keith3267

jseabolt. Some people, and car enthusiasts who work on their own cars are the worse, are just way too anal about getting every last drop of old fluid out of their car when doing a fluid exchange. This includes oil, ATF, PS fluid, brake fluid and coolant. It isn't necessary. I know people that leave the drain plug out of the engine for 24 hours when doing an oil change. I do a brake flush when I change the pads. The caliper pistons are drawn as far back into the cylinder as they can go so any residual brake fluid is minimal. After the flush, the residual old fluid will migrate into the fresh fluid so worse case, it is like fresh brake fluid with a 1000 miles on it. If I get 90% of the old fluid out and replaced with new, I am happy. In the case of transmissions, I believe in drain and fill, starting early and doing it frequently so it never gets contaminated enough to do any damage.

matt167 is absolutely correct. You may have had the tires for 9 years, but they could be a lot older than that. You need to look at the date code on the tires to be sure.

Very serious, you should try it sometime when ever you get brake shudder. There are several conditions that can cause brake shudder, this only works for one of them. But consider the cost of trying this first and its a no-brainer. Modern disc brake systems are not sealed. The old all drum systems were sealed. The reason is that in the old drum brake systems, the brakes were mechanically adjusted for wear, so the brake fluid level remained fairly constant. In a disc brake system, the adjustment for wear is simply moving brake fluid from the master cylinder to the calipers. As the brakepads wear down, the caliper piston moves out to compensate (actually just doesn't move back as far when you let off the brakes) which enlarges the reservoir of fluid in the caliper. There is a small vent in the cap of the master cylinder to let in air, otherwise a vacuum would form in the master cylinder and the brake pads would get sucked back to their original positionand soon the pedal travel would be so long that the brake would not work very well. I flush my brake lines when ever I change my pads. I never add fluid between pad changes because with most vehicles, the min line in the master cylinder corresponds to the pads being worn out. When the fluid gets low, I inspect the brakes and unless there is a leak, the pads are always near their wear limit.

Tires are not supposed to be SOLD if they are over 6 years old. That may sound odd but some tire dealers have sold tires that sat in their storeroom for over 6 years. Usually tires are good for 10 years unless they are in a real harsh environment. You can drive modern snow tires year round, but snow tires are not required to have speed or wear ratings like other tires. A little local driving in the summer will not hurt them, but I would recommend against a long road trip in the summer. On hard pavement, snow tires are usually a lot noisier than the all seasons or touring tires.

You could put LEDs in the trailer, then the cars harness would never feel the load of the trailer lights. But you would need a simple harness adapter and not one that uses relays.

Before you do anything, try this. Find a lonely road and do a fast (not lockup) stop from about 60 mph. Actually let off the brakes at about 5 mph to prevent a hot spot from forming. Then get back up to 60 and lightly test the brake. If there is still a shimmy, repeat the fast stop and test again. Most of the time, one or two hard stops will clear up the problem. If it doesn't, then the rotors need to be checked for run out with a dial indicator. I would test before machining or replacement. But I'd say that 90% of the time, one or two hard stops solves the problem. People who are easy on their brakes sometimes don't get the rotors hot enough to clean them off, but they do get hot enough for some of the binders from the pads to accumulate on the rotors. The hard stops heats the rotors up enough to burn off the residues, but it won't "unwarp" the rotors if they are truly warped.

I think false. You have to bench bleed the MC before you install it, forcing air back into it after installing it will undo the bench bleed. Better to bleed the system properly. BTW, if you have ABS and you force the brake fluid to go upstream, it can damage the ABS module.

Lift kits, strut replacements, blocks etc only lift the body, they do not provide extra ground clearance. Only larger diameter tires will give you additional ground clearance. The lift kits etc allow you to use larger diameter tires, but you may have room for slightly larger tires now. First find the largest diameter tire that will work with your present suspension. Tire rack dot com has sizes listed for +1 and +2. Look at the largest diameter tire that will fit and subtract the diameter of your current tires, the lift will be half of this.

Have you called your local dealer to find out what the Subaru ATF sells for? I haven't done this yet for my Subaru, but other family vehicles I have serviced, Hondas and Toyotas, use special ATF's and they typically are only a buck or two more per quart at the dealer than the generic stuff is at the auto parts store. Dealers are allowed to sell it at any price they think they can get and I've heard stories of dealers selling the special ATFs at $20-30 or more per quart, but I haven't experienced this for myself.

Its not the CVT I have a issue with, its the cruise control. And come to think of it, I was doing a check of the speedometer on a long flat and mostly empty stretch of highway somewhere in the southwest (Texas ?) a couple of years ago where I set the CC on 80 for one hour ad used the mile markers for distance. One hour later, 79.7 miles. I don't remember the transmission shifting to a lower ratio then, but I might have been in manual mode as I often do on trips. It acts like the cruise control changes the shift profile of the trasmission when it is engaged, the transmission is just doing what it is told to do. I also manually resume speed because of how the CC acts, but I just don't use CC very often. I drive my cars and if I weren't sharing the car with my wife, it would have a manual transmission.

If you do a drain and refill every 25k miles, you don't need to get it all. Each drain and refill will put enough new ATF and additives to keep thte transmission in good working order for the life of the vehicle. If you wait until the ATF is totally depleted, then you need to flush. Before doing a flush, make sure the pan is drained, removed and a new filter (or clean the old filter if it a SS screen) installed. Fill the pan with fresh ATF. Then hook up a FLUID EXCHANGE MACHINE, not a flush machine. A fluid exchange machine uses the transmission to pump the old fluid out. A flush machine uses a exteral pump that can damage the transmission. Note: some fluid exchange machines are labeled flush so ask which it is. If the engine has to be running and the transmission put through the gears, its the right one. If you don't do the drain and fill first, you will ever get all the old ATF out. The old ATF will be drawn from the center of the pan and fresh put in at the side. The new will be mixing with the old.

Its under waranty, the dealer has to fix it. If they want to replace a non existant part, OK but when that doesn't work, they still have to fix it, even if you go over the 60k miles. Keep all your documentation until you are satisfied it is fixed.

I just got back from my summer road trip in my 14 Subaru Legacy. Normally I do not use cruise control unless my foot or leg gets really tired or painful. I noticed something unusual. I'd be cruising along at a set speed on flat ground, say 2400 rpm at 80 mph and if I turn on the cruise control, within a minute or so, the tach would jump up to 32-3400 rpm. If I shut off the cruise control and held the same speed, I'd be back down to 2400 rpm. The only way to control this was to put the transmission in manual and use the paddle shifter to make sure I was in the 6th gear range. Has anyone else noticed this behavior with a CVT in cruise control? I also found that when I would hit the resume button after dropping a little speed from using the brakes, the throttle would go WOT and the tach would go almost to redline until the car got back up to speed. Never had a cruise control do that before.

Seriously, don't get a JDM motor. They may have low miles, but they have lots of hours on them. Traffic in Japan is unreal and an engine with 25k miles on it is worn out. Getting an engine to last 25k miles in Japan is the reason they last 200k over here.

The owners manual calls for checking the ATF in the CVT unless you regularly haul a trailer. Then the CVT ATF needs to be changed every 25k miles. Since there is no dipstick, I wonder how you "check" the ATF.

Bank 1 sensor 2 means the rear sensor, not the front one and the heater for the sensor has burned out. Most DTCs (diagnostic trouble codes) are two trip codes, meaning that the condition must be detected in two drive cycles in a row before the MIL (check engine light) is lit. The first time the condition is detected, a pending code is stored in the PCM memory. If it is not detected on the next drive cycle (cold start to operating temp and then shut down long enough to get back to cold), the code is deleted. If it is detected in the next drive cycle, the MIL is turned on and the code appears twice, once as a pending and once as an active code. If the condition disappears due to repair or luck, the MIL will turn off after ten drive cycles but the codes will remain for thirty drive cycles. Anytime during the thirty drive cycles, it becomes a one trip code. BTW, circuit low means low voltage and that is due to the voltage not getting to the solenoid or the solenoid is shorted or refusing to open or the wire is shorted to ground. An open circuit will read a high voltage.

Thanks.

Does anyone know if the camber is adjustable on the 2014 Legacy?

I was in somewhat the same predicament When I bought or 14 Legacy. Between my wife and I, we had the new Legacy, 97 Nissan PU and a 2002 Saturn. The PU is used for hauling garden supplies and trash mostly, occasionally lumber from the yard for projects around the house. Its noisy and uncomfortable so I don't like driving it very far. After buying the Legacy and keeping the Saturn, it took 6 months to put on the first 3k miles so it didn't make sense to keep the Saturn and let the Legacy sit around so much. I wish I had kept the Saturn. We are racking up the miles now to where we have exceeded our insurance policy limits for mileage (12k/yr).

Changing the offset can affect the life of your wheel bearings, but a 6mm change will not be significant. If you changed it by 20mm or more, then you would seriously shorten the life of the wheel bearings. Of bigger concern is the hub hole diameter. If this doesn't match the hub size on the vehicle, then it will be difficult to keep the wheel centered on the hub. This will result in poor ride quality and wheel shake at certain speeds. Edit: a 6mm change in offset will still have the center of balance for the wheel between the inner and outer wheel bearings, but just a little more to the outer bearing. The bearings are spaced about 30 to 40mm apart so a 15 to 20mm change would put the center of balance over one bearing or outside the width of the bearings where it will really wreck havoc on the bearings.

The Legacy's don't have that cover. There isn't one on my 2014 Legacy and I bought it new. It was just last week when it was at the dealership for a new canister filter (under warranty) that I noticed it and they checked the parts diagram for the car and it is not there. It is on the Outback though. ???

I'd get at least one more opinion. It sounds to me like this shop was doing some shotgunning.

Yesterday the UPS truck stopped and dropped off a package for me from Subaru. I didn't order anything so I double checked the label, it was definitely for me. I opened it up and there was a card from Subaru that said in part "To show our gratitude for the recent opportunity to improve your Subaru experience, we hope you'll enjoy this useful Dyson in your Subaru and in your home." The box contained a Dyson v6 cordless vacuum cleaner ($300 at Walmart). Are they trying to bribe me for a good review? Anyway, I took the Subie in for its appointment for the repair. They found the air filter for the canister full of water. They emptied the water, cleared the code, and ordered a new filter. I'll have to take it back when the new filter comes in. The CEL came back on 7 miles from the dealership on my way home.

The black plastic part is the inner fender. The part you circled is part of the unibody so technically you can call it part of the frame or part of the body or part of the engine bay.

A guy in Australia got his hands on an old tester used to measure wear resistance on various oil. In his tests, the Royal Purple was one of the best oils for wear protection. Only some very high dollar racing oils beat it, and because of their high viscosity, they aren't suitable for street use, only track use. But wear resistance isn't the only thing thats important. Thermal breakdown is just as important if not more important. As oil breaks down due to heat, it looses its ability to protect against wear. That is why we change it as often as we do. Also at the time, the Royal Purple would not upgrade to SN designation because the SN oils had less ZDDP and Molylith in them and those were the primary anti-wear ingredients. All the SN oils have now found newer anti-wear ingredients and are better and I believe Royal Purple has now upgraded. Anyway, my point is that for a turbo engine, you need an oil with the highest thermal breakdown temperature. If you can find a chart anywhere on the internet, they used to be there but I haven't found any lately and the specs change every few months as oil companies try new (improved?) formulas, I suspect that the European spec oils (BMW, Mercedes, Porsche) 0w30 oils will be the best as they have to be a Group IV oil.