charm

I'll be sure to have a full Campbell's Soup can. That way I can eat first thus fueling my body for the repair where I'll be using the can! I think I'll put off the timing belt until the project has put a few bucks in my pocket and let my mechanic do the work. It'll cost A LOT more, but I'll be working and earning mileage during the week the mechanic will have it (I'll be away from my mechanic for a full week, I HOPE he won't need to take a week to work on it!). I'm pretty sure my car has been well maintained. Synthetic oil changed every 5k to 7k. As mentioned above, it needs front struts. Tires are newish, have lots of tread, and get rotated every 6 months. The week link, I'm convinced, is my transmission. It has the delayed engagement and the fluid is OLD. I haven't changed it and I bought the car 70k ago. It's old enough that I'm worried that I might hurt the transmission if I change it! When I do have it flushed, I'll be sure to have them leave it a quart low and add some of the transmission fluid that another thread discusses for delayed engagement issues. I have a bottle in the garage, don't recall what it's called though. So, while I feel good about the highway miles and that my car will make at least 300k based on what the mechanic saw when they did the head gaskets, adding the off highway and off road use adds a level of uncertainty that worries me. If all I were doing were driving 3600 mile per month on the highway, I wouldn't even be asking these questions. I'd just expect another 2 years and 80k+ miles out of it with general maintenance. Heck, the car doesn't even use brakes. I've got about 50% left on my fronts with 50k miles on the pads! The car is very well cared for, if I do say so myself.

Cambell's soup can and some duct tape. Perhaps some vice grips would help.

Do you have a specific tire recommendation? Like I said earlier, I'll probably buy a set of snows so a recommendation on that front would be good too. Keep in mind that I'll be driving at least 5 hours on the highway 2x per week when suggesting a tire. Still surprised that nobody is concerned about general reliability on such a high mileage vehicle.

Well, so far anyway, the consensus that it's unlikely to leave me stranded. The tires are fine and I'll probably get a set of snows for the eastern Washington winter. I'll fix the known issues and let the mechanic give it a solid look over. I'll be sure to have thorough tool kit and spare belts, spare fluids, and some other stuff. A CB isn't a bad idea either.

I forgot to mention the project is way out in the middle of Nowhere, WA. The nearest town is Starbuck, WA, about an hour north of Walla Walla, WA. So if things do go wrong, I'm pretty much on my own. Obviously I'd switch out the struts up front, I did the rears about 30k ago. The headgaskets were done about 70k ago along with the timing belt. I do need new accesory belts, but they're cheap, quick and easy to replace. I might sink a few bucks into having some of the foam in the seats replaced with softer foam so I'd be more comfy on the long rides.

I'm starting a new project at work in the next couple weeks and am nervous about using my car...but excited about the mileage reimbursement. The car: 2000 OBW limited, auto, 192k miles. It needs front struts but otherwise I trust it on the highway. The project involves me driving somewhere in the ballpark of 3600 miles per month, mostly highway. But, I'll be inspecting construction sites so the car will see a bit of construction access road miles lined with quarry spalls and mud. Additionally, there 'may' be some legitimate offroading, no trails, to access project sites prior to the start of construction at those sites. It's the off highway and offroad stuff that concerns me with this car. Thoughts?

I didn't think it looked that nasty, but apparently, it was!

While you're in there, you might consider putting a piece of dynamat or similar deadening product on the interior side of the door skin opposite the speaker magnet. If you're getting a resonance off of the door panel, the dynamat, or similar, should do a good job of stopping that. Plus, 'they' say it'll increase your SPL without doing anything else.

I changed my old gear oil and got a nearly 3 mpg boost in mileage. No change in driving style, just clean gear oil. I wonder what's going to happen when I get around to doing the transmission fluid?

In case anybody is curious, I think I solved this once and for all...I bought a new Subaru. Actually, no, I didn't do that. I took the car to another exhaust shop, the third that has worked on this project. They told me that they find it very common on the after market cats for all vehicles and at all levels of after market cats, that the welds suck. They almost always have to weld up lots of pin holes on every cat they install where the manufacturer has welded a pipe to the cat. That's what they did for me. Lots and lots of pin holes. $45 later and my CEL has remained off for a week. Another couple months should tell me if this was the culprit. If it was, I think I found me an exhaust shop for life!

On an auto, like mine, it shouldn't matter. The recommended interval is 30k miles. Most people double that, at least. I've owned the car for about 60k miles and who knows how long it's been since it was changed before that. It's not that hard or time consuming to do. I may just do another change of gear oil in a few months and call the oil I'm putting in right now the cleaning oil. I'll let the clean stuff really work its way through everything and get all the goo. I'll let it carry all those little metal shavings to the magnet. Then, whamoo, I'll change the fluid again creating a nice clean gearbox. At somepoint I'll do the tranny too. I may just pay to have it flushed instead of drain, refill, drain, refill, drain, refill. Seems like such a waste of ATF.

All right! I'll put my back into it (and a little PB Blaster) tomorrow. The front diff went well enough, the rear, once those two plugs come out, should be easy as well.

The 1/2 drive felt a little loose in the square plug. Y'all sure it won't strip it? Just double checking.

I'll pay more attention to cold versus warm, but I don't think it matters.

2000 outback wagon, 185k miles, auto I feel it in the gas pedal only, a roughness when accelerating lightly. If I put my foot in, it's smooth. I can't feel in the seat of my pants, only my right foot. It feels like an exhaust leak sounds, if that makes any sense. Plugs and wires have about 20k on them. I'm running mobil 1 oil changed at 7k to 10k intervals. Timing belt, oil pump, head gaskets, etc changed about 60k ago. No CEL. Thoughts?

I'm not worried about it. I just don't like the smell if burning oil. I say terrible things about the people in other cars that smell of burning oil too. It's not leaking enough that I'm worried about the engine. It's not even threatening to overheat...it just stinks!

My iPad has a mind of its own sometimes! It appears to be moist no further back then the front cylinder. The area under the rear cylinder looks dry. If it's coming from a vertical surface and running along that seam, it would have to come from the cam seal and not the rear main...thankfully. If I gotta fix this, I'd rather leave the engine in the car. Although, I'm told the Subie engines come out pretty darn easy!

It's moist, moist enough to produce a burning smell but dry enough that I don't think a photo would look wet. What's odd is, it must be burning off the block because I don't see how, with where it's moist, it could be touching the exhaust. I'd buy the cam seal, if it makes sense for the oil to be dribbling, ever so slowly, along the seam between the block and the head. If I need to replace my timing belt and everything else in there early, so be it.

The axle boots look great. The passenger side axle only has maybe 20k miles on it anyway. There was a hint of oil staining, looked old to me, on the driver's side power steering boot. I don't think that's it. The valve cover gaskets looked dry as a bone on both sides. I suppose the oil could be coming from the cam seal and finding the grove between the block and the head, aka the head gasket, and travelling along that. It's really not using any oil. Granted, I think I've only gone 500 miles since the last oil change. This just popped into my head too. While checking to make sure that everything felt nice and tight, the oil filter took a couple turns of the wrist. I don't know if that would be enough play for enough leakage to make it look like the head gasket was leaking and cause that lovely order of burning oil. Thoughts on that?

Moist enough to burn!

I hate my pioneer foible din unit. I would be very surprised if you found anything that would allow you to use the stock cd player, but double check on crutchefield.com (sp?). Why the front aux input? Look for a head unit that can control whatever type of mp3 player you have. Some head units, mine included, can also control a hard drive. I've never tried as my iPod works just fine, but the option is out there.

2000 outback wagon limited, auto tranny. 180,000 miles. Headgaskets replaced by shop at about 125,000 miles. I noticed a burning oil smell after an oil change that ended up being a little, well, special. I ended up not putting on the crush washer and the replaced the entire plug with one with a fiber washer. I assumed the burning oil smell had something to do with that. I got nude the car yesterday to check things out and the area right along the head gasket towards the front half of the head appears moist. Could hay be coming from somewhere else? Would switching oil, I use mobil 1 5w/30, do anything to slow this down if it is the head gasket? I will call my mechanic and double check this, but I'm pretty sure I'm out of warranty on this repair since I think it was around April of 2008.

I changed my oil a couple weeks ago and left off the crush washer accidentally. I went to the auto parts store and all they had to replace it were the fiber ones. I wanted to do it quick so as little oil would drain during the process so I bought a new bolt too. Now the car smells likes it's burning oil off of some hot surface. It's been about 500 or so miles since the change. I can't locate exactly where the burning smell is coming from. Could the smell and the fiber washer be related?

2000 OBW, 175k miles. Rallitek sway bars. After snapping my front sway bar a couple years ago in typical OBW style (3 mph right turn into a driveway) I put on rallitek sway bars front and rear instead of new OEM ones. Since then, the OEM, but new, end links in the rear have not faired well. Based on what I've read in other posts, they're just not beefy enough to stand up to the larger after market sway bar. What I need to know is where to get beefier end links and/or who makes them. There are lots for other models and years, but none for my year. Rallitek used to make them, but don't anymore. Whiteline doesn't appear to have them. Can I use an end link from a different model or year? I'm reluctant to simply build them myself since I'd rather have somebody to stand behind the product, but if it comes down to it, a couple threaded heim joints could easily be rigged to do the job. But I'd rather buy something off the shelf.

Vacuum looked good a couple months ago, haven't checked since. Valves were adjusted and looked great 40k miles ago with the head gasket replacement (the start of the bad catalytic converter problem). So the EGR? How do I inspect, clean, adjust the EGR? Or should I just replace it and be done with it? Air leaks have been looked for several time by me and 3 different mechanics and not found. I feel pretty confident that after 6+ air leak searches that my exhaust is sealed up pretty tight. Admittedly, the tolerances in the ECU are probably to tight, but they are the existing tolerences. Until they change, and I am the last person who should be changing them, those are the parameters which dictate whether or not the car is operating as designed. Give me a 1960 Chevy with a small block V8 and I'll tweak it until the cows come home. My confidence with that is higher because there's no ECU. The mechanicals are straight forward and obvious to me. The Subaru, while straight forward for a modern car, still requires way too many wires. As far as the environmental damage from 1 car, you're right, 1 car won't make a difference. 1 person duming oil into a storm drain won't make a difference. 1 person tossing a cigarette out their window won't make a difference. 1 person not recycling won't make a difference. But there are a lot of people. If each person does a little, a huge difference can be made. Imagine if we all stopped driving our cars. I know, I'm not about to do that either. But what if? What if we reduced our dependance on oil, foreign and domestic? What would happen to the wars in the Middle East? Would we be dealing with a massive natural disaster in the Gulf? You suggest I not worry about my 1 car with a bad catalyst because it's just 1 car. Well, it all adds up. I won't worry about your car, that's your responsibility. My car is mine and I intend to do the right thing. If you choose otherwise, well, that's just job security for me. Keeping harming that environment and make sure I have a career until the day I die.