nicholi2789

Yes it does have an aftermarket cd player and system. I installed the system but not the deck. I thought that maybe the cd player was affecting it too and pulled it out to look and everything was wired surprisingly clean. How can I check to see if that's happening? What wire do I look for?

Combination switch? Can you point me in the general location of it?

Hey everyone, got a small electrical issue going on with my 95 legacy. And since I'm not electrical expert I thought I would ask you guys. I've posted about my beloved Legacy I bought for 700$ before. Anyways, I've noticed this issue since I first bought the car bit haven't really worried about it because I had other small issues to deal with. So, the problem. When I first got the car I noticed that it didn't have any dash lights. I mean, the CEL, e-brake, airbag, and all other indicator lights work. The backlight just doesn't work. I checked the fuse box and of course the 10A fuse was blown, so I replaced it. It worked fine for a while after that then it blew again. Sometimes a new fuse will last a few days other times it will blow in five minutes. But it will happen. So I just bought a thing of fuses and A cheap LED light for when I run out of fuses. Figuring it's a problem for another day. The other electrical problem is when I'm driving with my low beams on they will work fine until randomly they click off. I mean all the way off. If I switch to my high beams then back to low beams they will work again. If I drive with just my high beams on it won't happen at all. Only on the low beams. Strange. It happens completely randomly like my dash lights. Since I know next to nothing about electrical issues like this I don't even know where to start. The most I can do with electrical stuff is wire a cd player and stereo system. Could it be a bad relay? Anybody got a suggestions on where to start? It's not exactly a dire issue, but it is certainly and irritating one.

Yeah well, Premium is the only non-ethanol gas I can get in my town. I don't know if they even make regular non-ethanol gas but I haven't seen it. All I know is all my other cars ran terribly on ethanol gas and my chainsaws can't use it at all, unless I want unreliable saws.

No I didn't mean every tank full. Just the last time I filled up. I run ONLY non-ethanol premium. Ethanol gas is nasty stuff. I have no idea what was run in it the other 250,000 miles though. And no, when I replaced the knock I made sure it went in the exact same way as the old one and torqued it to spec which was 16 ft/lbs. I've always had really good experiences with Lucas additives. They are really popular here.

Thanks. I just replaced the spark plugs with just Autolite copper cores (that's what the book called for) a few weeks ago, no noticeable improvement in power, idle, or mileage. I also replaced the wires with the Napa brand lifetime warranty ones. I had heard that some subys had problems with NON-NGK wires but I haven't had a problem. I've also been thinking about getting a Bluetooth OBD 2 scanner anyways. Maybe I should start monitoring data. So you recommend using Chevron w/techron fuel? Really makes a difference? Wait, I've been fueling up at chevronanyways. And yes it has stock tire size.

Thanks good suggestion. I had honestly thought about the injectors, like maybe they were bad or something. But the car runs amazing. Once it warms up it idles right at 750 rpms and doesn't jump at all. It never dies and always starts first try. It is also so quiet you can barely hear it. It has power too, if I put my foot in it, it gets up and goes no problem. I have no history of its maintenance though. The kids I bought it from only had it for four months and knew nothing about it. Obviously whoever owned it originally took good care of it, judging by the clean interior, nice Toyo tires, brakes, suspension, and clean title. I thought about maybe getting it compression tested too or buying tester. Maybe I'll just have them compression tested and injectors.

Alright. So a few months ago I bought a 95 Legacy 5 speed, AWD.sedan. It had 255,000 miles on it but the price was right (700$), and had a clean title so I bought it. It has a few mnor problems, like leaking a tiny amount of power steering fluid onto the exhaust so it smokes a tiny bit. and some minor engine oil leaks. But it starts every time, all the electrical stuff works (lights, windows, etc,). I've been driving it non-stop for over two months now and it has been a champ. I absolutely love it. It also had nice new Toyo tires on it and the suspension seems to be good. One thing I have noticed lately though is I'm not getting as good of fuel economy as I would expect. It costs me about 50$ to fill up ( I live in Oregon), and I usually get right at 15 gallons. I know it has a 15.5 gallon tank. by the end of that tank I'm usually at about 300-315 miles on it, which comes out to right at 20-21 mpg. I do a mixture of highway and town driving, leaning more in the town driving majority. I drive 7 miles to work and and 7 miles back every day, with about another 6-7 miles of in town driving on top of that. But I also do a lot of in town driving in between and on my days off. I'm not sure what it would get if I was driving highway miles all day every day. Presumably a lot better. In the car's defense, for the first month I had it I kinda hossed on it a little bit. Nothing outragous, just driving like a boy racer and shifting at about 4000 RPMs. I hadn't owned a stick shift car in about 5 years so I was pumped. Lol. Now I drive very sedately, shifting at about 3000 and not romping on it. Now I have already taken care of the obvious things that would help with bad fuel economy. I've changed the air and fuel filter and running a bottle of Lucas injector cleaner through every tank, I've changed the oil, changed the transmission fluid, changed the knock sensor (because I had a code pop up), PCV valve, I even run 40 P.S.I. in my tires hoping the higher pressure will help a little. No such luck. One thing though, since the car has so many miles I've been running Castrol high mileage 10W/40. Even though it calls for 5w/30 or 10w/30. I figured with as many miles it has it's not gonna hurt. But I was thinking maybe the heavier oil could decrease efficiency and therefore fuel economy...? Now you guys tell me, is this about what I should expect or should I be getting better? I figured because it was AWD it would get a little worse fuel economy, but not this bad. The people I bought it from said it got 28 MPG but I just can't see that unless they were driving exclusively highway miles. I did find this here: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/1995_Subaru_Legacy.shtml and it says for my model about 19 mpg in town. Which is about what I'm getting if not a little less. Any suggestions on what I could do to improve it? I look forward to your expert opinions. Thanks

Ditto. Mine is a 95 Legacy L and it also has OBD 2. From my understanding, it wasn't required until 96 but some manufacturers got an early start and incorporated it in 95 models. I guess us lucky 95 Subaru owners got lucky.

Yeah it was labelled Castroy Hypoy C 80W/90 gear oil in the past. We stocked it back when they had it, and now we stock it even though it is labelled differently. It is the same fluid. But it's called Castrol Axle Limited-Slip 80W/90 Gear oil.They are exactly the same only different label. Anyways, Here i am a full day after changing the transmission fluid again, only using Castrol 80/90 instead of Castrol 75/90 and I am grind free. As far as I can tell anyways. I drove it for about an hour and a half on back roads really getting on it and making sure the fluld heated up all the way and didn't experience any of the grinding. Not even the tiniest bit. Hail satan, because I was considerably worried it would do permanent damage. Lol. So in conclusion, (this is obviously a well known fact among the forum users but new to me), You can NOT use RedLine GL5-7590 in these transmissions. You may think your doing your transmission a favor, your not. I can't speak for this "Scottie's Cocktail" or any other gear oils. Though it is widely acclaimed. I can say however with certainty that 80/90 is the fluid to use. Hope this thread helps someone in a similar predicament, and thank all you guys for your help. I'll be coming back here quite frequently. If the situation changes I will be sure to report back. Thanks alot Nick

Yeah, I'm gonna drive it for a couple days and see if that grinding returns again. If it does then I may try this cocktail, but I'm not even sure if it even applies to this transmission.. Do they use the same manual transmissions in the newer Impreza's? I know that some of the newer ones that have the 2.5 instead of the 2.2 have a slightly different transmission. At least they look slightly different anyways.

Hmm.. Can you link me to the thread?

So today I went to my work and changed the fluid out to our regular Castrol GL5-80/90 Gear oil. It seems to have stopped the problem I think. I drove the car for probably an hour or more and didn't notice any more grinding. I'll know for sure once I drive it a couple more days. I just hope the 7590 didn't cause any lasting damage. ALso, when looking on the Redline website for regular GL5-7590 it says this at the bottom: "This product is not designed for use in most manual transmissions or transaxles in passenger vehicles, since the extreme slipperiness may cause synchronizer mesh issues that lead to shifting problems" TThat's interesting because I have used it in tons of customers manual transmissions and never seen a problem til now. Oh well I guess.

Ah well I can't afford another 7.2 pints of 7590 so I think I will just try 8090 and see if it helps.

Valvoline makes a semi-sythetic 7590 and a full synthetic 7590 actually.

Huh, well I shoulda prolly just used that then. Oh well, I'll just use regular 8090 and see how it goes.

I just used the GL5-7590 by Redline Redline. Not the GL57590NS they came out with for new Subarus.

HHmm so do they make a non-synthetic cheap 7590 too?

Huh. Interesting. I guess I will have to go buy some 8090 tomorrow. There's 45$ to waste I spent on that Redline fluid. That stuff was expensive. Well I will try the 8090 as soon as I can get some and report back and post what my results were. Do you think that having the 7590 in there will do any lasting damage? Or should I try to get it out as soon as possible? I'm a broke joke that's why I ask, and gear oil is expensive.

Really? are you sure? That seems like too easy of a fix. Lol. So it doesn't like synthetic gear oil? Is this a pretty well documented problem?

Hey guys, I'm relatively new to Subarus. I bought a 95 Subaru legacy L a couple months ago. It has 255000 miles on it but runs strong and I haven't had any problems up until now. When I got it, I did the requisite tune up stuff, new spark plugs, wires, oil change, fuel filter, etc. At that time I noticed while checking the manual transmission that the gear oil in the transmission was disgusting. Looked like it hadn't been changed in years and it was about a quart over full. So since I work at a lube shop I resolved to change the transmission fluid as soon as possible. I looked in our computers check chart and for all Subaru Manual transmissions it requires GL5-75/90. So I bought 7.5 pints of our house gear oil, which is RedLine Synthetic 75/90 and changed the transmission fluid. Now, almost immediately afterwards I notice a slight grind when shiting into third gear, and sometimes second as well. It doesn't seem to do it when the car is still cold but after driving a while it gets worse until its a pretty pronounced grind when shiting into third. I am still able to get it into third okay, but that grind makes me nervous as hell. The strange thing is, when I am downshifting, I experience no grind at all whatsoever in any of the gears. Only when going from 2 to 3rd, and sometimes from 1st to 2nd. Very strange. I have a hard time believing that just changing the gear oil could cause this, but I know for sure it wasn't doing this before. Can someone shed some light on this? I really am nervous about it and don't know a whole lot about Subarus. Thanks in advance. Nick