bulwnkl

Absolutely! There are a bunch of folks there just typing to read their own words (common on internet forums, itsn't it? ) Wrong on all 3 counts, I'm afraid. The evidence that M1 has a very significant amount of "lower" quality stuff is there (or rather, it was. It may have been pulled from the thread). The kind of spectral analysis most of us can't afford, read by someone with the motor oil experience to know what he's reading. He was nearly burned as a heretic by MANY folks there, presumably because they didn't want to hear that their favorite brand wasn't made of what they thought it was made of. I am curious, though, as to the spectral analyses you have that would constitute evidence that it's still mainly a G-IV. In either case, results show that Mobil products (including M1) are simply not getting the job done as well as almost everything else out there these days. I think that's too bad because I used to be a 'Mobil guy.'

Sorry, Hondasucks, the Toyota issue is MOST DEFINITELY NOT JUST AN OWNER NEGLECT ISSUE, IT IS A DESIGN FLAW. There are WAAAY too many people with receipts for extremely short drain intervals and failed, sludged motors for even Toyota to claim otherwise. The primary reason Toyota is replacing engines under warranty is that they know they have a problem that's frankly huge. This is now far too well documented to claim otherwise.

Not the ER27 (XT6 engine). It was under 5 qts. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding what factors one might think are the worst offenders in terms of cause, some engine designs are extremely poor in terms of beating up oil and causing sludge or coking or both. The issue is far larger than just sump capacity, though clearly a 15 gallon sump would help prevent the sludging in SOME of these applications (it would not stop the Toyotas from sludging, but may perhaps help one of the VW engines).

I think that the Subaru clutch feel is a little different than some other cars, but then I think almost every brand has its own specific clutch feel. It's not the AWD, IMO, it's just a brand feel. If you're slipping the clutch when you shift in order to be smooth, then you need to really focus and practice being smoother so that you're not slipping the clutch. Ideally, you should shift precisely the same as if you're not using the clutch at all (which you can do, BTW, but if you do it a lot you'll end up with a tranny that slips out of gear): match revs and roll on and off the throttle.

The "high parrafin levels" thing you've heard is garbage designed (by the actual originator(s) of the idea) to confuse you into buying one brand of oil over another. Paraffinic base stocks are higher quality, not lower. The concept of wax in the oil is not an operative concept here. Kendall GT-1 used to be absolutely top of the heap oil. Now it is just a brand owned by Conoco-Phillips. It's still good oil, but the old Kendall engineers didn't come over in the buyout. Subaru's recommendation is for an API certified oil (check your manual for what certification and grade). They don't recommend a brand in the USA, except to say that the Subaru-labeled oil meets their requirements. I used to use Mobil's oils, but not any more. They are not up to par any more in terms of wear control, even across the Mobil 1 product line. I do not say this from my own opinion, but rather from UOAs and more importantly from a professional oil analyst who knows his stuff.

Yeah, that stinks because he'd have had to crawl through the rear seat to get to the manual anti-carjacker-kidnapper trunk release (if the car was new enough to have one).

To be clear for any of our Washington State readers/friends (where I spent most of my life): It was made illegal in Washington State somewhere around 12 years ago to carry a gun around in public unless it's in an opaque container. This was determined to include gun racks. So, if you're going to put a gun in the rack, make sure it's in one of those sillicone-impregnated sock things. OR, make sure they've repealed that law.

I agree with grossgary. The air suspension is fun and I liked it (XT6 not Legacy). Follow his advice/instructions regarding care and "tune up" and you'll be fine.

Hondasucks: I had only meant to agree with your advice while simultaneously putting in my little "plug" for not being deceived by the word "synthetic" on various bottles of DOT 3, 4 or 5.1 (but not 5) brake fluid and paying more for what we're already getting. I really shouldn't probably have interjected it here since perhaps the irony was lost... Sorry for any confusion.

I agree. Brake fluid (that we use in Subies) is water soluble. And, since ALL brake fluid is synthetic, it won't matter whether someone paid extra money for that word on the bottle prior to putting it in the master cylinder.

Bringing back this old thread because I might have this same issue in an '05 Baja. Does the $500 + parts pricing still apply? Is this something that there's any chance at all of doing at home w/o a cherry picker & w/o pulling the engine? I still have hand tools, an air gun, a floor jack, jack stands, and stuff, but nothing more than that any more. What is the thought here? I have done some reasonably extensive work before (rebuilt the turbodiesel engine in my Mitsu pickup a few years ago), but I have less space and fewer tools now. Do I have to open the tranny itself, or is it simpler than that? With 80,000 miles, does it make sense to do anything else at the same time?

Difference is largely the ability to reject (or not generate in the first place) heat from speed, and tolerate all the other stresses associated with speed. There may be a subtle difference in ride quality due to sidewall stiffness, but personally I doubt one would notice unless really paying attention or pushing hard.

It kinda sounded like that to me, too. Blu? Board member or company? I'm thinking that if I put a tranny cooler in, it'll be inline with and upstream of the OEM radiator cooler in order that when I'm driving to work at 25 below zero in the winter not towing I don't freeze the fluid solid.

For my condition, turning the heat on full blast will slow or stop the temp rise, but will not reverse it. To be clear, the tranny and engine oil coolers I have are the factory ones, which are not separate radiators. The tranny fluid flows into the cooant radiator (ala many GM vehicles), and the engine oil cooler is a place in the filter head where coolant and oil circulate past each other to exchange heat. I can say that at one point, the Autostick feature was disabled by the ECU/PCM/whatever the best name for it is. According to the book, this will happen when the tranny fluid temp is rising too high because computer management of the transmission supposedly will result in lower fluid temps than manual control.

I have a very similar problem in my '05 Baja (turbo). This past week we pulled our boat (~1800 lbs.) far away and went over some mountain passes and other steep grades. At any temps above ~75 degrees, the thing will heat up when pulling a hill. The only solution is to back off and go slower (less boost, less speed) and turn off the A/C. I flushed my cooling system and installed new coolant and Subaru Genuine cooant conditioner (as per the owner's manual) after arriving at our destination to try to alleviate the problem before we came home in hotter weather. No change. The radiator is not blocked nor filled with bugs or anything else. This vehicle has 80,000 miles on it. To the O.P: Do you have an automatic transmission? Does it have a cooler in the radiator? Do you have an oil cooler? Is is a coolant to oil cooler? I have both an engine oil and tranny oil cooler and they are both coolant to oil coolers (factory). I'm wondering: Could the radiator simply be too small? What kind of sense does that make?

1/2" breaker bar is the trick. My '05 Baja's diff was not abnormally tight nor difficult to break loose. I did notice that the bar felt loose initially, but it turned out that I had just not pushed it in past the detent ball on the breaker bar. Once I did that, it was fairly snug.

Though I like your logic, I think you cannot rule out the driveshaft(s) from this line of thinking. I've had u-joints cause strange troubles (vibration, grinding, noise) at certain speeds and not others, and either only under power or upon deceleration. They work a little differently than how simply you're making things out to be. That doesn't necessarily mean they are the problem, only that you haven't yet ruled them out, IMO.

Our Baja manual recommends more like 12,000 miles for replacement interval. Crashing through the toolies, I think that interval is likely appropriate.

Our '02 Legacy GT factory player played burned discs w/o issue. I THINK our '99 Outback did, too, but I just can't recall for absolute positive. I can tell you that on some old home players, I've encountered circumstances where one would play discs I made on one of our Macs with certain brands of CD-R, but they wouldn't play stuff my brother made (Windows and cheap brand discs). I doubt that's a Windows issue; I suspect it's a disc brand issue, but I'm not positive. My '91 XT-6 only had a tape deck, so I can't help you there.

Indeed. Sitting in two identical Foresters recently (identical except for the model year. '04 and '06? '03 and '05? I can't recall), I had precisely this issue. The newer headrests are too far forward and that's a deal-breaker for me. Our Mazda 5's headrests are the same way and I get a very bad upper back/neck ache after being in it for any length of time unless I turn the headrests around. If I do that, they're too far back and would not protect properly in a crash. I've had the same trouble in recent Chevrolet products of various kinds, and even had some trouble with it in my '99 SAAB 9-3 and my folks' 9-5. I always sit with my head against the headrests and I have a big head, so the newer designs are not more safe for me and they're downright painful.

zstalker: Thanks! I didn't see that thread in my search, as I was searching for turbo plug change threads. nipper: You think 60,000 is too frequent for these plugs? My only real turbo experience is with a SAAB I had a few years ago. It ran much better on copper plugs than the stock platinums, and I had to change them every 7,500 - 10,000 miles for absolute peak performance and operation. There really wasn't anything BAD when I did otherwise, it was just best that way. Thoughts?

Yeah, it's a sealant not entirely unlike teflon tape or even packing like you use on water valves, etc. It's used there because that plug is just pipe thread whereas all the others have a seat. Regarding the "new" tranny not shifting well: Is it possible that the clutch is not properly adjusted? If I was confident of proper clutch adjustment, I'd probably swap out the fluid (but that's just me).

WRONG. The NS does not have the FMs that the "regular" stuff has, and there will NOT be any harm to the diff.

So, I've heard that it's a nightmare to change the plugs on a Baja Turbo (we have an '05). I've heard everything from having to take out motor mounts and push the motor sideways to having to lift it up with a cherry picker or something. What's the deal here? Has anyone actually changed Baja turbo plugs? Is it really that nasty to do? Help?

Don't use the M1 in the gearbox. I liked Red Line 75W90NS in my XT-6 tranny. There isn't anything that's positively beautiful in a Subaru MT, but the NS is about as good as it gets for us. You'll probably have to change it every 30,000 miles to maintain best feel, but protection-wise, it'll last super long.