Daskuppler

Subaru did in fact order the wrong seat. The right one is in national backorder with no estimated availability date. Does anyone know if the heated seat element is in fact swappable?

I had one as a loaner. My wife and I put about 3k on it. We loved it. They are huge, but peppy. Expect about 21mpg average. Our dog loved it. I can't comment on the CVT.

So that piece is only available with a heater box assembly?

If you didn't get oem axles, be ready to do them again in a out 15k. Unfortunately, the aftermarket stuff just sucks anymore.

That was my thought, an assembly should have all internal parts installed but you never know. I'll have to call them tomorrow and redo it all haha

The only visible difference is the lack of a plug on the bottom of the new seat. From feeling the seats, it feels like the heating element is right under the upholstery so in theory it's somewhat accessible, but I don't want to pull apart the new portion of the new seat if it was supposed to be in there. Sadly I chose to do this on a Sunday so I couldn't call Subaru to verify.

2014 Forester Premium 2.5. the car came with them so I assumed the replacement seat ordered off the vin would include them. Am I supposed to pull the upholstery off the brand new seat and move over the old wiring harness and heating element or should it have come installed in the seat assembly? Thanks for moving it over, I wasn't sure where to put it.

I went to replace the cable (the old one was very stiff when I removed it), and the actuator arm on the blend door snapped off inside the housing. I tried JB Kwik Weld, but that didn't work. The arm must have moved while I was taking it off as the air coming out of the vents is warm at best. Any chance this little arm can be replaced or do I need the whole blend box assembly doohickey? Is there a write-up anywhere on how to do it? I looked around on the internet and didn't see anything specific to this generation Subaru...Lots of american cars but nothing helpful. A brief search through the Subaru Parts website shows that pretty much everything related to the HVAC is unavailable but I don't really know what I'm looking for so it's hard to check availability.

Hello Everyone, I'm replacing the passenger side lower seat assembly and was wondering if the heated seat mat has to be moved over to the new seat, or if it should be included with the new assembly. I ordered from Subaru with the VIN but the new seat does not have the heated seat wiring. Seems like since it is an assembly, all internal parts should be included.

There does seem to be quite a lot of hype over it. My OBDII scanner gives live transmission temp so I follow it, but I agree, if it were a big issues, there would be a lot of failed transmissions from people draining hot fluid, measuring, then adding the equivalent in cold fluid back in.

How's the fluid level in the transmission?

In the past I believe I've put in 4-4.5 quarts. I always buy 6 and return 1. That's easy when you bought the fluid locally, but if you ordered something not so much. Temperature has to be about 100 degrees when you do the change though, otherwise you could overfill or underfill.

Hello Everyone, I searched the forum for similar threads and didn't see much other than the usual valid complaints from General Disorder. This is just to help compile information, I don't currently have a problem. That being said, the older CVTs were listed as lifetime fluids (we all know that's BS), and the newer ones have service intervals depending on use. Not everyone can afford to just replace the transmission, so how do we take care of these the best that we can? Should a complete power flush be performed every 30k miles for severe use? Is an annual drain and fill sufficient? What about at 60k miles? There are a lot of fluids on the market now, is anything an acceptable substitution for Subaru fluid? I know GD uses Amsoil and I trust them pretty much without question for all fluids. Castrol, Valvoline, Redline, Motul, and I'm sure others, offer supposedly compatible CVT formulations. If operating under sever duty, are temperatures an issue with these transmissions? Should a cooler be installed? Are there certain metrics that can/should be monitored by 3rd party devices? These are clearly not built for towing or hauling, but are there other driving conditions that can cause excessive wear? Using the transmission to engine brake, slipping (on snow/ice, off-roading, etc)? What are common issues and their symptoms? Are they preventable, or is it just luck of the draw? Cheers, Andrew

If you're in there, I would just do the timing job. Especially since the cover is smothered in RTV. That's a terrible job. I had a block replaced and they didn't even bother cleaning the cover, they just ordered a new one. I did the same thing on my Xterra. Is it worth doing 90% of the work only to wonder if you should have done the chain? Or have a failure that could have been prevented over a few hundred in parts you already had your hands on.

Maybe a vacuum leak? If you stop really slowly does it still do it? Is it worse if you stop quickly?

I thought Aekbono was OEM but I wasn't sure.

I've bed the last 5 sets I've put on. This car has been neglected for a while and is now getting the proper attention. Thanks for the pointer though, I fell like that part of brake work is left out a lot.

It's a manual so I usually just sit there unless it's a hill. The issue with these stems from an old set of pads several years ago. I just replaced the pads and didn't do anything with the rotors. Funds were tight and I needed brakes. Obviously the new pads didn't match the rotors and they warped. I can now afford to do it right so I am. I was just curious about Duralast. I'll likely go with centric, EBC, HawkPerformance, Power Stop, or Aekbono.

Yeah, it sucks. It has something to do with taxes. I don't think they ship to any surrounding states either.

Rock Auto doesn't ship to Colorado 😔

Hello Everyone, i don't usually buy parts from Autozone so I'm not terribly familiar with their products. However, I ended up with $225 from a work bonus that can be spent at Autozone and a handful of other places (this was the only auto parts store available) and I have warped rotors on my 02 Impreza TS. I am a spirited driver, but do not see the track. Standard aggressive mountain driving is about as rough as things get. What are your thoughts on Duralast Gold (the C-Max isn't available for this vehicle) pads and rotors for the front? If you don't like them, what do you prefer? I run PowerStop Z26/36 on my other vehicles and have had no issues on the off-roading rig or truck, but AutoZone charges a fortune for them compared to Summit Racing. Cheers

Great news! Looks like it's only about $11. That should help a little haha.

Okay, thanks! It's been stiff for years. Oh well.

The other day I was driving around and the heat wasn't working terribly well. After about 5 minutes of luke warm air, there was an audible change and then the air was hot. I started messing around with it and I believe the blender door is not actuating fully to the hot side until things warm up a little. Is this a greasable part? Would replacing the blender door cable fix the issue (it's very stiff when cold)?

Hello Everyone, Most of you probably know the saga of my short block replacement over the last few months on my 14 Forester N/A. I finally got a good one, it now has 3000 miles on it. When it was first installed I noticed that the car didn't coast very well and would slow down excessively. I was told that was normal and would go away with break in. It didn't really. Average MPG is about 21 on a usual road trip where it used to be about 27. Our loaner car (a 2022 Ascent 2.4T) got better fuel economy. I also noticed that under heavy load, the CVT holds high RPMS even after letting off the gas. In general RPMS are higher than they used to be (almost constantly around 3k) and will barely maintain 70mph unloaded on flat ground without increasing RPMS. I feel as though 3,000 relatively hard miles should have broken in the engine just fine. The car is currently running 0w-20 Amsoil SS. All other fluids are new within 20k. Spark plugs were replaced with the new block, airfilter is an AEM DryFlow with about 10k on it. Is the loss of MPG due to the fact that the rings actually seal? Seems like it should do better than a 2.4T Ascent....