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Jo3sh posted:How late were the 2.5L headgaskets a problem? Specifically, is there a potential issue on my wife's '03 Forester (NA)? I'm not 100% on this, but I think the gaskets are mostly confined to the 1999-2002 models, since Subaru issued a warranty extension for those model years. For living in snowy or icy areas, I can't think of something better than a Subaru as a daily driver, especially with the 5 speed and the 50-50 power split. It never ceases to amuse me when I'm able to pull away from a stop sign in the winter with just a little wheelspin, while people driving Excursions and lifted F-150's sit there furiously spinning the rear wheels. Also, I can't think of anything more fun than finding an icy, empty parking lot and tossing my Forester around for a little while.
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Oct 2, 2008 19:25
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8ender posted:Its weird though, because its not lacking in power, its just delivers it oddly. On the highway when its already turning around 3000rpm its a beast when you put your foot into it. That's just a Subaru thing, and it's normal. Once you get used to where the power starts coming on, you completely forget about it until you drive something else. Where the power band comes in handy is taking off from a stop in slippery conditions, since it gives the wheels a bit more time to find grip and really cuts down on wheelspin.
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Oct 3, 2008 06:57
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Lando posted:Ugh..called the dealer about 30K mile maintenance. They wanted close to $500 just for factory recommended items. Called All Aspects, a local Subaru specialty garage and they said $220. Hmm.. Dealers are a ripoff for anything not done under warranty. I went through the exact same thing, but got quoted $650 from a dealer and only $300 from a local shop. The local shop had the job done in half a day (the dealer wanted at least 24 hours), and didn't try to sell me extra services, which I've never had a dealer do.
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Oct 11, 2008 21:25
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Cat Terrist posted:
This. The stock tires on my '03 Forester X were terrible just from a daily drive standpoint and I don't even want to know how they handle if pushed. After I replaced them, the ride was much better over any kind of uneven surface, and the cabin noise level dropped by about 50% above about 35mph. I replaced them with a set of good all seasons, and in addition to the improved ride and noise, the Forester is now nigh-unstoppable in snow and ice.
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Oct 18, 2008 04:08
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Disciple of Pain posted:
It's basically a ball-bearing inside an angled tube that the brake lines run through, with no electronics being involved in the process. When the car is on an uphill grade and stops, the hill-holder traps brake pressure in the lines to prevent rolling backwards when the brake pedal is released in order to make taking off from the hill easier on the driver. The way the system is designed, the trapped brake pressure is released as the clutch pedal is brought up when taking off so the effect is the same as taking off from a hill while gradually releasing the parking brake. Probably because the system is so drat simple, it works very well, but it can be a pain for parallel parking, since the system will sometimes start engaging when it shouldn't and can make reversing a bit of a pain. To disable the system, it's possible to re-route the brake lines around the hill-holder, but the more common (and much easier) method is to just disconnect the cable running to the device to keep it from engaging at all.
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Oct 31, 2008 07:36
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I believe the high idle is related to the engine being cold, and the idle comes down to normal as the engine gets up to temperature. As to why it happens in the summer, I have no idea.
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Nov 13, 2008 21:33
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I'm officially proud of myself, since I managed to silence the noisy window seals on my Forester for a whopping $11. Yesterday, I was wiping some snow off the inside of the window gusset (the triangular rubber thing at the front of the window) while driving, and discovered that if I pressed on the gusset, the wind noise almost vanished. When I got home, I rolled down the front windows, and noticed that the gussets were slightly spread apart at the top, probably from people opening and closing the doors by pushing on the windows before I owned the Forester. Inspired by this, I bought an $11 set of vice grips (somehow I didn't already own a set), and clamped them down pretty firmly on the top part of both gussets for a couple of seconds. When I removed them, the gap for the window was visibly smaller, and the window motor no longer sounded like it was having a load removed on that part of the track. Today, I was stunned to be able to drive in 35mph winds, without hearing a whistling from the front windows, and the little stream of cold air that used to come from the front of the windows is gone to boot.
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Nov 19, 2008 07:01
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upsciLLion posted:How's the road noise and visibility in Foresters? The road noise really depends on the tires and the front windows. My 03 Forester was fairly noisy with the horrible stock tires at interstate speeds, but after I replaced them with good all-seasons, the noise dropped dramatically and the ride improved as well. Windows play a big part in the noise as well, since the Forester had frameless windows until the 09 model year, and they can cause a lot of wind noise. If the front windows get flexed a lot (usually from people using them to close the doors), the glass will gradually spread apart a metal bracket inside the side mirror housing, which leads to a lot of wind noise at highway speeds. The problem can often be fixed by simply rolling down the affected window and clamping a vice grip down on the triangular piece that houses the side mirror. Doing this bends the bracket back where it should be, and if done right (it requires no mechanical skill whatsoever), the noise will vanish. With decent tires and good window seals, there is a bit of road and wind noise present, but it's still easy to carry on a normal conversation, sleep or listen to the radio without having to turn it up to 11.
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Feb 20, 2009 00:33
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upsciLLion posted:One of the things my girlfriend and I dislike most about her Civic is how it sounds like every noise is coming in through a megaphone, so this is good to know. Could you comment about the visibility? Visibility is good, as you'd expect from something with that much glass. The windshield is large enough that forward visibility isn't an issue, even for tall drovers, and the hood is flat enough that it's pretty easy to judge where the front corners are for parking. There side blind spots are where you'd expect them to be, and the visibility out the back is surprisingly good. Because the glass on the hatch goes down to roughly the level of the rear seatbacks and the hatch is pretty much the back of the car (the bumper extends maybe six inches further aft), it's very easy to judge where the back of the Forester is in reverse, and the glass offers enough visibility that I don't have to worry about not seeing something behind me.
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Feb 20, 2009 17:11
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Cuntpunch posted:Alright I have a terribly stupid question: It's normal. Every manual I've ever driven has done the exact same thing, and I've always assumed it's due to the parking brake not applying the front brakes when engaged.
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Jul 25, 2009 05:58
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dayman posted:Bad center diff. The viscous coupling has failed, so now it locks when the plates heat up from normal driving. The clunk is the driveline loading and unloading while you're turning since, in sharp corners, the front wheels travel further than the rears. Exact same thing happened to me when mine failed. My 03 Forester went into the dealer on Friday for that same problem. It went into a a different dealer twice under warranty for the same problem, and they claimed they were unable to reproduce the problem. The dealer I went to this time knew exactly what the problem was, and they're going to try and get Subaru to pay for the work, since the other dealer missed a really common problem on two separate occasions.
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Aug 17, 2009 02:53
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bung posted:Whenever I turn the wheels to one extreme or another and back up, sometimes it feels like the cv joints are clunking. I called the Subaru dealer and they told me that there was a TSB about that issue saying that it is the center diff binding up and that it is normal. They said that they'd look at the cv joints at my next service to make sure there is no problem. Does this sound correct or are they just bullshitting me? That sounds a lot like the center diff is acting up, but it couldn't hurt to check the CV joints, since they're much cheaper to fix. I've got an 03 Forester that had the exact same clunking problem after driving at highway speeds for any length of time, and it turned out to be the center diff binding when it warmed up. The problem started when the car was new, but never got any worse over the next 35,000 miles. The dealer I bought it from claimed that the problem was normal or said they couldn't reproduce it, but I'm pretty sure they just didn't want to have to honor the warranty. I finally got sick of the clunking last summer and talked to Subaru about getting a competent dealer to look at the problem, and they agreed to pay for a differential replacement because the previous dealer had clearly screwed up. The mechanic at the dealer said there was visible wear on the center diff from the binding, but that it wasn't in danger of tearing itself apart in the near future. I ended up only spending $40 for a new differential (to get a rental car), but the dealer did tell me that replacing the diff out of warranty would have been somewhere in the $1500-2000 range, depending on exactly what needed to be replaced.
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Jan 15, 2010 03:38
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Hopefully this isn't something for the "Stupid car questions" thread... My 03 Forester (about 56k on the clock, 5 speed) has started making strange noises from the front suspension, but only in a specific temperature range. If the outside temperature is between about 30 and 60 degrees, something in the front suspension makes a loud "chirp!" sound if I hit a sharp bump like a frost heave or pothole. The ride quality is perfectly fine when the noise occurs, the springs and struts look fine from what I can see, and doing a "bounce test" on the front bumper doesn't produce the noise and doesn't indicate anything abnormal with the struts rebounding. I've checked to see if there's anything loose under the hood, and that didn't turn up anything either. Any ideas what might be causing this?
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Jun 18, 2010 06:07
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infrared35 posted:It was pretty steady on the '99, until last week when I decided I needed a little adventure and tried to take the back way home one day. Long story short, I was two-tracking in a really swampy area and had a bow wave coming up over the hood of the car a couple times. Ever since then, the rubbing noise and feel has been much worse. Does the problem happen when you're moving, or does it also happen if you turn the wheel with the car stationary? It almost sounds like the center differential binding up, since that wouldn't be noticeable on dirt, and running in a swampy area would work the differential quite a bit, which could exacerbate the problem.
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Sep 19, 2010 01:59
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I've got an 03 Forester X (with the 5 speed), and it's started making a strange noise I can't seem to track down. At some point within about 30 seconds of cold-starting the engine, something in the front half of vehicle makes a kind of rasping hiss sound that lasts about half a second or so. The noise most commonly happens when the vehicle is moving (usually in 1st or 2nd gear), but I've had it happen when sitting at idle as well. I don't think it's something in the clutch, since the noise has happened with the clutch engaged, disengaged, and anywhere in between, and it doesn't seem to be tied to engine RPM either. When the noise happens, there is a brief vibration that can be felt if I have my hand on the shifter, and a very slight vibration that comes through the pedals as well. The sound and vibration don't act like a gear in the transmission is grinding, and since it doesn't seem to be tied to clutch engagement, I'm guessing it's not a syncro going out either. I've got about 78k miles on the original engine, transmission and clutch (with all of the scheduled maintenance being done on time), and all of the fluids are at the correct levels and look normal, so I'm a bit puzzled as to what's happening here. Anyone have any ideas?
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Sep 13, 2012 23:01
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Totally TWISTED posted:Can you explain what this means? One big thing to remember with AWD and ice/snow is that it's all wheel drive, not all wheel stop, so don't think that AWD will magically let you corner or stop faster than you'd normally be able to. Depending on how cold it gets where you are, you might find that the shifter feels a little sluggish to move until the fluid in the transmission warms up enough to thin out a bit (which only takes a couple minutes of driving), so don't try and brute force the shifts if that happens.
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Sep 22, 2012 04:54
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Totally TWISTED posted:Good point to keep in mind. I live in Tennessee (and not on the plateau or mountains) so getting to 25F is about the worst it's likely to get and that will be a rare occasion. I do want to try and give myself more time before work/etc to warm the car up before banging through the gears though. At that temperature, I don't think you'll run into issues with the transmission being sluggish. If you're trying to warm up the car, the best way to do it is to just drive it normally, since that'll warm up the various fluids much faster than sitting at idle. My experience is from living in North Dakota, and my Forester only got a sluggish transmission once the temperatures were around -10 or so.
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Sep 22, 2012 06:32
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I've got an 03 Forester X with about 82k miles, and it's started making a new and possibly expensive noise. Starting at about 40MPH, there's a whining sound coming from what I'm pretty sure is the rear differential . The noise gets louder and quieter as the speed increases and decreases, but doesn't seem to be tied to engine RPM or a specific gear (I have the 5spd manual), which leads me to believe it's coming from the differential as opposed to the transmission. I've checked the levels of the engine and transmission oil (I realize the differential is separate, but I don't have access to a decent jack), and both of them are at the normal levels and look fine. From what I can see of the differential (and the concrete under my parking space), there don't seem to be any fluid leaks from the vehicle. Is this something that's going to cause the differential to shred itself relatively soon, or would something like getting the differential fluid changed solve the issue?
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Apr 13, 2013 04:59
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Yakattak posted:Could be a wheel bearing. Do you notice a growling noise before it? If not I know my WRX will whine from 65-70 MPH but that's fairly normal. I didn't notice a growling noise, and the sound seems to be coming from along the middle of the car. I'm starting to think the noise may have been there a while, since I realized that I only noticed it after I tweaked the side mirror mounts to get rid of the wind noise at highway speeds, which may have been covering up that noise for years.
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Apr 13, 2013 21:51
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blk posted:The Saabaru is driving me nuts. Had door replaced after someone hit it while parked. Made wind noise afterwards at freeway speeds here: The noise might actually be coming from the gusset inside the side mirror mount being loose. Try rolling the affected window down (I assume this is a front door), and squeeze both sides of the triangular piece the side mirror mounts onto together with a vice grip or something. Leave the pressure on the part for about 10 seconds, then release it and roll the window back up. My Forester had the exact same problem, and clamping the mirror mount completely eliminated the noise.
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May 9, 2013 01:44
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blk posted:I'm hearing the noise near the B pillar, though, not the A pillar - is that where you heard it? In my case, the noise seemed to be coming from both the A and B pillars (it was loud enough I couldn't narrow it down specifically). From what I can tell, that gusset works lose from people applying pressure to the glass when opening/closing the door, and it seems to allow the entire window to flex enough to break the seals at the A and B pillars. You can also try buying some small diameter plastic tubing and inserting it into the weatherstripping around the window frame (I'm assuming the Saabaru uses similar rubber stripping to the Forester), since that can also seal the gap with the window enough to cut the noise down.
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May 11, 2013 06:26
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I somehow managed to shred the wheel well liner on my 03 Forester, and I was wondering how hard that piece is to replace. From what I can tell, the entire liner is one piece of plastic held in by clips, but I can't find anything describing whether it's easy (or possible) to remove and replace it without removing the wheel first.
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Jul 6, 2013 21:46
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Does anyone know what the part number (or just what to plug into Google) would be for the mudflap that goes in front of the right front wheel of an 03 Forester would be? I had a cracked fender liner and missing that flap on my car, and I didn't realize they were actually two separate pieces until I'd installed the new fender liner. All I've been able to find online is the larger fender liner, and nothing for the smaller flap.
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Dec 22, 2013 06:31
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I've got a 2003 Forester X with the 5 speed manual, and my cruise control has decided it doesn't want to work when it's cold outside. Since the cruise control master switch works fine and the cruise control will engage once the cabin has warmed up a bit, I'm 99% sure the problem is the cruise control stalk on the steering column, since it feels like it's sticking and is somewhat difficult to move when the cabin is cold, so I assume the cold is somehow keeping some electrical contacts from closing a circuit to engage the cruise control. Once the cruise control does engage, it seems to stick on (the stalk seems to do nothing), but it will disengage if I tap the brakes. Once the cabin warms up some more, the cruise control seems to work normally, and responds to the stalk. Apparently my Google-fu is weak, since I can't seem to find any references to that part online, so I'm not sure how to go about approaching this. My initial idea was to get some rubbing alcohol or electrical contact cleaner and use a Q-tip to try and clean out whatever's accumulated around the inside of the stalk in the last decade, but I'm slightly nervous about getting an airbag in the face while doing so. Anyone have any ideas about how to fix this?
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Nov 17, 2014 07:16
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Seat Safety Switch posted:If it's anything like the Impreza you can take the bottom cover of the steering column off with two screws and see if you can get good access to the back of the switch from there. I don't think you have to worry about the airbag, but you can always unplug the battery's negative terminal if you want some insurance. It turns out that the switch isn't really accessible without removing the steering wheel itself, so I just tried spraying rubbing alcohol into the switch and working it around a bit. The end result is that the cruise control works perfectly now, and the control stalk moves much better than it has in years.
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Nov 18, 2014 08:15
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Transmission related question... I have a 2003 Forester X with the 5 speed and 97k miles on it, and apparently the transmission decided to die yesterday. Shortly after I pulled away from a stoplight, the car started acting like they brakes were engaging somehow (I thought the hill holder might have been acting up initially) and when I got into a parking lot about 30 seconds later, it took a lot of throttle to get into a parking space, and required slipping the clutch quite a bit. When the car was pulled onto a flatbed, the left front wheel wasn't rotating at all, but the other three rolled freely, and the shop called me today to let me know that the problem was caused by the transmission having blown up internally, so I have a choice a between a 160k mile transmission from Texas (that's the mileage on the donor vehicle, the transmission might be newer) for $2700 installed (with a new clutch) or a new unit from Subaru, which would be about $6k installed. Since the car is only worth $4500, the new transmission doesn't make financial sense, and since the used one comes with a 12 month warranty, I was planning to have that installed, and then plan on replacing the car within the next year or so, since the transmission would let me get slightly more than the current "4000lb paperweight" resale value it has, and (more importantly) would let me look for a replacement car on my own time. This raises two questions in my mind... Is there a chance that the transmission going like that could have destroyed the center differential? Having one wheel completely locked up with the transmission in neutral seems to me like the center diff is doing something it isn't supposed to. Secondly, is the $2700 a reasonable price for a transmission with possibly 160k miles on it? I'm not having a lot of luck finding prices for the transmission online, and calling several transmission shops wasn't super helpful, since they couldn't give an estimate without seeing the car.
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Jan 8, 2015 00:53
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Vitamin J posted:That sounds fishy like you might be getting taken for a ride. Your transmission "blew up" without explaination at 90k? The transmission was operating normally (as far as I could tell) prior to the breakdown, and it went from "perfectly fine" to "needs a ton of throttle and clutch slipping to move" within the space of maybe 90 seconds when I pulled away from a light. After I parked, I did try to move it in first and reverse (very briefly), and it went into both gears (and neutral) fine, but felt like I was trying to drive with a really strong parking brake on, so I didn't move more than maybe 6 inches. When I talked to the shop, they said the transmission fluid smelled and looked badly burned despite being only 8000 miles old, which does sound consistent with something in the transmission going catastrophically wrong. They didn't use the term "blew up", but they were confident that whatever happened to the transmission was beyond repair. I did have the center diff replaced under warranty at about 30,000 miles (it started binding up in turns), so I'm wondering if there wasn't some underlying issue or damage in the drivetrain that just needed another 60,000 miles to decide to frag the transmission. I'm going to talk to the shop tomorrow to get some more details, so if you folks have some specific questions I should ask, I'd appreciate it. azflyboy fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Jan 8, 2015 |
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Jan 8, 2015 05:00
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Thanks for the advice. The shop quoted me about $500 in labor for the swap, and looking online, I'm finding transmissions with between 110-150,000 miles on them for $500-700, so even assuming $200 in shipping, there's still over $1000 in the quoted price that needs some explaining. When I talk to the shop again today, I'm going to ask them to look at the diff and give me a more detailed explanation of exactly what's wrong with the transmission.
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Jan 8, 2015 14:13
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I went into the shop today, and talked to the tech who had looked at the Forester. Apparently something inside the transmission completely broke apart, and the fragments jammed up the front diff, which explains the locked front wheel. This is a shop that does a fair amount of work on Subarus, and the tech said this is the first time in about a decade working there he's seen a Subaru transmission fail that way, so at least the transmission picked an original way to commit suicide. The shop also managed to source a transmission with only 50K miles from Japan (thanks, Japanese emissions laws!) for $50 more than the unit with 190k (with the same warranty), and the quote includes all of the labor to do the transmission swap, plus a clutch replacement, the required fluids, and sales tax. Doing the math, the payments and insurance hike on a newer vehicle mean that even if this transmission only lasted a year, I still come out ahead on the financial side, so I decided to have the work done.
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Jan 9, 2015 01:00
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Slow is Fast posted:While 2750 is still high... it isn't a deal breaker, I guess. Us new england folks are spoiled by you pull its and a crisp 100 dollar bill. I live in Idaho, so I was thinking there might be somewhat better availability from all the Subarus in Oregon and Washington, but I guess there just aren't a ton of 5 speeds out there that are sold with any kind of warranty. Given that a new transmission from Subaru is $4k, and a used one with something past 100k was about $700, I figured $1300 (including shipping) for a transmission with 50,000 miles that was pulled out due to emissions laws (versus the car rusting out or being totaled) is pretty reasonable.
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Jan 9, 2015 01:37
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I think I finally discovered what caused the transmission on my Forester to commit suicide a couple of weeks ago. Friday, I noticed that it felt like the hill holder wasn't releasing the brakes quite quickly enough when I pulled away from a stop, and shortly thereafter, the left front brake decided to completely lock after I'd parked the car, which is exactly what happened when the transmission had blown two weeks ago. When the shop looked at the car this morning, they figured out that the valve on the hill holder had failed, and was occasionally failing to release the brakes as the clutch pedal came up (or at all), which probably put enough strain on the old transmission to make something decide to let go the last time the valve quit working. Since replacing the valve would be something like $250 and I don't really need the hill holder (plus the fact the drat thing cost me $2700), I just had the shop disable the system (it's entirely mechanical, so they adjusted it to keep the hill holder from ever being able to engage), which only ran me $40, and should keep that system from causing any further problems down the line.
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Jan 26, 2015 17:53
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jamal posted:So was it just the hill holder sticking the whole time or is there actually something wrong with the old transmission? Do you get to keep it or do they have to send it back as a core? Would be worth pulling apart to see if anything is actually broken. It's pretty easy- take the transfer/center diff sections off the back then undo all the case bolts and it splits apart. The old transmission was completely shot (I don't remember the specifics, but it was a catastrophic failure), and the shop is pretty sure that the loads from having a brake lock up while driving were what caused the failure. Apparently the way the valve failed meant that the brakes would release if the car sat long enough and/or got a good jolt (like being lowered off a tow truck) and the valve would work properly most of the time, so it probably released the brakes when the car was dropped off last time, and just didn't malfunction again for a couple of weeks after the new transmission was put in. Since the new transmission came off a Japanese Forester, it actually has hardware on the case for a high-low range selector (which doesn't do anything, since US Foresters don't have the low range gearset), and the 5th gear ratio is slightly lower than the US model. In highway driving, I've noticed that the engine runs about 200rpm faster for a given speed than it used to, but I'm pretty sure having 50,000 fewer miles on the transmission (I couldn't find a used one with less than about 100k here) will be worth a slight hit in fuel economy.
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Jan 26, 2015 19:43
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A Saucy Bratwurst posted:The wind noise is probably the frameless windows if foresters have those. Imprezas are pretty notorious for it. It's just a part of the car. The wind noise can be helped somewhat by replacing the triangular gussets that the side mirrors attach to (they were something like $40/each last I looked), but it's also possible to cut down the noise by careful application of a C-clamp to the gussets (with the windows down) to get them to seal a little better to the front windows. That said, the design of the windows means they're never going to be as quiet as normal, framed windows (Subaru gave up on the frameless design completely in '08), and the wind noise will get progressively louder over time as those gussets work loose from the windows again, but that's pretty easy to solve by just clamping the gussets back down again when they get noisy.
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Apr 27, 2015 04:26
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