Pleides

Power steering fluid is one year old roughly and the o-ring was replaced around that time too, maybe a bit before then. Drove her today (sitting at Surgeline right now, I see your car here @shralp) and yeah, she's definitely gonna need some PS work. Might just be an excuse for an STi rack finally.

Good to know. I've lived in the Portland area my whole life and even the worst snowpocalypse (2008 and 2016 were pretty rough) didn't create issues like this for us. It was so dang cold up in Cashmere! I don't think they salt their roads up there so the stuff doesn't melt on your wheels at all. I will keep all this in mind next time I stay in a snowy climate. My power steering unfortunately just feels heavier after that drive yesterday. My power steering has started groaning a lot more in the last few weeks as it has gotten colder and my now chunky winter tires rubbing all the time definitely doesn't help. Such is life with an old car, though. It's the original pump and rack.

Made a trip up to Leavenworth/Cashmere on Friday and drove home today. Never driven in snow that severe in my life. We don't typically get anything like that in the Portland area. Had a slippy incident and almost hit a guard rail... phew. Found that sitting outside in the snow and driving around in it left a shit ton of the stuff in my wheel wells and the wheels themselves. The former made my power steering groan all the time as the tires rubbed like crazy and the latter made my car drive like it had poor wheel balance on the highway. Pulled over in Yakima on the way back to a self-service pressure washing station and blew out all the snow and the car drove like new! I think my power steering is not quite as effective as it once was though Is snow packing into your wheels and causing issues a normal occurrence for those of you all in snowy climates? The car drove like it was broken and I was pleasantly surprised that my assumption that the snow was screwing up wheel balance was the issue after washing it all out.

I'd really recommend buying them ASAP. The aftermarket doesn't seem to produce them and Subaru seems to have decided to end production of common parts for our cars after COVID. I believe I was the last person in the country to get a certain exterior trim piece (I believe it was the driver window trim that seals the exterior against the window). You can't buy trunk lining trim anymore either.

He also drove the car lengthy distances often, which helps the longevity of these old turbo cars quite a lot. My car had nothing but leaks and issues when I drove 2 miles one way to work and only the coolant would get up to temp. When my commutes were mostly freeway the car seemed to treat me nicer. I now drive ~30 minutes to work and the car has been great to me. Oh, and I should note I have 238K miles now. Not going quite as long between oil changes as Max did, though. Never gone more than 3500, which is probably a waste of synthetic, to be frank.

Nameless makes a downturn exhaust for your car, if that's your thing. If you don't plan on changing the bumper then it's a good choice.

Did you figure out a way to wire up the airbag harness? I'd love some seats with proper bolstering but don't want to create a safety issue swapping seats.

I used Energy bushings in the crossmember and regret it, two squeaky years later. Go OEM.

I've struggled with getting an accurate oil level forever while owning this car. Imagine my horror when seeing a dry dipstick with 4 quarts in the car after an oil change.... ugh... I usually have a shop do an oil change for me these days but if I do it myself I'll get a 5 qt jug of whatever 5W-30 or 5W-40 is available in synthetic at whatever store is convenient to me. That's usually Valvoline and it works fine and leaves me with some leftover.

I don't think so. Unless you hit 242 relatively recently. Can't remember exactly when I joined the forum but you retired maybe a year after I joined here and your car was just under 300K then.

Tomorrow my car will have done the distance between earth and the moon. How should I celebrate?

My transmission has an unintentional cocktail of NAPA and Amsoil fluid (shift shaft seal slowly leaks). The Amsoil stuff made the transmission shift smoother for sure, but that could have been my transmission being two quarts low on oil when it was topped off

If you're looking the engine over then look for piston tops that are substantially cleaner than others (indicates head gasket failure as coolant will clean the surface of the piston). Could mean the engine has also seen higher than safe temperatures if it had head gasket failure. Other stuff mentioned above is great. Glad the shortblock will work out for you. Do a compression test if you can before buying.

No, you would not easily be able to swap a dual AVCS long block into a single-AVCS ECU OBXT. Shortblock might be a different story. I believe it would run fine but there are different compression ratios.

I don't think my shop would even produce an invoice upon determining that a customer would like for them to install faulty parts. I see why the buyer should be expected to produce proof that the item was defective but the seller sold an item that is very difficult to prove defective without a shock dyno or such. After I told the seller via DM that the KWs would cost about $1500 to rebuild from KW and that he might as well give them away he told me that he would opt to just rebuild them himself instead, yet the ad is still here asking $1000 two months later. Wouldn't the "right" thing to do be simply adding a note to the ad that states how much work/expense these would be to rebuild and drop the price significantly rather than sell them for an exorbitant price to somebody who didn't diligently research as I did? I'm not the one to determine what a fair price for a used item is - that's between the seller and buyer. However, it seems fishy and dishonest and the OP's previous comment doesn't seem real jolly.

Ah, that I do not know.

The same DAMD wheel shipped from Nengun to the USA is $455 NIB, just FYI. No 6-week made-to-order wait time, sure, but still cheaper and purchased new.

Get an oil dye kit so you can see where it trickles out from. I second that it's the valve cover and oil pan gaskets.

Remember that all Rota wheels (AFAIK) are technically reps. The authentic version they're based on may be abundantly available elsewhere. Not sure exactly what wheel they're based on, however. Could it be the Advan RT? https://www.evasivemotorsports.com/store/category/advan-rt/

I have 18*8 Enkei Raijins with H&R springs. My fronts, even with rolled fenders, do not 100% clear when I run 225/45R18s in the winter. They rub over bumps and at full turn. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but anything lower than about an inch means fender rolling time. 235/40R18s are fine with my rolled fenders and suspension setup. Not sure how the rears would do if I didn't have adjustable Whiteline control arms back there, but they're at 1.8 degrees negative camber right now and have never bumped on my wagon with the 3/8" spacer I have back there.

Bring some heat-insulated gloves! The company below sells serviceable driveshafts if you need one. The U-Joint is the most common point of failure on these. Many report rather sudden failures of theirs (which can cause further damage or safety concerns) so if you find yours to be going then I'd recommend one ASAP. You may also have a bad wheel bearing if the noise sounds rotational. ALl four of mine on the wagon have been replaced at least once. https://driveshaftstore.com/Subaru-Legacy-Driveshaft-2005

What suspension are you running? If your offset is anything more aggressive than about +48 you're gonna have to roll the fenders with a 235/40R18 tire on a lowered car, or at least I did.

Our center support area has a little more play in it than most I've seen in other AWD driveshafts. These car's 5-speeds are kinda clunky no matter how much you modify the car to make it not so. I have a Group N trans+engine mounts, urethane diff and subframe bushings, and urethane shift bushings and I still upset the transmission or get noises when I think I've changed gear perfectly. Rest your elbow on the center console while driving and see if anything odd is picked up. Chances are, your driveshaft is fine. I'd recommend grabbing a set of gaskets for whatever you plan to remove to inspect the car, just FYI.

Door panels are identical. A bunch of P&S Carpet Bomb plus a carpet extractor like a Bissell Spotclean should do the trick on the apple juice if on your carpet or cloth seats. As for swapping in power seats, I can't imagine it would be easy. There likely isn't a wiring harness function for it on your non-limited car.

Replica turbos aren't necessarily crap. If it was purchased from an auto parts store it may be OK. If it's some eBay $150 special then we might raise some eyebrows. The only thing I can think of that I'd want out of an Outback is the black leather interior to get rid of the beige interior in my car. Depends on what you can swap over from your non-Limited car.