Weird Issues thus far.

[Legacy04]

Been driving the suby off and on now for a few. The girlfriend drives is mostly. I have a couple minor gripes...

 

1. When its cold the side mirrors ALWAYS have a layer of frost on them.

 

2. Weird sounds from the engine when warming up? click thud ?

 

3. I don't think it handles any better than my Jetta w/snow tires.

In fact maybe worse. It is the Potenza's..

 

WDYT

[gbhrps]

Legacy04,

 

If your mirrors fog up whenever its cold outside...that's normal, and every cay I've ever owned did the same thing in our Southern Ontario, Canada winters. The solution is to turn on the heated mirror switch..if your car is so eguipped. Other than that, its get out the windshield scrapper time.

Engine noises that go away when the engine warms up are notoriously a fact of life with many Subaru engines. Its called piston slap, and occurs until the pistons heat up and expand enough to fit the clyinder bore correctly, they will flop back and forth creating the thunk/slap noise you are hearing. Read the threads on piston slap and you'll discover that its annoying, but won't significantly hurt the longevity of the engine. Just grin and bear it like all of us do.

You don't give a model year for your car, but I suspect that your present tires are too wide. My 97 OBW had 215/70/15 Blizzaks for winter driving and the car was unstoppable. My 02 OBW has 225/60/16 Icetracks and I cannot get anywhere near the speeds in ice or snow that the old car would do. The fault is that these much wider tires ride up on top of the slush and snow and more or less aquaplane. I can't wait for them to wear out so I can put as narrow a winter tire as possible on the 16 inch rims. As well, if you're using just a all season tire, you need to get another set of steel rims and dedicated, narrow ice grip tires. You'll be amazed at the traction you get.

[Legacy04]

Thanks! I have never had a car who's mirrors frost as much as this one. Going to pick up a set a Nokian NRW's w/steels this summer.