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Could use some guidance about a repair, and sorry for the long background here. 2001 Outback 2.5 AT, 130K miles. Whining sound under load, stops as soon as you let off the gas but then there's a whispery sort of scraping sound as the transmission downshifts into each gear while coasting. This has been going on for some time. Have been to 3 mechanics with varying opinions. Long time mechanic #1 said, yeah, it's the differential going bad, costs a lot to fix, just ignore it, it will get worse but might as well just drive it until the whole transmission goes and then redo the whole thing if you're going to keep the car. Mechanic #2 (transmission shop) said yeah, sounds like the differential, need to pull/rebuild the transmission, minimum $1600 probably more but won't know until we go in. Time cut to this week, where there's suddenly a weird choking shimmy while turning right and accelerating up hill. Mechanic #3 (different transmission shop) says probably 2 separate problems. First, he noted torn CV boot/axle needs replacing front driver side, which may or may not have been the cause of the shimmy but couldn't be replicated. Second, in his opinion the differential noise is coming from one of the bearings (he called them the front carrier bearings). He said there is a way to get at them without having to pull the differential, but it is difficult and about 20% of the time he's done it there is "gaulding" upon removal of the part of differential case that is the access point, in which case it's impossible to put back together and the whole housing would need to be replaced which would mean having to pull everything and could wind up being really expensive. (Apparently nobody sells just the differential case separate of the transmission.) He recommends doing the bearings and axle at the same time since he'd have to pull the axle to get at the differential case anyway so it would save on labor; replacing the carrier bearing/s (he thinks it is a particular one because the whine is only under acceleration, not coasting); and adding some thicker fluid in the event the problem is actually the transfer case going bad. And also that if the gear in the differential has been damaged by the bad bearing then the fix might not cure the noise 100%. Oh, and that there's no book time shown for the bearing repair he's talking about but it probably is about 5 hours but he's not sure it depends what happens. So, minimum $500 + parts with a risk of killing the differential rather than fixing it. And so, here are my questions: 1. Is it possible that the whining noise is due simply to the axle issue, and that replacing just the axle would fix the noise, and all the mess about the diff bearings and gaulding and the rest is malarkey? Would it make sense to try an axle replacement (have seen deals for under $200) first or would it indeed be dumb to (potentially) pay 2x for labor? 2. Does anyone know anything about the way he's planning to get a the bearings, the gaulding and the odds that attempting the repair might result in the untimely death of a car that is currently running (albeit noisily)? i.e. are the odds really 80/20, or is this repair actually common and no big deal, or is it actually more like 20/80 and the guy's angling for a whole costly rebuild when things go south? Don't really have $3K to spend on a new (used/rebuilt) transmission. 3. Does anybody know the part number for the carrier bearings and seals? He suggested that if we are going to go ahead it would make sense to pre-order them and bring them with me when I drop off the car, that the Subie dealer here is really slow to order parts + expensive + not as good parts as other brands like Timken. I don't find "carrier bearings" listed; is there another name for them? Or are they part of a larger set? Opinions most appreciated, including whether it's time to move on from this car...