I was wondering if anyone has these issues. I drive a MY05 Subaru Liberty (Legacy) wagon. Recently i noticed that the car would shudder when taking off on first gear. If i give it more revs, then i get less shudder. Is this common with Subaru's?
Also, i need to slam the driver door to get it shut properly. All other doors are ok. I assume its something to do with the rubber seal that meets the window when the door shuts. Has anyone experienced this too? Is this matter of replacing the rubber seals to fix?
I had this problem with my 02 WRX. It was pretty bad. It only happened when the engine was cold, and at that, it did not happen all the time. But when it did happen, it felt like the whole tranny was going to shake apart.
There was an active service note on this problem, so it was covered under warranty. The solution was to use a heavier flywheel, I believe.
In my case, it took 4 clutches before I got one that did not have some kind of problem: the first one had the cold shudder, the second one had a very annoying resonance at certain RPMs, and the third one just _broke_. The throw bearing gave out on me. On the highway, no less. ;)
As to the door - what's the symptom? Is it that the door does not close, or is it a problem getting a good seal? Do you hear air passing through the crack between the window and the seal when you get up to speed? In my case, the I hear air moving. - I'm used to it at this point; all I do is drop the window a tiny bit, then close it again to get a good seal. I've wondered if putting some kind of lubrication around the seal might help, but I really haven't taken the time to figure it out as it's really not a _big_ deal for me.
Pretty common. And usually only a very minor nuisance. I have it on my MY02 Impreza, the first time I start the car on days that are cold and wet. All I do is slip the clutch a very little bit (couple of seconds at most, under light load) to warm it up. The problem then is gone until the next cold wet day. I now have about 100k miles on the car, and the problem has never gotten worse.
Some people evidently have a worse problem, though I've never witnessed that myself.
Unlikely to need the seal replaced with an MY05. I think you just need a door/lock adjustment, probably at the dealer.
Not focusing on Subarus, I've had similar experiences with several cars when the engine was starting to run a little ragged but not enough to notice it otherwise. If the tune-up parts are old, now is a good time to catch up. Otherwise, a bottle of injector cleaner in the tank is a cheap thing to try.
After having said all this.. today, the problem with shuddering wasn't too bad. I changed my driving position, that is pull the seat closer to the steering wheel. That way i get to press the accelerator sooner. I dont know if its just my driving style or if its just wear and tear (but being 1 years old... and i drive very conservatively, cant see the clutch wearing out in a year).. but today i didn't have too much problems. Probably be a different story tomorrow.
With the door seal... with the same force i use to close all other doors... the driver door wont shut. It just semi-shuts. So i have to give it more force to completely shut the door. It seems the seal is sticking out too much or something. The way to prove this was to open the window and shut the door.. and it shuts beatifully. Well, im taking it into servive next week... see what the dealer says. I tell you what... 12Month warranty will cost me $320 (Melbourne). *GULP*
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