gbhrps

Have had the new 2007 OutBack Wagon Limited 2.5i for a week, absolutely LOVE the car, and want to go one more step. You can get the factory LED turn signals on the Special Edition, the H6 models and the XT, but not on the standard OutBack or OutBack Limited. I think the Led mirrors set the car off and are just the right touch. So I get a price for left and right mirrors from several different sources, figure I'll install the mirrors myself (been a backyard mechanic who has been in the backyard a while), but one of my sources says that I'll need to buy a $70.00 wiring harness for the passenger door, and a $84.00 harness for the driver's door as well. Is there anyone out there who can verify whether this is the case or not? I've done complete transfers of the power window/power door lock/power seat assemblies from one car to another that had none of the equipment installed, but the wiring harnesses and the appropriate fuses/relays were already in place. Pop the new stuff in place and it all worked. Granted, these were North American vehicles. If someone has the answer, I sure would appreciate it, since I don't want to pull the door panels until I have everything I need to do the job in one night. Thanks!

Suzam, I don't know if the 01 OBW can be programed to lock the doors when you put the car into gear or not, but a trip through your owner's manual or a question put to the tech people at your dealership should get you the answer. I'm disappointed that the feature was dropped on the 07 (then again when was it dropped? 03, 04, 05. etc.?) And I was surprised that it can't be programed in, considering that my wife's 04 Lexus has the programing capabilities for this feature and a multiple of others. All it takes is a chip and a way to program it through the consult or the ignition key.

Had the new 07 OBW LTD for 2 days now, and after an exhaustive search through the manual .... there is no possible way to program the door locks to activate when you put your foot on the brake and put the car into gear, like my 02 did. Most disappointing! Lost the weatherband radio and the automatic door locking! But what an improvement this new car is! I remember thinking that the 02 OBW LTD was such a superior car to the 97 OBW LTD when I traded it, but this new car is just head and shoulders above the 02! Love it! Far more power, much better interior materials and fit, far more creature comforts and features.

Say you put $600 into a tranny warranty, and a week later some idiot runs a stop sign, broadsides you, and your car is written off. What happens to your warranty money? You're better off taking the $600 and putting it into a separate bank account for repairs down the road if you're worried about it. Almost all extended warranties are a money grab full of fine print and headaches for you when you try to collect.

If you have the tools, the place to work, and the time, pull the coolant temp sensor. The temp sensor in my 55 Thunderbird started becoming erratic this summer, with readings all over the guage, changing several times in a 5 minute period from 25% to 85% to 0% to 90% and back to 60% readings. I pulled it and put it in a cold pan of water on the stove and hooked a multimeter to its body and the terminal. As I turned up the heat to get the water to a boil, the multimeter readings did exactly the same dance as the temperature guage had done in the car. Obviously the temp sender was bad. Good Luck!

You really need to see a qualified body technician and let them evaluate how to undo the damage, rather than take our advice on something we can't see up close, and few of us are qualified to answer even then. Did the underside bracing get bent? It has to bee or the hood would still close. Is the surface metal stretched? In both cases it may be necessary to shrink the metal and pop it out using a torch (= burned paint= total hood refinishing underside and outer surface). You may find it cheaper to buy a used hood, and lucky enough to find it in the right colour. You really won't know where you stand until, as I said, you let someone who truly knows have a look at it. A skilled bodyman can tell you your cheapest correction in pretty short order. Now I understand why our Provincial Police cruisers all had a heavy chain and hook assembly from the hood to the hood support, 40 years ago when I was a kid pumping gas at a highway service centre. Don't know if they still do with today's cars having double locks, but it wouldn't surprise me. Good Luck!

Here's another thought that may be contributing to your grabby brakes. An 02 has now had the same brake fluid in its system for 5 years, if it has never been flushed out and replaced with new fluid. Three years is the usual life span of brake fluid before a flush and replacement, otherwise water starts the rusting cycle inside the brake calipers and starts to seize up the pistons. Yours may be at that state, and are starting to grab at odd times. One way to tell (unless you've been following the factory recommendations and already have changed it at least once) is to look at the colour of the fluid in the reservoir. If its not clear, but rusty to black in appearance, then its been long overdue for flushing. If you suspect that sticking pistons might be your problem, you can pop them out of the calipers one at a time to check them, and if not badly scored, you might be able to clean them and the caliper bores up with 0000 steel wool. But then, maybe this isn't the cause of your problem at all. Just a thought. Good Luck!

Nipper, I think you read the question incorrectly. Regardless, I'll ask the dealership on Saturday, and if they don't have an answer for me, I'll read through the owner's manual and see what I come up with. I'll get back to this thread when I have an answer. Thanks!

I recently had the headliner out of my 02 OBW and there are 6 drain hoses for the sunroof. The ones in the middle of the car and the rear route down the C pillar, join together just behind the rear wheel well and exit the car body, between the rear bumper cover and the body of the car. The fronts go down the A pillar and drain somewhere near the bottom of the front fenders. I would have a hard time believing that they would empty into your frame rails at all. What I see happening is that your frame rail drains are all likely plugged up with dirt and debris that has been thrown back by the front wheels. Pull the front mud flaps and I think you'll find that the frame rails behind them are filling with water that is flung upwards by the tires and is running down behind the mudflaps into the frame rails, or it is getting in from your cowl drains. One thing for sure, you want to get whatever is causing the water to gather in the frame rail sorted out before you have some major structural damage. Good Luck!

Traded my 02 OBW LTD yesterday, take delivery of the new one next Saturday, but have a question that I could wait till I get to the dealership to ask, but maybe someone here already has the answer. I was disappointed that the new car doesn't come with the weatherband radio, but moreso that when you put the car in gear the door locks don't automatically lock. Is there a way to program them in some way?

That is a strange one! I've had a similar situation happen on a front wheel, and that turned out to be a very worn brake pad that lost its brake material, and its backing plate was touching the rotor only in a sharp turning situation. You must have something similar happening, a brake pad that's come loose, or even parts of your emergency brake have come loose inside the rotor. Is the wheel loose and twisting the rotor sideways under the stress of the turn? (unlikely since you would feel the wheel wobble at speed). One thing for sure, once you get the wheel off, I'm betting the problem will be fairly obvious. Get back to us when you figure it out. Good Luck!

I can't answer your question, but I have a hint for replacing that turn signal stalk and its wiring. Most assemblies have the wiring snake down through the steering column to the main harness where they disconnect. If you get to this stage, tie a string or wire to the connector BEFORE you pull the turn signal stalk and its wiring through the column. That way you can simply tie the string to the connector of the new assembly and pull it easily back down through the steering column into place. It is a nightmare otherwise. Good Luck!

There are 6 drain tubes in the wagon with two sunroofs. One each side the front sunroof drains down the A pillar. The rear sunroof has a drain at its front and one at its rear. Both tubes drop down the C pillar, join together and exit the car just behind the rear wheel well, between the body and the bumper cover. You can put a small hose clamp around any drain tube that is coming loose from its spout. Just be careful as the spouts are made of plastic. Been there, done that!

If your glass is going too far up and back then you need to pull the interior door panel and the plastic sheeting that acts as a weather and wind break. Find the bolt heads or nuts that secure and adjust the front and rear tracks that the glass slides in. By loosening them off, repositioning the tracks, slightly tightening them up, testing the window's up and down movement and alignment with the body seals until correct, and then firmly tightening up the fasteners, you'll get the glass to close properly. Usually you don't have to move the window regulator at all, but even that might have to have a slight adjustment after you've dealt with the tracks to get it close. Good Luck!

You don't want to hear this but what you really want us to justify is your purchase of the WRX. I've been there before you, asked myself the same question, ...... and then answered the question with my head and not my heart. Yes, you'll enjoy driving the speed demon a lot more, and you'll make excuses just to go out to the driveway to look at it, or take it to the local conveience store. Then the head thing kicks in .... increased insurance costs, more speeding tickets?, more frequent and expensive tire replacements, premium fuel requirements, a harder ride, higher vandalism and theft target, and so on. With the commute that you have each day, the Forester is a better choice, unless you make big bucks and have a great deal of disposable income. In that case, buy the WRX. Otherwise, save your pennies, wait until the pension kicks in and you no longer have a mortgage, and then buy all the toys you want. It worked for me.

I believe that the air deflector is made out of acrylic plastic, and can be glued using an acrylic plastic glue that is very watery. Home and industrial glass companies (those local companies that can custom cut you a mirror for your bathroom, or cut and bevel edge a glass top for your coffee table) also work a great deal with acrylic to make pamphlet holders and signs. I'd take it to one of them and see if they wouldn't put a bead of glue on the inside of each crack so that it doesn't show. The nice thing about the glue is that its almost instantaneous. It shouldn't cost you much, and most likely they'll have an employee do it for free, for all of the time it'll take. Good Luck!

Just did some restorative paint and body work to put a halt to some rust on my 02 OBW. On one side of the car, the rear wheel arch had some surface rust starting to creep up from inside the wheel well to the surface paint, right at the plastic body cladding top seam on the dogleg and again at the rear bumper cover top seam. The culprit appears to be the rubber seam cover that the factory pushed onto the seam where the floorpan and the exterior body are welded together. If you follow the top of the rear bumper cover to where it ends at the rear wheel arch, you'll see this rubber cover as it bends around the top of the wheel opening, ending at the top of the rear dogleg lower cladding. It is simply pushed on at the factory. The rubber seam cover holds salt and water, and on my car started the rusting at each end of it. Check your OB for rust signs in this area. After my repaint I filled the cover with waterproof grease and pushed it back onto the seam, after having greased the daylights out of the interior wheel well edges first.

If you feel trapped at having to buy the ordered part, you may as well install it. Yes, I suspect that you'll have to remove the interior door panel to get at the old seal, and the outside mirror as well, as it directly bolts into that part of the door frame that the seal resides in. Personally I've had a hundred of these doors apart (I've worked in an antique auto restoration facility and a body shop over the years) and they are all pretty straight forward. I have never had the need to remove any door panels on any of my OBW's. I would suggest that you open a new thread under "remove interior door panel 99 Forester" or such. Somebody else already has done it and will hop to your rescue. Good Luck!

If what you are referring to as the window gusset is the short vertical rubber seal at the front of the door glass, you may not have to replace it. This is the rubber seal that forms one side of the triangular shaped section that hides the mounting bolts that hold the mirror on the inside of the car? My car had a wind whistle here when I first got it. It was an easy fix. I simply lowered the window glass all of the way down, and pushed the inner part of the seal towards the outside of the car. (The seal has a metal inner that you can feel but not see.) This forced the inside the car part of the seal more onto the window glass when the window was in the up position, and completely stopped the whistling noise. I hope this all makes sense, and that we're talking about the same problem. Good Luck!

I recently dropped my headliner to fix a sunroof leak in my 02 OBW. It took about an hour and a half to just remove all of the panels at the A, B, C and D pillars, the seat belt anchors through the B pillar, the overhead assist straps, sunvisors, etc., just to get at the sunroof mechanism. Once there I found 6 bolts that hold the sunroof in place. Take the reinstall time for the headliner and all, and you have a lot of time and bother adding up. Trying to weld the holes closed afterwards could drop hot sparks down into the interior of the car = fire or singed seats or carpets. And if you've got three stage pearlized paint as my 02 does, blowing in the paint can be a *&^%$# to get a correct match. Been there, done that, don't want to do it again anytime soon. I agree with the other respondent .... remove your crossbars and leave the rails well enough alone, unless you have gobs of free time and don't really care what the results look like. By the way, both my present OBW and my last 98 OBW never had the roof cross rails out of their original boxes. I've never used them. I guess I'm a lot like you!

These are an easy diy. I'm not familiar with your model, but on my 02 Outback there is a small tweeter on the inside of the door (opposite the mirror) that just pops off. If you have the same be careful not to pull it out too far, as the wires to the tweeter are small and very short. Under it you'll find some foam that simply pulls out and then 3 10 mm nuts that disconnect the mirror from the body. You may find that the wiring harness to the mirror is right there, or you may have to entirely remove the door panel to get to the wiring harness. Some cars make it necessary to remove the entire door panel to get to the three mirror nuts, and others have a triangular shaped plastic panel that is either held on with a screw (usually behind a plastic plug) or simply just pops off. Whichever, always plug into the wiring harness to test the new mirror before you install everything back onto the door. Good Luck!

Be careful with the wheel width size that you choose! You want a narrow width tire for the winter, something that won't fit on a wide WRX rim. My 97 OBW had 205's for summer and winter tires and was fine in the snow. When I got my 02 OBW the stock tire width had changed to a 225. I made the mistake of going with the same width for my winter tires and found that they rode up on top of the snow at speed and aquaplaned. I could not drive the same speeds in winter with the wider tires that I could on my older OBW with the narrower 205's. I can't wait to wear these present 225's out so I can go as narrow as possible with a winter tire that will fit correctly on my present winter rims. Check out how narrow the winter tires are on the ralleye cars and you'll see what I mean.

I've watched your thread for a couple of days now and no one has jumped in with an absolute response, so I'll give you my experience and suggestions. When I had my old 97 OBW LTD I had a second set of 15 inch steel wheels with Blizzaks for winter use, for the extra grip and safety, and to save my mag wheels from salt, and just changed to my summer mags and tires in the spring. I traded the car on an 02 OBW LTD and found that the 15 inch wheels would not clear the front calipers, as the wheel size had gone up to 16 inches in 2000. I had a dealer say "they'll fit for sure!" Well, they didn't! Consequently I sold the steel wheels and Blizzaks on this forum, and bought new 16 inch steel wheels and ice grip tires for the new car. My advice .... try out a correct 16 inch wheel on the new car to know for sure. The only other possibility will be to check on the net, or a dealership, to see if the basic Brighton model comes with 16 inch steel wheels, and then check to see if it has the same caliper diameter up front as your OBW. If the caliper diameters are the same, you should be good to go. The bolt patterns will be the same regardless. Good luck!

Got into the paint restoration today. The lower cladding on the rear dogleg can be pried up from the rear door side. There are 3 plastic plugs that will come out with the cladding, and then slide the top of the cladding towards the wheel opening to free it at the top. Its bottom can only be removed if you take off the rocker cover skirt first, which I didn't do. I was able to swing the cladding down out of the way and wire its top to a wheel stud (tire was off). By the way, the rear bumper cover has a 10 mm bolt up into the body right at the wheel opening. One other 10 mm nut can only be removed from the side of the rear bumper cover, if you remove the rear floor panels, the rear tailgate opening floor garnish, the lower side panel over the wheel well, and finally the rear side storage compartment between the rear wheel well and the tail light. Interesting enough you'll find that those cars with the sunroofs have the rear and side drain tubes meet behind the rear wheel well, join together and exit through the body, draining out between the bumper cover and the body. We blasted the wheel well opening adjacent to the bumper cover and the dog leg cladding, sanded, primed, sanded the primer and the quarter panel, and final painted the quarter with base, pearl and clear. Luckily there was no bondo needed after blasting and sanding down the surface rusted areas. Tomorrow we'll unmask the car, polish the rest of the car, and reassemble the beast.

You must be able to go to your local auto parts stores and get aftermarket rotors, almost always cheaper to buy than original equipment rotors. Here in Canada I have about 6 or 7 local auto parts suppliers that can get me rotors for just about any vehicle, either from immediate stock, or within a day or two for rarer vehicles. Some people will swear by original parts lasting longer, stopping better, and so on, and others that the aftermarket parts are just as good. It really comes down to how much you're willing to spend, and how much originality means to you, and how much longer you're going to keep the car. Personally I wouldn't buy rotors from the dealer, unless I was driving an WRX STI.