bulwnkl

Thanks for the advice, fellows. The truck is still at Subaru, but they've called to say it's all fixed (excess fluid removed, and they're claiming no leaks/drops). We shall see... The absolute cleanliness issue is probably what bit me. I let the thing sit for hours (literally), but there was still ATF that would drip down onto the mating surface of the A/T case periodically, so I'm guessing that was my issue. Maybe theirs, too? I've had that trouble on a rear diff cover on my pickup before. That thing took forever to drain enough that I could keep the mating surface dry by wiping inside the case quickly, alcohol-ing the surface clean/dry, and trying to slap the cover back on. Sheesh! Ericm: I tried to buy a gasket for the thing, but both the Subaru dealers I talked to (my local one and subarugenuineparts.com) said there's no gasket for the A/T pan, just sealant. If you happen to have a part number, I'd appreciate receiving it, just in case.

I recently pulled just a bit too hard on the wrench tightening the A/T drain bolt on my Baja after a routine service. As is kinda common on the 4EATs, this seems to have distorted the pan/threads just a touch, such that nothing I tried would stop the ATF dripping out of the drain bolt/hole. So, I ordered a new A/T pan from Subaru and installed it per instructions with Permatex RTV Black. Well, the drain bolt/hole leak is of course gone, but I was getting some leakage from the pan/case junction. I figured I just didn't get the Permatex quite right, which is easy on account of ATF continuously dripping down even after a couple hours of pan-off drainage. On account of having a bunch of family and friends coming over this weekend, I just asked the local dealer to re-seal the pan while they were doing the fuel pump bracket recall on Friday. Went to pick up the truck, got looking at the receipt as I went back to work, and saw that not only did they charge me $100(!!) to take the pan off and put it back on, but they said they put 6 quarts of ATF in it! For those not familiar, that is precisely double the quantity this tranny has ever required in about 5 drain-and-fills and the pan replacement. I checked the level once I got home, and it's WAAAAYYY over-full. Called them to talk about it and they said to bring it back and they'll fix it. No problem, but I said it'd be Monday before I could get it back, which was fine with them. Well, guess what I see on the floor under the truck this weekend? A growing puddle of ATF! They and the Subaru sealant apparently aren't any better than Permatex and I are at getting this pan sealed up. Should it really be this tough to re-seal the A/T pan? What am I gonna have to do to get it sealed up?

I know there's lots of concern over the change from one anti-wear additive to others, but FWIW I haven't experienced adverse impact to iron wear (that's what cam wear from the followers will show up as in analysis) by using the newer, lower-phos-limit oils in my EJ255.

I agree with nipper and grossgary that an A/T is significantly better for towing and traffic, and if you get/have/use one of the A/Ts with VTD which utilizes a planetary center diff (like on the turbo Baja starting in '05, IIRC?), they're also significantly better off-road and on snow & ice IMO. I occasionally have thought I'd like an M/T, to avoid generating heat towing things up mountains for example, but the advantages of an A/T just when starting a load are well worth the trade-off.

I surely don't know how they work in the Subies, either. Maybe it's not that at all, but they symptoms reminded me of the accumulator issues in the tractors, and when you talked about accumulators, I thought maybe that was the issue? In the tractors, the accumulators are essentially a pressurized cylinder can thingy with a divider or even a bladder inside. Very similar conceptually to how the newer pressure tanks are built for domestic wells, if you're familiar with them? Anyway, one side of the accumulators are charged with nitrogen or compressed air, and the other side sees hydraulic pressure (tractors use a single fluid and sump for transmission and hydraulic fluids/functions). I kinda think the Subie accumulators have to work the same way. If they were just 'cans' that got ATF pumped into them, they couldn't really have any function, since ATF is essentially non-compressible. It's the compressible gas 'on the other side' of the accumulator that allows it to absorb pressure spikes and deliver fluid when/if line pressure drops. I'm sorry that this is only theoretical, and thus not really helpful to you. I just haven't had to have an accumulator charged on a Subie before.

This is an interesting thread. I'd like to share some experience that isn't directly related (not automotive), but perhaps it supports one of the hypotheses offered? Tractor transmissions (agricultural tractors) were normally "power-shift" transmissions for a couple/few decades, until they recently started going to hydrostats, CVTs, etc. The power-shift transmissions use mechanical gears and clutches just like an automotive transmission, but no clutching is required to change gears. These transmission use electro-hydraulic control of the clutch packs to make the shifts for you under full power. Conceptually not unlike an automotive A/T, I suppose, but without the fluid coupling of a torque converter. They refined these transmissions to where the shifts were remarkably smooth. Only the range changes were still very slightly rough. Anyway, my point is that we could always tell when a tractor transmission needed service when the shifting became rough, and some extra noise would attend gear shifts. Range changes would show the roughness first and to the greatest degree (3 gear 'ranges' x 6 gears/range). Re-charging the accumulators would completely eliminate the rough shifting, and all was normal again. The accumulators on the series of tractors we had would slowly lose their nitrogen pressure over time, apparently. Anyway, hopefully this long, rambling account of something not Subaru-related at all can be useful in some way that I can no longer recall. Can you re-charge the accumulators in a 4EAT, or are they 'permanently sealed' units of some kind?

Probably both, but has to be a toe problem either way.

I don't expect that Subarus, being Japanese, will be terribly different. Most (but not all, perhaps) of the European brands that routinely push for extremely-long drain intervals will have huge sumps. Porsche and M-B are two that come to mind first. It would not be uncommon for an engine of theirs to have a sump capacity of 2 or 3 gallons, vs. a fairly common 1 - 1 1/4 gallons for similar-size American (or Japanese?) cars. Heck, even my 1976-1/2 Alfa Romeo with a not-very-powerful 2-liter held about 3 gallons! No American car of the type or horsepower from that time held nearly that much. Basically, any given oil has a certain amount of useful 'life' available in any given service environment. So let us suppose that in a particular engine and service pattern a gallon of oil will work acceptably for 5,000 miles. If you want to go 10,000 miles, you need 2 gallons. You can either have a sump that holds 1 gallon and change it once during that 10,000 miles, or you can have a sump that holds 2 gallons and not change it during the 10,000 miles. Nipper, that's a great example from the helos, and also a great example of how much damage is done by the combustion process and its by-products. Your engine oil had to be changed, but hydraulic oil (which doesn't deal with combustion by-products) didn't. I'm sure there were other factors, too(?), but combustion is certainly one that affects useful life!

Agreed. Another factor is that European oil pans are often twice or more as capacious as the N. American versions. That alone will make a dramatic difference in required/prudent/specified OCI.

Nipper's right about more manufacturer-specific motor oils coming. The Euros have been using that ludicrously complicated (and lucrative for them!) system for a long time, but now the American labels are going to start. GM is trying to push and require a Dexos certification/spec, which they want an absolute arm and a leg for. If API would stop trying to be a hindrance, maybe GM wouldn't have done it, but the then new GF-5 (& SN) spec is awfully far ahead of the current GF-4 & SM. Personally, I don't have any greater confidence in manufacturer-specific specs anyway. VAG's proprietary specs change like the wind, yet they offer dramatically poor protection in some of their company's own highest-performance engines. There's just nothing special about the proprietary specs, IMO, but if you want your warranty, you'll pay for it!

Agree with GeneralDisorder and bheinen74. Stick with the recommended grade; going thicker hurts lubrication rather than helping. Also, if you change your own (or even if not), it would be preferable to stick to the same brand as well. Not as important as other things, but helpful for wear.

If the 'easy' and 'cheap' fixes didn't work, then perhaps it's time to replace parts. I once had a '99 Outback wagon that experienced delayed forward engagement. It was under warranty at the time, so I made no effort to try my own fixes, I just took it straight to the dealer. They replaced the torque converter, and that solved the issue for the next 10 or 15k miles (we got rid of it after that). I should note that we only had ~55k miles on the car when that occurred.

just type in auto-rx.com and you'll see it!

I'm glad they treated you well!! I'd probably do approximately what you're planning, except I'd buy a bottle of Auto-RX. My XT6 had worse compression in 1 cylinder than yours does, and it completely fixed the issue. I wrote up my issue and what I did on here, IIRC, a few years ago. Maybe ~2005? I probably wouldn't pull the engine apart at this point. I might think about sending the turbo to a rebuilder (or buying a kit for it and doing it myself, maybe), but note that nobody I've EVER been able to talk to in all of North America recognizes the Mitsubishi assembly numbers on the Baja turbos. So, you'll end up with an Impreza turbo. That might work perfectly, I just wanted you to know that it's not the exact same thing. Good luck!

That's peculiar. For those curious, yes the Baja has the catalyst in the U/P. I've heard it said that they'll sometimes come apart into the turbo, but I can't recall reading of a Baja owner who definitely had that happen. Personally, I'd tell the dealer they're dreaming if they think I'm going to pay for the turbo that didn't even impact the issue. I'm not saying that'd be a position I'd stick with forever, because that much shaft end play suggests a serious issue, but I'd still tell them that to help motivate them to do a proper diagnosis before trying to get me to pay them to shotgun ridiculously expensive parts at it. If one cylinder shows significantly deficient compression, but they can't see anything wrong in the cylinder, could a ring be broken? At 120psi (vs. 170 for the others) I'd expect that cylinder to fire more-or-less normally most of the time, and so I wouldn't expect to be able to tell there was a serious problem, except that the truck wouldn't make the power it should. Frankly, it could simply be a case of carbon fouling/coking of the rings in that cylinder, which Auto-RX has solved for me in a Subaru in the past. I'm not sure what to say about the noise. Maybe possibly perhaps a bypass valve noise? Understand that Bajas feel like they make better power in the midrange than they do on the top end. They're losing steam fast above roughly 5,000 rpm in stock form.

Yep, 1/2" breaker bar.

Is it Detroit (Diesel)? They do a whale of a lot of automotive gasoline rebuild work for other companies.

Wow. I had no idea there would be $750 worth of belts, fluids, and shop supplies in a motor change. Let us know how the warranty company responds to $6,000. I'd also ask about the old engine. If the warranty company doesn't _require_ it back, then if I were you I'd offer to trade Wackerli the old engine for that $750 in non-covered expenses. I don't believe they have a machine shop there, so they probably won't be rebuilding anything themselves, but it'd still be worthwhile for them to trade you that. If they won't trade, and the warranty company doesn't absolutely, positively want the engine back, I'll bet you could cover most or all of your out-of-pocket expenses by selling that engine here.

I agree with CNY_Dave. During short trips, idling, stop & go, etc., the coolant will warm up significantly sooner than the oil will, and it will stay warm, so the exchanger can be quite helpful. I'm glad my Baja has one, though I'm not sure I'd put it on if it hadn't come as OEM.

Glad you found the service contract. That's great! I also agree with Gary re: the oil pump seal repair is fairly likely what caused, through improper bolt torque, this failure. Still, in terms of dealing with the warranty (or service contract) aspect of this, I'm not sure that's a point to be brought up right now? Personally, I'd just display the service contract (does it have Subaru's name on it, or an aftermarket company's?) and have it fixed through that. Only if there is some demand for receipts or something would I bring up that prior service. I'd hate for the warranty company to claim that the service done in Boise caused the failure but, since you didn't actually get coverage until after that service, Boise's improper work is not covered here. FWIW, I don't see things that way, and I choose to believe that most here don't, either. ALL of us want to not get hosed, and all of us need info or help in lots of circumstances so that we don't. My Baja's black over dark gray/black. Have you seen the red one that works at (owns?) that nursery/landscaper on Sunnyside just west of Hitt? There's a yellow one that used to live near 1st and Northgate Mile, and Wackerli recently put a silver one in the airport! I'll probably see you guys around town.

Yes, you're right. I scanned the pages too quickly. To reiterate for clarity: The 5MTs utilize a mechanical center differential with a viscous coupler. IOW, they have a center VLSD.

Whoa! Can you guys see what the FSM says? 5MT Subarus are RWD!! The viscous unit tightens up in order to send power forward! That's awesome!! Personally, I really like the planetary center power divider system in my A/T Baja turbo.

Hi, Jaderider. I'm sorry to hear that your daughter's Baja broke. I live in Ammon, but I have very limited experience with Wackerli. What I know about them is that they've rescheduled me 3 times on the fuel pump bracket recall for my '05 Baja, but they didn't call me; I showed up and they said, "Uh, yeah, well, we don't have the parts." I also know that they want more than list price for various common maintenance parts. They're nice, but I personally don't normally go there for parts and service because of these factors, and because I like to do the work myself. I'd offer to come help you, but I'm away for work for a while. I'd do as Gary suggests and push politely but very firmly for warranty coverage. Talk to the service manager, but definitely go to SOA, too. I also would not pay the dealer $800 to 'tear into it.' They're probably going to pull the heads to inspect the valves, which isn't necessary just yet. Plus, that's not germane to whether it should be covered by warranty or not, so IMO, them wanting to tear into it before they answer you on warranty is just a way to commit you to paying. Then they have you over a barrel. Isn't there an independent Subie shop in town? I can't remember the name right now. Maybe they don't have experience with the newer Subies; I just can't remember. Good luck! P.S. Ignore the post up a ways that says the engine will lose a head gasket by 150k miles. The turbo engines in these Bajas aren't susceptible to that failure. Also, the 'letting it sit caused the belt to break' thing is also bogus, as you now know because the dealer said a bolt broke and that's what caused the failure.

Baja ground clearance increased an inch-and-a-half-ish(??) for MY04. The Baja will have more clearance than an OBS, but approach and _especially_ departure angles are not very good. Similar to what others have said, look for the same issues as on an '00-'04 Outback. A Baja is definitely susceptible to the HG failures if it's N/A. Turbos are not susceptible. I love my '05 turbo A/T. I'd go for it if I were in your position.

Thanks for the interesting data! Don't ever let anyone tell you that automobiles are not forced to dump fuel periodically to lower emissions (specifically, NOx).