keith3267

I bought a 2014 Legacy new in Dec 2013. My wife wanted it but I thought then that is had a rough ride but I didn't realize how bad until I got on a washboard road. Large bumps like railroad tracks don't seem to bother it and it takes them in stride, but on a washboard or older road surface that has a lot of small bumps and this car sounds like it is shaking apart. It makes more noise than an old logging truck. It sounds like a jackhammer hitting the bottom of the car at all 4 wheels. At first I blamed the 50 series tires (215-50/17) so when one got damaged by a rock at 50k miles, I replaced all 4 with 215-55/17. It helped a little but it is still the noisiest vehicle I have ever driven on washboard roads, and I've been driving cars, trucks and buses for 55 years, including military trucks up to 5 tons. Anyone else have this issue with their 14 Legacy or Outbacks?

Did you notice that you can't get refills for pens anymore?

I bought new Goodyear hybrid wiper blades from Costco for $4 each.

I think that Subaru Scott has or is close to the right answer. First of all, when the cooling system is up to temp and everything is working, the lower hose should be cool. That is the function of the radiator, to cool the coolant down before it is drawn back into the engine. The upper radiator hose should be hot. You may have a slight leak of either coolant or oil somewhere that is getting onto a hot exhaust component such as the manifold. It can be a very slight leak. If it is coolant, it could takes weeks or months before the coolant drops enough to notice. A small oil leak could be so slight that it doesn't drop significantly between normal oil changes.

In addition to a possible air leak between the MAF and throttle body, you could have a bad intake manifold gasket or even a cracked intake manifold. Other possibilities include a vacuum hose disconnected, major break in a vacuum line, especially the one to the brake booster or a bad brake booster. But, I would first disconnect the battery overnight, or even for up to 24 hours, then reconnect everything and restart the engine. Give it a chance to learn the new MAF sensor.

Just one and use OEM. If you replace with aftermarket coils that are not OEM suppliers, it would be possible to have them fail before any of the remaining coils go. BTW, coils can be measured for wear and tear, but the test is really expensive and only done on large industrial distribution transformers, i.e. substation transformers.

"Oh I left out, that's when they were called a "TV Set"." Yeah, but a "TV Set" was a piece of furniture back then. They came in nice wood cabinets in almost any style you could think of. Some even had built in Hi Fi.

"Generally speaking, the closer the pre-amp is to the antenna, the better job it does. That's why Subaru put it about 6" from the window antenna, so it would work with the inferior antenna. Now if you have the old style antenna, then the pre-amp can be far from the antenna, even inside the radio, since the old style antenna gets a stronger signal." Old style whip antenna's were usually placed on the front fender so it was pretty close to the radio. But even at the rear of the car, the losses of the coax really aren't very much, even considering that the coax cables used are not very good quality. When you run 60-100' of coax from a roof top antenna to your TV, you need a very low loss coax or an amp at the antenna, or both. I live in a fringe area with multiple TV's and DVR's hooked up and one remaining LVHF station so I need both. "I forget where the FM band is. Is it between the tv channels 6 and 7? I remember back in the day you could tune in channel 6 TV on many FM radios and some radio stations you could get with old TV's that had fine tuning after turning the clunkity clunk tuner. Anyway FM is in or close to Low VHF, requiring larger antenna. Especially down at 88.5 where my favorite station is." Yeah, FM is just above TV channel 6. There is a little gap between FM and HVHF TV channel 7 though. Funny story, in the days of the "clunkity clunk" tuners, you could get a wired remote tuner but no one liked them, and back then most people weren't too lazy to get off their butts to change channel, or had kids to change the channels for them. Kids were the first audio controlled remotes for TV and now I see ads for a TV service that uses audio prompted remotes. Progress heh. Back on track, Sears offered the first wireless remote control for their TV's, problem was that it didn't work. My Uncle bought one and had to take it back. Sears had to admit they jumped the gun on that one. I think about a year later they finally got a working model but it didn't sell well.

They do put more strain on your wheel bearings.

"Not to mention that if these window ones worked so great for FM, why do they need an amplifier? The old steel rod doesn't need one." Actually they did and still do. Car radios have always had a pre-amp in them. Fractal antenna's are a lot more complex than just repeating patterns, I have built some for TV's. The ones I built for TV reception did not pick up LVHF but that was only because they weren't designed for that. LVHF requires larger elements than the ones I made, but for HVHF and UHF, they were fantastic and did not require a preamp as my more conventional antenna's had.

Which engine do you have, the 2.5 or the 3.6. The 2.5 will have trouble hauling much of a load over the Rockies. It should be able to handle 2000# total, including yourself. Carrying anything on top of the car will add a lot of drag, it is best to put everything in the trailer. If you don't have a hitch, first check with a Subaru dealer about a hitch that is made specifically for your Outback. It should be either welded to your body or bold to predetermined hard points on the body. It also must have a 2" receiver if you want to rent from U-haul. U-haul will NOT rent a trailer to you if they suspect that your hitch is a universal adjustable receiver or if it has a 1.25" receiver. Also consider that U-haul trailers are heavy duty so they can weigh 800+ pounds empty which doesn't leave much capacity for your goods. You could buy a utility trailer for around $700 and sell it at your destination. They have good resale value. You could also look to buy a used utility trailer but beware that often the tires on these have passed their "use by" date and could blow out along the way. Shipping is an option but UPS will be kinda pricy. Look for a freight company, their costs are usually far lower than UPS.

If you have a pattern anything like the one in the picture, then it is a fractile design and I can guarantee it is superior to any "steel rod" antenna. Fractile antenna designs are what has made the high bandwidth 3G and 4G smart phones work like they do, the old rod antennas could not handle these tasks. If yours isn't working, then there is a problem somewhere with a connection. It isn't the antenna's fault. It is possible that there might be a break in one of the traces in the window that would disrupt reception, you would have to examine every trace very carefully but it's far more likely that there is corrosion in one of your connections or the shield in the coax is broken or kinked. If ants get into your car, they love the dielectric in the coax and will eat right through the shield to get at it.

I'm sure you are aware that if you have a modern TV in your house, along with a home theater system and DVD/BluRay, they have a parasitic draw. Anything with a remote will have a parasitic draw because the appliance is in standby constantly listening for the remote. Modern cars are the same way, they have a parasitic draw while listening for the FOB and for the security systems. If you have the keyless option, it is even higher. Your battery should be good for at least two weeks between starts though. But once it is run all the way dead, it suffers internal damage and its live and capacity are compromised. You probably need a new battery by now. If you don't drive the car at least once every other week, then you should get a battery maintainer installed. They run about $40 but you may want to get it permanently installed under the hood so that when you pull into the garage, you just plug in the cord. A battery maintainer with a 3/4 (0.75) amp rating should be adequate but you may want to go with a 1.25 or 1.5 amp rated. Nothing larger than that, you won't need it and they just use more power over time. Be sure it is a charger/maintainer and not just a cheap charger. A charger, sometimes called a float charger, can damage your new battery but a charger maintainer will not harm your battery.

The antenna is in a side window? I have not seen this, usually it is in the rear window. Can you see the path of the wires in the window? If so is there a pair of wires going up the center and then turning 90 degrees in opposite directions to form a T shape or are there several rows with bends in different places? The former would be a dipole, the latter would be a fractile antenna. A fractile should work good. If it doesn't, then I'd trace the wires to the edge of the glass. You may have to remove some trim. The check the connections. They could have become corroded or just lost contact. Carefully removing them and reinserting the connections, or just wiggling them could improve your reception.

Are your windows tinted after market?

Early window antenna's were bi-directional and very poor for AM. They worked for FM most of the time. Newer in window antenna's are using fractal designs which have a lot more bandwidth and efficiency and are almost omni-directional.

Is your issue with AM or FM stations or both? Those window antenna's aren't really designed for AM.

The tire you want to use is only about a quarter inch larger in radius than the stock tire, but your summer tire is about an inch smaller in radius. Radius dimensions are the most important as this determines your actual clearance. The tire is also wider by almost a quarter inch from the center to the edge. Off the cuff, I'm going to say they would work, but first, put your stock tires back on. Then use the knuckle closest to your palm of the middle finger as a gauge. The steering knuckle goes up the back of the tire and then over the top to the upper ball joint. If your middle finger knuckle fits between the tire and the steering knuckle on top and around to the widest part of the tire, you are good to go. If you try this with your summer tires, you only need the knuckle on your finger to clear at the widest part of the tire, but you need at least an inch and a quarter (inch and a half would be better) at the top under the upper ball joint. Edit: if your model is before they started using an upper control arm, the the steering knuckle probably doesn't go over the top of the tire like the current ones do and you should be good to go without any measurements. They usually leave room for a larger size tire in their designs and .3" should not be a problem. Also all these measurements are for new tires, used tires will have a smaller radius, so compensate for that as well.

Yeah, cold weather. Below 40 degrees that @*&% CVT holds the ratio too low, won't upshift. CVT's are just not programmed correctly.

No, it won't.

Do you ever step on the pedal just a little when it won't start? If you do that with the noid light hooked up, you may start seeing pulses.

The noid light flashed when you let up because it thought the engine had started. It doesn't really know that the engine has started, only that the key is in the run position and it got a signal from the crankshaft position sensor or cam position sensor. But by all means, continue to check your wiring, I am only offering an alternative to consider.

The chemistry of an AGM battery is the same as with any lead acid battery, its the physical construction that is different. Optima is a leading supplier of AGM batteries and in my opinion, they are the best batteries because of their spiral construction. But Optima sells a line of battery charger/maintainers, which are also good products, but a little (lot) more costly than some more commonly available brands. They kinda hint that only their chargers/maintainers are safe to use with AGM batteries, but I don't see where they out right say that because it is not true. There are some cheap low current (trickle) chargers that are not maintainers that can damage an AGM battery if left on too long, but they damage all other car batteries if left on too long also. The important thing is if you don't use your car for long periods of time and require a charger to maintain the charge on the battery, any battery AGM or conventional, make sure it is a charger/maintainer. If you drive the vehicle at least once a week, you don't need an external charger/maintainer so it doesn't matter.

First, I think you are wrong about this. If the engine is just cranking and the injectors squirt gas on every compression stroke, you could flood the engine. It is hard to say because new cars with everything working start so quickly that they only get the one pulse and their running. Of course once running, they get a shot of gas at every compression cycle. But on re-reading your original post, I seemed to have missed something, or didn't see the significance of it the first time. You stat that once you stop cranking and hit the starter again, it starts right up. That leads me to suspect that you are losing fuel pressure during long shut downs. There could be a number of reasons for this, but there are a couple of things you could try. If you own a fuel pressure gauge, hook it up, start the engine and then shut down. Make a note of the fuel pressure, then check it after a long shut down and see if it held pressure. If you don't own the gauge, then after a long shutdown when you normally have this problem, turn the key to the run position for two seconds, then off, and then start and see if it starts immediately. That would confirm that loss of fuel pressure is the issue.

I don't believe you get pulses during cranking save for a large pulse at the very beginning. If it kept pulsing the injectors during cranking, it would flood the engine. Some older cars had a special injector called a cold start injector, I don't think those are used any more.