96 Outback 2.5 - Odo rollback? Problem year?

Frequently, Carfax gets it wrong. Even more frequently, the sources of Carfax' information get it wrong. I've found all sorts of interesting events that never really happened in Carfax scans on cars for which I have documented histories or have been the only owner.

Few odometers are actually rolled back any more. It's much, much, much more difficult to do it without detection, much, much, much easier to get caught, and the penalties are much, much, much stiffer than they used to be.

And nobody would roll an odo back by 8k miles, that's just silly.

Take a careful listen to the engine -- the 2.5 prior to 2000 is somewhat prone to piston slap. This is a non-harmful but annoying engine noise.

Better headlamps on the '96-'97s than on the '98-'99s, but shitty headlamp wiring starves the bulbs, so you grope your way through the dark unless you upgrade the wiring.

DS

Camshaft and main crank seal oil leakage is fairly common, although it usually becomes apparent way before 100K miles (mine happened at ~65K miles). My dealer also had a hard time diagnosing the cause of the "Check Engine" light coming on for extended periods; ended up replacing crank sensor and other electronic bits.

Piston slap shouldn't be a problem with a 96 model; later models have the shorter piston.

Thanks Vic and Eugene Can you tell me WHY the 97 Leg/Outback seems to be singled out on consumer reports as being much worse than average in the engine dept? Here is a link to their review of the various model years:

As you can see... the 96 gets a solid black (lousy) as compared to the other years. Is this the head gasket problem?

-Mike

It would be silly. But perhaps the speedo head was replaced when the car only had 8K miles on it.