heartless

Tsuru - most things I do take care of myself, but these tapered roller bearings that need to be "pressed" in/out are beyond my tools/capabilities, so I took it to a shop. The first time they did the job (several years ago) they did a fine job - no problems at all. Also, my schedule is so ridiculously busy right now - between work and school, I have almost no time to do anything. Just trying to find the time to get a set of brake pads installed is proving to be a difficult job, lol. I have complete faith in the car - it is, as you said, a Subaru after all, and I cant very well blame the car for a job not done well...that would be silly. No, If I blame anyone, it is partially the mechanic that didnt do the job right, and partially myself for not verifying that it was done right.

interesting - I found it listed here http://www.automotivetouchup.com/touch-up-paint/subaru/1995/all-models/ under "all models" for Subaru, but not under 95 Legacy specifically... thinking you may have a hard time find Legacy specific parts in that color

what jp98 said...find a local starter/alternator shop and go talk to them. it is fairly uncommon to have a connection issue, but it never hurts to take a good look at the connections at the alternator and at the battery. any problems with those should be fairly obvious - corrosion, any melting/burning. Also check in the underhood fuse box - make sure nothing looks corroded or cooked in there. If the main fusible link (looks like a short length of black wire w/connectors on each end) were bad, the car wouldnt even start, so I think we can rule that out... as for Advance Auto - the quality of the help is going to vary with location. the one by me has a couple that are OK & one that knows a fair amount, but most - not so much...

95 Legacy wagon (on right) with straight Forester strut swap - nothing else - sitting next to my bone stock 90 Legacy wagon (on left) - the two cars were the exact same height before the strut swap... 95 is still wearing the stock 14" wheels/tires as well...

for sedan you will need to remove the entire back seat to get to the strut top mount - and I hope you have some offset wrenches...not a lot of space in there.... to remove the back seat, there are 2 bolts just below the front of the bottom seat cushion (the part you butt sits on), remove those and lift up and out on it to remove... for the seat back, I believe there are 3 bolts - one at either end & one in the middle along the bottom edge, unbolt those and kind of lift up and out to remove. once the seat is out, you will see the two small recesses that the strut tops are located in.

are multiple dash lights coming on before the car dies? (not just battery light) if they are, it is definitely alternator. I had a bad alternator that would test fine at the parts store - in the car - but was failing under actual driving conditions due to heat. As soon as I opened the hood, the excess engine heat would escape and the alt would be fine for the test. It took multiple tests and a lot of complaining over the course of several weeks to finally get it replaced (lifetime warranty alt from Advance Auto). Was going through these at about 1 per year...they are basically junk During all that, I had a local alternator/starter specialty shop rebuild an old stock unit I had - put that in the car and have not had a problem since - the lifetime warranty replacement unit is sitting on a shelf as an emergency back-up - that I will probably never use...

might be worth a chat with your local alternator/starter shop. just as a reference, had a local alt/starter shop rebuild a stock 85 amp alt for my car (the aftermarket "lifetime warranty" ones are junk - was going thru them at the rate of about 1 a year) and cost for the rebuild was around $145 - but - I have not had an alternator problem since...been about a year & a half now - going on 2 years...

wait - you are saying the gas itself was black? No, this is not "normal" and yes, rubber does deteriorate over time, and the car is 15 years old...but again - I drive a 1990 that still has some of the original fuel lines on it in the tank vacinity - under hood lines have been replaced since they are subjected to repeated heat/cool cycles causing faster deterioration... that said...you also mention "fine dirt" in the bottom of the tank...I would suspect that this is what is killing your fuel pumps prematurely, if it is fine enough to get past the pick-up screen. when the car is running it is going to stir that dirt up making it easier for the pump to suck it in. as for how to get the dirt out - you could try to suck the dirt up using a siphon hose - keeping the end of the hose down close to the bottom of the tank and moving it around as it sucks the gas/dirt up - similar to cleaning a fish tank if you have ever done that....

Jack it up, take the wheel off and take a look. not hard to do. I had a small rock in mine recently that was causing some strange noises.

You are correct that it is a "trust" issue. I "trusted" that the job had been done correctly the first time - and it wasnt, so of course I am going to be suspicious for a time.

Well, bearing has been replaced along with new seals and a new axle nut as well - all at no cost to me. nut was torqued to 152 ft lbs per FSM specs (123 to 152) Car feels much better going down the road, but I will be keeping an eye on that axle nut for a couple of weeks to make sure it doesnt back off.

look for 1990 thru 1994 - will be a very simple swap - plug and play. 95 i beleive is when they made the engine harness changes (plugging in on right side of tranny vs left side of engine by the underhood fuse box)

This is perfectly normal behavior for these engines. They are supposed to idle higher when first started in colder weather - the colder it is, the longer it will maintain that higher idle. you do need to find out what the code is for the CEL - that will point you in the right direction.

or you could go with an aftermarket roof rack - like from Yakima or similar... as for the galss - dont know what to tell ya on that. I doubt anyone here is going to know a whole lot more about what is available than what you can get out of a dealer. Most folks dont have a problem with the tinted windows so dont ask about untinted... and for the record, there hasnt been completely clear auto glass in a good number of years. Even glass that "looks" clear has a very faint blue or green tint to it.

Well - it turns out the junk yard tranny is a pile of useless junk! They put the car on the alignment rack, got it aligned, and went to take it for a test drive to make sure everything was ok... mechanic said it did good for a couple of miles and then suddenly downshifted very hard on it's own, nearly throwing him thru the windshield. not real sure what happened after that except that they had to bring it back to the shop on the tow truck (flatbed type) it will not go into ANY gear at this point - forward or back MilesFox - you have a message!

I would just eliminate the check valve and see what happens. Just replace the line with a piece long enough to go from the block fitting to the canister. If that sloves the problem, then you know it is/was the check valve causing it. none of the first gen, 90-91 Legacys (5) that we have had ever had that little check valve going to the charcoal canisters under the hood...has to be something that was added later for emissions purposes.

swapped 98 forester struts/springs onto a 95 Legacy - actually, had a shop do it... being told that there is a feeling of "binding" when they moved the car to the alignment bay... (same car that has a bad u-joint in the driveshaft) They think it is because of the different angle on the axles... Have not actually driven it myself yet - plan to swing by there tomorrow after work to give it a test run for myself but in the mean time - has anyone else that has done this swap had any major issues with axles binding? or anything else, for that matter? or could it be the u-joint that they are feeling? Or perhaps a bit of torque bind? it was not mentioned if the binding was felt while driving straight or turning - again, I will be test driving it myself tomorrow evening.

funny you should mention that - my 95 had a broken sway-bar link - but mine was passenger side. if it helps any - early Forester links are the same.

working with Miles on getting the one has from his parts 95. May go ahead and get a replacement anyway - just to try it out.

Well - took the car in this morning (on the trailer). Had a discussion with the foreman - showed him the above video. He started out by trying to sneak the "We'll get that torqued up for you" nonsense past me - I said, "No - I want new bearing, and seals, installed - what is on there has been compromised" - he quickly backtracked to finding me a new bearing (closest is out of Minneapolis - 3.5 hrs away) and seals (about an hour away) - he should have all parts in hand mid morning tomorrow. We will have to see how the rest of this story goes. You can bet I will be closely inspecting the axle nut this time...No more taking things for granted...

Thank you, Tsuru...I doubt I will go to the trouble of baking anything, but I know a lot of people (and am a member on Angies List) - and bad reviews tend to spread like wild fire...but - I will refrain from doing anything (other than general complaining - no names) until I see how they are going to handle the situation. If they will make it right at no cost to me, everything is good. If they try to charge me for ANYTHING - there will be he11 to pay...

I called the shop number today, thinking I would leave a message - they happen to have a 24 hr towing service, so I was actually able to talk to the shop foreman about it...his response: "I will need to see it." He is gonna see it all right - first thing bright and early! oh, yeah - forgot to mention - the only brake pads that need replacing are on that corner, due to the looseness of the hub (both before and after the job) - the rest are all at better than 75-80% - I thought I had done them not all that long ago (late spring, maybe - not all that many miles on them)....turns out I was right.

Recently had the left rear wheel bearing done on my 1990 Legacy wagon by a local shop that has done other work in the past - not a lot, but a few things here & there...had the tires rotated while it was there... I made the mistake of taking it for granted that the job was done correctly - after all, they had done good work in the past. Driving it home on the paved road, it just felt a little "loose" - not like I was used to, even with a bad bearing. I figured that maybe they had lowered the air pressure back to stock pressures when they rotated the tires (I run 34 psi on all 4, stock is 30 front/28 rear) and didnt think much more of it. Anyway - it was mentioned to me when I picked the car up that it needed new brake pads - all the way around..."less than 25%," I was told So I picked up new pads, and went to put them on today.... Jacked up the back end, and found this: This is worse than it was when I took it in....Needless to say I am completely POed! And all my friends wonder why I prefer to do my own work! Stupidity like this is why! Looking at it, you can see that the nut is no where near seated on the axle stub far enough - there are still threads showing on the nut! The car goes back the the shop tomorrow morning, I am insisting on another BRAND NEW bearing being put in - for free, I want to see the old parts as proof, and I will make darn sure that the nut is seated properly before it leaves thier yard again. The worst part about all this is that it is the same shop that is doing the tranny install on the 95...

Yup - what Miles said... jack up the car, support it safely, and grab a tire at the 12 & 6 o'clock positions and try to wiggle it - see if there is any movement.

Yes, very likely the fuel guage is not reading correctly. This is a common issue with the older models. My 1990 Legacy, with 237,000, auto, AWD, gets an overall average of around 24-25 mpg - both city & country driving - summer slightly more - winter slightly less. The guage works only when it wants to, so I dont go by the guage. I reset the trip meter at each fill up, and run to around 275 miles or so on that and fill again - usually in the 11 gallon range when I do. You need to find out what codes are stored - that will tell you more about what is going on with the engine than us just guessing at things @ Gloyal - statistics are just educated guesses - nothing more (in a statistics class right now). A sample range is taken, and an average is calculated off of that sample and applied to the entire "population". it is NOT carved in stone! If the samples are taken from an area that is different than where you are located (ie: above or below sea level, flat ground vs hilly, etc), it is VERY likely that your personal average may differ by quite a bit. Never mind variables such as tire composition, O2 sensor condition, tune-up, etc The mileage that I just posted is based off of 6 - 7 years of driving this same car, under pretty much the same conditions over that time frame. Individual fill-ups have varied by quite a bit, including a high of just over 30 mpg right after changing the O2 sensor, to a low of 23 mpg - right before changing the O2 sensor... The tires I have on my car right now - Kelly Explorers - are softer, stickier tires that have reduced my average mpg by 2-3 mpg overall. The last set of tires I had - Cooper CS4 Tourings - were a harder compound, and I was getting an overall average of about 27mpg with those, with highway mpgs going into the 29mpg range - consistently. The old 89 GL manual consistently got 32-33 mpg - and I didnt drive that car "nice" - it was way too much fun to play... Madkow007 was getting around the same - 32-33 mpg out of his 1990 Legacy sedan, MT as well... So just because the statistics say something, does not mean that ALL cars are going to be exactly the same. There are far too many variables involved to insist that every car is going to be dead on that statistical value.