'97 Outback oil consumption

Not abnormal. Is this the original engine? That's very low mileage for '97! Irregular or 'short trip' useage of a car also is considered 'extreme duty' and can lead to accelerated wear. Be certain to follow the 'calender' intervals for oil and other service.

Carl

I might want to say, as they used to on Saturday Night Live, "Never mind." First, the dipstick is abnormally hard to read. When I pull the dipstick out, wipe it, and put it back in and check it there is oil all over the damn thing. Anyway, I think the car is very sensitive to being on a flat surface. I just checked it again, in an alley that's more level than my drive, and it looks like it hasn't gone down at all.

Agreed. My '99 is the same way. It takes

2-3 cycles of pulling the dipstick and wiping it off before I can get a non-ambiguous reading.

I wouldn't be concerned about a quart every

2k miles.

Well, the "car" has 200k on it, but the drivetrain only has around 35k on it. I had a mechanic check it out and he agrees that the car had a new engine installed. Car seems to run fine. Only complaint is the small gas tank. Could they have made it any smaller?

Yes. They did. 14.9 us gal on Impreza of which about 12.9 can be used (if you're lucky). On the other hand most owners probably don't want the same arrangement the Corvette has.

Don't know about that. Tell me more.

I think the reason there is not much of a trunk on a vette is because a lot of that space is taken by the 18 gal. gas tank. But on Impreza they could've made the gas tank thicker at the expense of the space in the spare tire well. There is plentry of space for a full size tire in there. Not that I mind, but it would've been nice to have 17-18 gallon tank even if I had to sacrifice that and just stick with the conventional donut provided by the factory

Well, they "kinda" advertise the Outback as an SUV, so why not have the option of hanging the spare on the back of the car with a larger gas tank? My Porsche uses one of those inflatable spares, and it sits in front of the car in the truck surrounded by the gas tank. Talk about not much room in the trunk. A set of golf clubs and a couple overnight bags behind the seats.

Well, if they raise the trunk floor the people who got sedan might not like it. On a wagon you'd hardly notice though. But since the product management types did everything in their power to make the rear gates unusable I might just rest my case and get a sedan next. Which puts Mitsu on a level playing field.

Tried to unlock all doors with the remote today on my 05 Outback Sport a few hours back: press: flash flash. One more press: one more flash flash. Reaching for the passenger's door handle: nope, locked. I haven't learned how to reliably unlock all 5 doors in a year. Sigh. The manual says in the essence: "if you get the timing wrong between two unlock presses it might not work". Great. What a wonderful combination: no mechanical lock on the gate and an "intuitive" remote. Am I alone in being "impressed" by the great remote control for Impreza?

What have those people in US corporate been doing for the last 13 years besides remodeling the interior? (I have no complaints about interior, I think it's very good). Didn't they do ANY usability studies? Didn't anyone complain about this before?

Is that your first Suby? If so enjoy it. I, on the other hand, have 13 years worth of regressions to deal with in my 05 OBS. Not all of it is bad. As I said I'm very pleased with the interior design and fabrics. Whatever few gripes I had about the fabric on the horizontal surfaces of the door have been fixed in 06. And the build quality is exceptionally good. But as I previously stated the first generation of Legacy did not have any design quirks at all, and no matter how well the Japanese counterparts executed to the retarded american specification you still end up with a new age Ford Taurus. What do you expect from a product planner that previously worked for a Detrua company in a new setting? A slightly better built Taurus with all wheel drive. A land yacht on four wheels.

I agree about the door remote, it is the same on the 2005 Forester. If I press it 4 or 5 times, it almost always unlocks the hatch and the other three doors. If they were smart, the system would know the driver's door was unlocked, and seeing a signal after that would unlock the others, instead of the two signals in a specific time frame approach they use.

Blair

Wrong. Why do you put out bogus info like that?

On Sat, 06 May 2006 00:46:28 GMT, "Sheldon" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

:) I didn't realize Porsche made cars that were that unreliable.

There is about 3" of space between the top of the spare donut and the top of the spare wheel well (trunk floor that is). The donut is T135/70D16 the tires on my 05 Outback "Sport" are P205/55R16

205-135=70mm. 70mm is less than 3". If you have 17" wheels on your WRX and run 215/45R17 or 225/24R17 you will come a little bit short and the trunk liner board won't rest completely flat without some home made spacers though. But with 205/55R16 it should be a perfect fit. Though the bolt used for securing the wheel will be short and you'd need a very special replacement bolt (probably it can be dug up in the vast chasms of your subaru parts department).

Not sure if your model year had a shallower spare wheel well or what (is it different on sedans???). But if you stop by your friendly Subaru dealer or find an OBS at an autoshow(good luck!!!) you can measure it with a ruler or a measuring tape yourself. Lift the particle board residing over the wheel well and measure at the back of the well (closer to the front end of the car: it's most obvious there).

I wonder how much bigger gallon-wise the gas tank would've been if it was 3" fatter. In the best Homer's voice: "Umm... donuts..."

There are those of us who'd rather have the *real* spare. My wife lost one tire out in the middle of east Oregon with ~80 miles to a town that even *might* have a replacement tire. The weenie worked but she said it sure felt weird in sidewinds. The tire bought wasn't a brand match but it is a decent tire for a full-size spare *now*.

The rear cover is up about an inch from standard but we'll live with that. The "show chains" fit there quite well. (show chains are for showing the nice officer at the pass that you *do* have chains even tho you don't need'um!)

Wanna bet? The rear deck cover rides a little high off the metal; but it works quite ....er...well

Sure! The "rear deck cover rides a little high" because the well's too small, or the tire's too large, take your pick. IOW, "There is plentry of space for a full size tire in there" is "plentry" wrong.

Did you stop by the dealer or an autoshow and check for yourself as I have suggested a month or so ago? I told you, specifically, that MY05 does have extra room (over 70 mil) for the width of a 205 55R16 fullsize spare. And 06 might also.