forester2002s

I find this language distasteful and unnecessary. I enjoy this board, and there's lots of good info here. I certainly don't agree with everybody, but I am not qualified to know if anybody is a 'moron'. And I don't see how it helps to be offensive to others.

I didn't realize that some Subaru engines, e.g. H6, have horizontal filters (fortunately my Forester has a vertical filter). I've had other cars with a horizontal filter, and I curse the engineers who designed such an awful arrangement. Each time that I have done a filter change with a horiz filter, and got covered/splashed with hot dirty oil, I have wanted to drag that design engineer under my car and insist that he change my filter in front of me, so that I could laugh in his (oily) face. Ha! Ha! Ha!

I've always had a 'kill switch' in my vehicles. In pre-electronic-ignition days, my kill-switch was wired to short-out across the contact-points in the distributor. With the switch closed, the starter would turn over, but there would be no spark. And now with all that computer stuff under the hood, my kill-switch is wired in series with the clutch-pedal switch. As someone else has mentioned, the starter won't turn over until the switch is closed. I've always located the kill-switch just below the instrument panel, not visible, but within easy reach. Perhaps not the most secure place, but easy to activate without drawing attention. And I usually use a double-pole switch. One pole for the kill-switch. And the other pole to simultaneously light a red LED in a prominent location on the instrument panel. I saw a TV documentary recently, in which a 'retired' car-thief explained that he just ignored cars with red warning lamps, since he didn't know what the lamp meant, and in any case there was another car a few feet away that was less trouble to steal.

Maybe this would be a good time to lubricate the lock. Try spraying a little WD-40 (using the straw thingy) into the lock, and then jiggle the key in and out multiple times. This will help to lubricate the tumblers and other internal widgets. Works well on door locks too.

Hey, I've never scrolled down to the bottom of the page to see the 'Similar threads' listing. Thanks for the tip.

My new 2002 Forester came with Champion RC10YC4 plugs from the factory.

When you cut open the filters, I suspect that you've also opened a can of worms....:-\

Thanks Frag. That's interesting info. When I've mail-ordered from the US, it is a bit hit and miss with taxes and duties. Sometimes the parcel gets delivered without any extras, and other times I've been hit with all the taxes and duties. But at least now the CAD/USD exchange rate is much better (for Canadians anyway).

Model and year? The only help that I can offer is that on many models, the two green connectors are for interrogating error codes. I'm sure that someone can explain how they work.

That's good to know. Thanks for posting.

I have a 2002 Forester without a sunroof. Shortly after buying the car, I looked into the possibility of installing an after-market sunroof. I looked under (above?) the headliner, and discovered a structural rib crossing the roof, exactly where a sunroof would go. That rib would have to be removed to instal a sunroof. I've no doubt that many sunroof suppliers would have no problem doing that, but it made me decide to abandon the idea.

The technical term for that is: Stinkin' Hot.

When I measure my fuel consumption, the capacity of the fuel tank does not enter into it. I just fill up completely each time. And I reset the trip-odometer to zero. Then I use the current fill volume and the distance since the last fill to calculate either: Litres*100/km (to give me L/100km); or else: miles/gallons (to give mpg). It's that easy! Having said that, I find that a single reading is not really accurate, because the level of the final 'fill' is variable. Some pumps 'click off' too early, and others too late with the gas up into the filler tube. So my spreadsheet also calculates the fuel consumption over the last five fills. I call that a 5FMA (5-Fill Moving Average). I find that useful to observe long-term trends.

Please explain how putting two people in a car changes the circumference of a tire. BTW: 'Circumference' is the distance measured around the outside surface of the rubber tread on a tire.

It's a silicone sealant: http://www.threebond.co.jp/en/product/series/sealants/1100list.html

My own take on this is that 5000 RPM is too high for engine braking alone. I would use 3rd gear (instead of 2nd), and limit the engine to no more than about 3500 to 4000 RPM, by using occasional pedal braking.

I got 40-km (25 miles) out of my 2002 Forester MT5, before the engine started misfiring, and I then refuelled from a portable gas-can.

What colour is the connector? How many wires connect to each side of the connector? What shape is the connector (rectangular? round? flat?)?

Good for blockages of the human kind too?

That should be plenty enough time for the oil level to settle!

I would echo the suggestion to do an oil change. If it is noisy tappets, then clean oil will often cure this. BTW how many miles since the last oil change? Is the oil black?

Diesel engines for cars have made huge strides in recent years. I recently rented a car in Europe (Spain actually). I didn't realize that it was a diesel at first; it was very quiet, and very smooth. And no noticeable exhaust smell/smoke. It was the 'flat' torque-speed characteristics that made me realize that this was a diesel (high-torque at low revs.). I was very impressed with that engine (BTW it was a Ford). If Subaru can do as well, I may be the in the market for a diesel next time around.

My 2002 Forester has different keys for the roof-rack and car. The roof-rack key is a 'Yale'-type (similar to a front-door key), but smaller. There's no way that the car key would even fit into the rack.

Just to set the record straight: - below the yield point, metals are ELASTIC (i.e. they return to the same shape after the load is removed); - above the yield point, metals are PLASTIC (i.e. they don't return to the same shape after the load is removed).