gbhrps

Are you sure you aren't complaining about the heater fan? They will either have a maple key or debris fall through the air intake and get lodged where the fan can actually hit the culprit, and make a noise that changes with the fan speed setting. Sometimes the fan motor bearings will go and you get a squeal or rumbling sound. Then again, the bearings in your AC compressor may be gone, giving you a squeal or rumble. Unfortunately, unless you are handy, all of these problems take time to correct, and if its the AC compressor, money as well. A used or rebuilt AC pump may be the cheapest way to go, if its needed.

I'm not certain that the Limited comes with a 5 speed manual. I think its just available with the automatic. Someone else will have to give you an idea as to price.

I have cleaned all of the engines in my cars for years by spraying on Simple Green or an engine degreaser, letting it sit for 5 minutes or so, and then rinsing the engine with my power washer, holding the wand well back from the engine itself. You sure don't want to force any water into the electrical connections. I do this procedure on a warm engine to help with the drying, and I immediately start the car afterwards, to ensure that it will start, so there are no surprises the next day on the way to work. The only problem I've ever had was with moisture finding its way into the distributor caps of my antique cars. After wiping the insides of the caps dry with a towel, they always fired right up. Just remember to not get the pressure wand too close with too much pressure and you'll be fine.

My old 97 OBW, I believe, had the cruise switch, fog lights and wiper heater switch in that location. That was a lot of years ago. Come to think my 02 OBW has the same switches in the same location. I'll bet that a seat heater switch will fit the same location.

A good fuel injector cleaner added to the gas tank on your next fill up may make a great improvement.

The wiper motor drive shaft to the wiper arm is steel, while the wiper motor gear box outer case is white metal. The two metals, through lack of use and lubrication, can corrode to the point of cementing them together. That's most likely what burned out your wiper motor. If you take off the nut, lift off the wiper arm, and remove the plastic garnish washer, the one inch nut you're complaining about can be corroded to the gear box case as well. I removed mine with a large combination wrench covered with duct tape, so as to not scratch the glass if it slipped. If it won't come off easily, you'll have to cut it off with an air driven cut off wheel, or Dremel tool. If you are careful, take your time, and don't force the wheel while cutting, you should have no concerns about glass breakage, if you use a very wet rag to cool down the metal nut as you cut it. Too much heat in one spot could cause the glass to expand too quickly in one spot and crack. Use some caution and you should have no problems. Good luck!

That intermittent brake light warning may be nothing more than a warning that you need to top up the brake fluid because of brake pad wear. Its quite common, particularly in cold weather as I recall.

My 02 OBW developed an very tiny external leak on both heads at about 45 000 km. You couldn't find any on the ground, but you could smell it inside the car with the heater fan on. Headgaskets were replaced under warranty, and then 9 months ago comes the recall notice for the coolant additive. Back to the dealer and had it added as per notice. Car now has 84 000 km and no problems to date, but..........I watch that temperature guage closely when I'm driving, and I eyeball the garage floor under the car regularly for coolant spills. There is no sense ignoring the warning signs of a known medical condition. Love the car, my second OBW, and I'll own another!

jmilum, The chrome top will unscrew. You'll have to use a small bladed screwdriver that you don't particularly care about, and putting the blade in the slot on the ring, drive it with a hammer blow, sufficiently enough to move the ring a bit anticlockwise, without having it slip off and scratch up your paint. Keep it up until you can unwind the ring with your fingers. Everything else is done from inside the car. Pull the drain tube from the bottom of the antenna assembly and leave it there (much easier to put back on when reinstalling), unhook the wiring connector, undo the two 10 mm bolts holding the assembly to the mounting bracket, pull the entire assembly down out of the exit hole in the top of the quarter panel, and remove it from the car. Good luck!

svxcess, My last 97 OBW developed a howl from the back end. At speed, on a road where is was safe to do so, I swerved the car from side to side, and you could hear the difference in sound as the bearing was loaded from side to side and straight ahead. The howl changed pitch or disappeared accordingly. I suspected that it was the left rear bearing, just hard to tell from the driver's seat. Once up on a hoist at the dealer's, the mechanic put a stethoscope onto each rear bearing hub...and identified the left rear as the culprit. 45 minutes later he had pressed out the old bearing from the hub, installed a new one under warranty, and I was on my way.

I bought the factory hood deflector for my 02 OBW. It improved the look of the front, in my opinion, and does its job to stop stone chips on that leading edge. Whether it deflects a lot on insects or not, I couldn't say, since it has loads of insect strikes on it, but a lot still make it to the windshield. My 97 OBW had no such option and the front of the hood really took a stone chip beating. I'll have another hood deflector on my next OBW.

Imdew, I did a replace on all of the bulbs on a 97 OBW years ago, and recently just the illumination bulb for one of the seat heater switches on my 02 OBW. Anyway, I believe that they both take a very tiny micro bulb available at Radio Shack. The bulbs have 2 long pigtail wire ends and a pair were $2.99 CDN just 3 weeks or so ago. The AC/Heater bulbs have a tiny blue rubber condom that you can take off the old bulbs and slip over the new ones. The best thing to do is take the system apart to get to the bulbs. After they're out, you will see how many to buy. As I recall, they are just a small plastic bulb socket that the bulb pigtail wires are wound through and cut off. Just unwind the old bulb pigtail, and wind on a new one, replacing any condoms that are needed. A quarter turn removes the socket from the AC/Heater light assembly board. If you buy them from Subaru, you'll pay for the plastic bulb socket as well, and some are shorter than others, but they all use that same micro bulb I referred to. It really is intuitive to do, if you have the time and patience. Good luck!

Slegacy96, Maybe you should live with the leak. How many miles are on the car? How many more years are you likely to drive it? How serious is the leak? Are oil stains a real concern in the area where you park the car? You may find when you add it all up, that the cost of topping up the oil from time to time doesn't come close to what it will cost to pull parts and reseal everything. But, then again, that's a question only you can answer. My 90 Nissan 300ZX leaks a silver dollar's worth of oil every so often. For the $600 I've been quoted to fix it, on a car that I drive maybe 2500 km a year, I've decided to live with the little annoyance.

Slegacy96, Maybe you should live with the leak. How many miles are on the car? How many more years are you likely to drive it? How serious is the leak? Are oil stains a real concern in the area where you park the car? You may find when you add it all up, that the cost of topping up the oil from time to time doesn't come close to what it will cost to pull parts and reseal everything. But, then again, that's a question only you can answer.

de_boer_man, We're so pleased that you came out unscathed from this incident! God knows we can always use good news. It reaffirms the decision I made to own my two OBW's in an area where there are no others to be found (closest dealer 70 miles away). It makes up for the sneers I endure everytime I go to my favourite coffee spot, driving one of the safest vehicles on the road for the money!

I've had the heater/AC control panel of my old 97 OBW apart to replace burned out bulbs, and found that in some cases separate bulbs are used to illuminate certain knobs, and that sometimes one bulb lights up a clear plastic stick that runs behind a series of buttons to light them all at the same time. I guess the easiest way to tell, is if you have one switch's light source burned out, or several all at the same time. Its best to get the unit out of the dash, and check it while its still plugged into its harness. I wouldn't buy any bulbs until then. Hope this helps out. Good luck!

Tiny Clark, You're a sick person! But I laughed anyway.

later, peter, You may have to forcibly retract the antenna all of the way down, and then remove the entire unit from the car, take it apart, clean and lubricate it, and put it back in. I've done several of them on various cars and its fairly easy to do, and pretty intuitive. I'll bet that you have some grunge and old hardened grease build up inside of the gear case, where the antenna's whip winds up, or even a slightly kinked whip. If the whip is kinked, simply replace it at this time. They aren't overly expensive, and shopping around at various dealers (toyota, Nissan, Honda) for a replacement mast should get you a cheapy, if the Subaru one is overly priced. They all use the same parts suppliers anyway. My 90 Nissan 300zx presently has a mid 90's Camry mast in it, since the Toyota dealer was in town and the Nissan dealership was 70 miles away. Sure, I had to change the screw off knob at the top of the mast on each of the masts, but that was it. Be sure to match up the diameter of the bottom mast section so that it seals properly and also doesn't flop around. You don't even need to be concerned if the masts aren't the same lenghth. They should be close enough to pull in the stations. Good luck!

Wcarey, I don't know for sure if this will work, but my limited electrical knowledge says it might. Obviously when you turn on the ignition, if the passenger seatbelt isn't buckled, the buzzer goes off. So there must be a switch inside the seat belt receiver that in disconnected when the belt is buckled up properly. So, follow the seat belt receiver down along the centre (Canadian spelling) console until you find the wiring harness where it disconnects. Unplug the wiring harness connector and see what happens. If no buzzer sounds when you turn on the ignition, great. If it does, try joining the contacts inside the harness with a jumper wire and try again. Maybe someone else has a different handle on this one. Good luck!

Gangstarr937, You don't say whether its a new car or not, but I assume its used since you didn't take it to the dealer under warranty. That said, which door ajar light is coming on? If the indicator shows its the driver's door, then the problem will be the the door switch in the B pillar. Its a plunger type switch that will be somewhere below where the door locking mechanism is mounted. (A pillar is the front windshield outside frame that extends down and into where the front door hinges mount on the body. The B pillar is the vertcal frame between the front and rear doors, and the C pillar extends down from the roof behind the rear doors.) Depending on the year of the car, you may be able to pull the switch out of the B pillar and check to see if its sticking, or if its contacts are corroded. In some cases you may have to pull the interior plastic panels on the B pillar to get at the switch from the inside and trouble shoot it in the same manner. Maybe some else can add any ideas they may have. Good luck!

David, I do all my own tire rotations. No big deal. About twice a year I break the lug nuts free on all 4 wheels, using a large ratchet, and I jack up the car using a floor jack and 2 sets of jack stands. From there I either use my impact gun or a speed wrench to wind off the nuts, then swap wheels side to side and front rear. The next time (8000 km later) I swap them just front to rear. Using the impact gun at it lowest setting, or the speed wrench, I snug up the nuts and lower the car. Then using a torque wrench, even a cheapy half inch drive will do, I torque each lug nut to 90 ftlbs for steel wheels or 78 ft lbs for mags (again depending on the manual for that car). I don't rebalance any of my tires unless I feel a shimmy when driving at speed. I've just changed over my tires and wheels to my winter set, and noticed that I had a shimmy at speed. I immediately rotated all of the tires to new locations and no more shimmy. So sometimes rebalancing is necessary, but sometimes rotation of the tires can correct the situation. If you have the time and the space, you really don't need expensive tools to do just as good a job at tire rotation as the garages do, and if you torque your own wheel nuts yourself, there won't be any warped rotors to have to contend with, because the garage overtorqued the nuts with their impact gun. Others may have their own procedures, but this has worked successfully for me for years and many vehicles.

99obw, You've done your homework! Nice to know that there are people out there with the expertise to solve just about any problem. But OUCH, the switch costs $99 !

Forester2002s, I know what you mean, but you'll need to add a timer control to the circuit to cancel the seat heaters after a preset time. As well, you'll need to change your switch. As it is now you throw the switch to one side and it stays on high, off or low. You'll need a micro switch that momentarily lights up the timer control and then the switch returns to the off position on its own. Unless you're into electronics, I'll bet it will be almost more trouble than its worth. If you decide to tackle it someday, and have some success, we'd sure like to hear about it!

Three thoughts...One... You may have a sticking piston in that caliper, that instead of releasing entirely, is dragging the pads on the rotor, heating up the rotor and the wheel, and making it impossible for you to spin the wheel by hand...Two... If you have a bad wheel bearing, driving the car at speed in place safe to do so, swerve from side to side with some straight ahead driving from time to time. You should hear different pitched howls as the load is shifted from one side of the bearing to another. If you don't, I would suspect that your problem is somewhere else. Bearings usually make noise when they are going bad....Three...I agree with several others here, that if you really don't know how to get to the bottom of your problem, and aren't comfortable doing so, spend the money and get a competent mechanic to solve your concerns. Brakes and wheels are not something to be leaving to chance or inexperience. Good Luck!

A recent burned out bulb in the seat heater switch of my 02 OBW made me balk at the $43 CDN dealer price a new switch, especially when the switch still worked, but the night illumination bulb was burned out. Another thread here listed the Radio Shack micro bulb #7219 as a exact replacement. (It was!) Here's how the centre console comes out and the repair was made. Simply pull up the woodgrain surround of the gear shift at the back with your fingers. It will pop up releasing 4 spring clips, 2 down each side, but BE CAREFUL not to lift it more than half an inch doing so! The front arms of the wood grain surround that go up both sides of the front of the dash below the radio, have thin plastic pins that are inserted into that front dash. The woodgrain surround must be gently pulled towards the rear of the car to release the spring clips. The plastic pins can be broken off very easily. Now 2 screws are revealed at the front of the gear shift, and lifting the lid of the centre arm rest reveals 2 more to remove. Lift up this centre section of the console that holds the drink cups, reach underneath and press the side clips that hold the wiring connectors to the seat heater switches, and remove the entire centre console. The switches can now be easily pushed out. Holding the switch upright (so no internal parts could spring out or get dislodged before I saw where they are located, I used a small thin bladed screwdriver to pry out the BOTTOM of the switch that has the wiring harness blade connectors on it. When the bottom dropped out, there was a white centre section that had copper spring contacts just floating around on top of the bottom section. This thin white block had a white vertical pointer, that fits into a set of fingers that extend down from the rocker switch in the top of the switch. (Obviously the pointer must be positioned to fit between the fingers upon reassembly.) Coming up from the bottom of the switch base that was just removed, the blades rise above the white centre switch contact assembly and have 2 rubber light shield/sockets for the illumination bulb and the seat heater on bulb. The rubber sockets and bulbs just slide right off of the blades. Using a magnifying glass and toothpick or dental pick, unwind the bulb pigtails to remove the burned out bulb, and replace same with a new bulb. Put the bulb and socket assembly back onto the blades, and before you put everything back together, test the bulb using long pigtail wires from your battery. If it lights, reassemble the whole switch, and again before you install it in the car, plug the switch into your wiring harness connector, turn on the ignition and lights and see if it works. If so...put the car back together. It worked for me. Total cost was $2.99 CDN plus tax for 2 bulbs and an hour of my time. Hope this helps somebody out.