as if it was 95F.

I've had this problem in the past with other cars with alloy wheels. One trick I have used is to take the wheel off the car, remove the valve stem insert (using a special tool that sells for like $3.00), press on the edge of the tire to separate it from the rim and pour some dishwashing liquid around the lip of the tire (both sides). This helps make a better seal. I have also used that sticky brake caliper grease! Years ago (like 1991) I bought a 1986 Honda Prelude SI and bought a set of American Racing 5 star wheels. One of them kept loosing air. After 5 trips back to the tire store, the guy finally took the wheel off the car and did something to it. I'm not sure if he installed a tube or what. I never had anymore issues with it. The tires were in good shape so I just had them swapped over to the new rims. The weird thing was when the tires were mounted on the original wheels, they did not loose air. Just when mounted on brand new rims did this particular tire started loosing air pressure. On yet another occasion, one of the tires on my Baja was loosing air pressure. I'd have to top it off once a month. I discovered I had ran over one of those metal roofing screws and wore the head down to the tread. I had probably put 3000 miles on this car during this time. Making two 800 mile round trips to the beach!

I just assumed the normal operatating temperature was around 200F. Wasn't sure since the temperature guage has no numbers on it. I would assume these block heaters have thermostats built into them so they wouldn't cause the coolant to boil from continuous running. I used to park my car in my basement and even on the coldest mornings usually by the time I got to the main highway my car was already at normal operating temperature. Since I got married I let my wife park her car in the basement and I started parking mine in my detached garage. My garage is a metal building and for some reason stays 10F warmer inside without the heat on. I have a 90K BTU propane heater but can't afford to run it all the time. Just when I am working out there and even then only turn it on if it's really cold. Otherwise I wear insulated overalls. it has an insulation rating of R7 and around freezing it runs non stop trying to maintain 60F. Last time I did the math that was .9 gallons per hour or $2.50 an hour!

The fix worked on my Baja! Thanks!

I bought my '03 Subaru Baja new. I shopped around for the best deal and I wanted one with a 5 speed with as many options as possible. So I saw several of these at the lots. None of the Bajas that were sent to Tennessee dealers, came with any cold climate options (block heaters) or heated seats for that matter. Well I never saw any with heated seats. That was an option I wanted. Although the temperature at night on average is 27F even in the middle of winter, gasoline engines typically start up without any issues. I'd like to know if I installed a factory Subaru block heater on my car, and plugged it up in my garage, would the coolant be near the normal operating temperature in the morning? I assume this device has a thermostat that cuts off at a certain temperature. Would the engine temperature maintain around 200F if the engine was already warm? What if the engine temperature was 35F? Would the block heater warm the coolant up to 200F after being plugged up for 12 hours? I don't need any assistance getting the engine going when cold, it would just be nice if the heater was pumping out warm air as soon as I started the engine. Thanks.

Well I got around to removing the glovebox today on my 2003 Baja. todat Unfortunately my car came with no cabin filters from the factory. So that hour spent was a waste of time. I did find a bunch of leaves into the box but not enough that would effect air flow. It's not "bad" but not good either. Just seems the performance of the blower motor has slacked off since I bought this car new. The vents on this car have some leaks. Meaning when the floor vent is on, I can feel some air from the vents. Which may indicate the foam rubber gaskets are rotting. There now is this whistling noise coming from the driver's side vent when fully closed. The only way to make it stop it is to crack it open just enough enough until the whistling stops. I can change the frequency of the noise but how my I open the vent!

Based on the videos I've seen, I think everything still has to be removed just to get to the resistor. Or can the just glovebox be removed to get to the blower motor resistor? I know Subaru had to put the filters somewhere but looks to me like they could have designed it so that the filter slides up vertically behind the glovebox without having to remove anything. Of course Subaru recommends changing these filters once a year. No doubt if someone has done this job several times they could do it in less than an hour, you would still have well for $100 in labor and filters.

Update: Since the check engine light has come on a couple of times, both times it's the idle air control valve. I have since reset the code and it has yet to come back on since this past summer. Actually the ECU reset itself the first time after a couple of days. Anyway I changed the fuel filter a couple of months ago. No doubt it was probably past due at 71K miles. I'm not sure if I noticed an initial improvement or not. Then back in December I noticed that the engine was struggling a bit to turn over below freezing. Hope it's not my 7+ year old battery about to crap out! So I cleaned the corrosion off one of the battery posts (fixed that problem). Having been unplugged for more than 30 minutes (I usually take my time) it seemed to reset the ECU's memory. I have since topped the fuel tank off two or three times and have yet to experience any bucking. Nor have I noticed any bucking at 3000 rpms in 3rd gear when this problem first occured. I don't know if that was the "fix" or not.

When I bought my 2003 Baja new, I picked up an accessory brochure at the dealership. It seemed to say that the cabin filter was an "option". That there was a slot for one but some models did not come with a filter. Well filters actually. I've noticed that the air velocity has slowely dropped off over the years. Sometimes I like to run the dash/floor mode in the winter to warm up my hands and my feet at the same time. Even on the fastest speed, the air velocity is mediocre in this mode. So it's either floor or dash but not both. I'm starting to wonder if there is a cabin filter on my Baja. That would explain the drop in air flow. Mine has 73K miles on it and has never been changed so no doubt it's probably clogged if it has one. I watched the YouTube video of a guy replacing one on a Legacy. Doesn't look like a hard job but a bit time consuming. Just wanted to know if it was worth pulling half the passenger side dash off the car just to see if there is a actually a filter in there.

Yeah, I've seen some photos where a guy cleaned one out on WRX that had a coolant passage but mine looks like a sensor that goes into the throttle body with two nuts. Here is a photo from a YouTube video: Due to filters on my company's internet, I can't watch it but will try to watch it when I get home. Is there anyway to clean the one on my Subaru without having to replace it?

No isses with nursing the fuel into the tank, however I do with my '06 Explorer. No whosh sound when I open the cap on the fuel tank. Got a new issue that cropped up and maybe related. The check engine light keeps coming off after a cold startup. It's the idle air auxillary valve or something like that. The device mounted in the throttle body. I can clear the code and the light goes out for a few days then comes back on after a cold startup like this morning. So far I had not noticed any issues like stalling or a lumpy idle until this morning when I stopped at the bottom of my driveway. Even though this is a fuel injected car, it's 11 years old and has almost 75K miles on it. Of course it's going to hickup on a cold start. Looks to me like the ECU would ignore any hickups until the car has ran a least for a couple of minutes. I think it's supposed to ignore any signals from the O2 sensors until a certain temperature to give the converter a chance to heat up but why not the idle auxillary valve?

Update. I topped the fuel tank off on my way home from work and no bucking. It seems odd this bucking condition after a fillup would have any correlation to topping off the fuel tank. Although the bucking has happened at half a day and when the low fuel light were on.

I have not had a chance to investigate this. I'm trying to figure out which hose (in the mess of hoses) under the hood. There are a couple of hoses that are attached to a bracket that hooks to the fuel filter. But you said this was on the passenger side.

I replaced the plugs at some point in time but can't remember. 60K miles maybe? I also installed new plug wires.