legacycentral bbs

Hi,

I have been working for 2 years to save for my first car. Got my license a month ago, and today, I bought a 95 Subaru Legacy L Sedan with 200k miles on it. The car has new tires, all new brake pads and rotors, and the rust spots are mostly taken care of. Just wondering what I should know about this car, what I can look forward to fixing?

I know I am probably two months away from a new muffler, if not sooner. Still, I only spent $1300 for it. It starts and has tons of power. I turned it real hard and there's no grinding or anything. No idiot lights are on. Oil is just changed so it looks good.

Any help from you Legacy Obi Wans is greatly appreciated!

Matt

Sweet! Post pictures and drive the hell out of her!

Welcome to the BBS Matt.

Routine maintenance is probably the biggest thing to keep up on. Do you know the last time the timing belt and water pump was replaced? Oil seals on the cams & crank, and valve cover gaskets are normal items if they haven't been done.

Is it an auto or manual trans? If auto, check the fluid, it should be pink in color and not smell "burnt". A drain and refill is probably a good idea. Do not have it "flushed". Flushing high mileage AT's will give you more problems than it will fix.

The timing belt was changed 17,000 miles ago, got a receipt. Our family mechanic found it has a broken right front coil. Need to get one. Any online sources you folks recommend? I hate the local Subaru dealership. But I will go if I must.

He also found a small oil leak up front, said we might need to change a gasket up there. Sounds like an expensive job, maybe? I will check the trans fluid, its an automatic. Didn't see the dipstick for it immediately but I will check the manual.

Thanks so much for those recommends! Excellent things to know.

For used parts I'd suggest the parts shed. There's a couple members that sell parts pretty regularly and would have something like the coil.

If you want to purchase new, I'd suggest one of the online subaru dealerships. I have used www.subarugenuineparts.com with good sucess. You can d/l the factory parts catalog from me. It has all the part #'s which you can use at the online subaru dealers.
http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?t=30531

The AT dipstick is on the driver's side of the trans, and kind of hidden down and back. The dipstick on the passenger side is for the front differential

Congrats! Post up some pics! Depends on what's leaking for how expensive it will be, and your mechanics rates. I'm guessing this means you're not comfortable doing it yourself? Would be much cheaper...

My dad and I are totally looking to learn to do it ourselves. No garage though. I got the coil spring and gonna have it put on tomorrow. One thing my dad noticed is there is a cover at the front of the engine, is that the cover for the timing belt? It's definitely not secured well. Weird thing is, I check the oil every day and it seems good. If I sound stupid.... well, I kinda am at the moment. But I want to learn!

Oil leak is probably the valve cover gasket(or the seals to be more specific). Real easy and cheap to fix.

The timing belt cover is at the front yes, not sure if that's what you're looking at, but it is up there.

Props for buying it yourself. If you don't hear any weird noises and it drives fine, then just check all the fluids to make sure they're in good shape and not leaking, change the spark plugs, check the air filter, just all the basic routine maintenance, should be good to go. If the wheel bearings and CV axles haven't been replaced I'd expect to change them at some point in the future, but you'll know if they start making noise.

Well, we ranked on it hard on some turns. Feels tight, no noise. Mechanic said it feels good too. After the coil gets put in, I want to change the plugs and wires myself (I can do that!). SUPPOSEDLY, the wheel bearings and CV have been replaced recently. Not sure I trust that at all, but it drives great.

Does anyone have an engine diagram link for the engine so I can tell where everything is? Thanks for the reponses! This is great!

I'd suggest downloading that parts book I mentioned. It has a lot of exploded diagram pictures which show how things go together. Also in the Stuff you need to know forum, there is a thread I posted which has links to my server which has some parts of the factory service manual you can download.

Also, I've got tons of pictures of the work I've done. You can browse through them. It may help.

www.main.experiencetherave.com/subaru/images

For example, here's some for the timing belt.

www.main.experiencetherave.com/subaru/images/timingbelt

OH MY GOD..... that is awesome! Thank you for the links! Amazing amount of good stuff!

hydrazi wrote:Well, we ranked on it hard on some turns. Feels tight, no noise. Mechanic said it feels good too. After the coil gets put in, I want to change the plugs and wires myself (I can do that!). SUPPOSEDLY, the wheel bearings and CV have been replaced recently. Not sure I trust that at all, but it drives great.

Does anyone have an engine diagram link for the engine so I can tell where everything is? Thanks for the reponses! This is great!

I'm not saying to worry about it necessarily, just the only common problem I can really think of to watch for in the future, sounds to me like it's in pretty good shape as is.

Apex3 wrote: I'm not saying to worry about it necessarily, just the only common problem I can really think of to watch for in the future, sounds to me like it's in pretty good shape as is.

I got ya! That's just what I asked for! Much appreciated!

hydrazi wrote: One thing my dad noticed is there is a cover at the front of the engine, is that the cover for the timing belt? It's definitely not secured well.

Sounds like the timing belt cover. Pretty common for the tabs to be broken on the top, so they end up not being completely secure. Not the end of the world, good to have them there at least. No oil flows in that area.

Hey All,

Haven't posted in a while. Work and school!! Got an oil change on my Legacy (went with Maxlife full Synthetic cuz my Dad said it might extend the engine life), then I bought plugs, wires, and a fuel filter. We put the fuel filter in ourselves (Thanks, YouTube!) and were going to do the plugs and wires.... but the first plug was surrounded by white, chalky stuff and we couldn't get a grip on it to turn it. Have the spark-plug sockets and everything. Any ideas on the chalky stuff and how to get a grip on that plug?

Otherwise, she runs awesome! She bogs down at first if I don't drive every day. Which is why I replaced the fuel filter (oh and found she had NO air filter, which I remedied!). Hopefully that will fix it.

White chalky stuff? Around the hole for the spark plug or on the plug itself? When you say you can't get a grip is the socket not seating all the way? You might want to grab a mirror to look in the hole.

If it didn't have an air filter you may want to grab a can of MAF Cleaner at your local auto parts store, that could be part of your hesitation issue.

Well, it's close to a year now... seen rust issues and learned how to grind them out, sand, rust treat, primer, and paint. Next up is bondo for some holes in the bumper cover. Then, I need to fix the sheet metal of one rear door. I am going to be a bit of a rat rod which is cool. To buy a new rear door from a salvage yard is like $350 which is basically half the price of buying the car!

Also need to fix a window regulator. I can't believe how much I have learned about cars in less than a year!

Subies are great cars.. And so simple to fix. My father borrowed mine a while back, he came home with it and hollered into the house for a fire extinguisher. He thought something was on fire. Turned out it had a massive tranny leak. It happened suddenly when he pulled out from a red light.
Turned out it was the torque converter seal, evidently it had shrunken with age. We bought a hoist from harbor freight for $27 and built a tripod with 2X4's.. We pulled the engine which was actually incredibly easy. It took us about a day to pull it, replace all the seals (might as well, while it's out) and put it back in. All while ravaged by a stomach virus.. But all in all they are easy to work on