Bought mine!!!!

Hi Carl, with due respect I'm following what in my Owners manual.

cheers

Carl 1 Lucky Texan wrote:

meh - On page 42 of my 2006 Warranty and Maintenance Booklet (MSA5M0601W) it appears the 3 month 3K column contains an R in parentheses. (R) which seems to make performing that service 'recommended' but I suppose not mandatory. The only other occurrence of the () are for inspecting fuel system lines and connections and front and rear wheel bearing lubricant.

Carl

On the left it says "(Only 3.0L)" so I assume (R) references this as opposed to at the bottom where it says "(I) or (R) Recommended service for safe vehicle operation." due to the statement on the Subaru webpage:

"Your Subaru vehicle (except H6 Models) requires an initial engine oil and filter change at 7,500 miles or 7.5 months, whichever occurs first. Subaru H6 engine model vehicles will require an initial 3,000 mile/3 month oil change, as a part of its regular maintenance schedule."

Just so it is clear, these are maximum recommended intervals and I see no reason that changing the oil at 3,000 miles would cause any problems especially if you are using the severe driving conditions recommendations which says 3,750 miles. If you plan on doing 3,000 mile intervals, I would do it at 3,000, 6,000, 9,000 miles and so on. I personally change mine at

5,000 mile intervals as my commute is 125 miles one way twice a week.

Blair

So what's the downside of changing oil more frequently than required by the owners manual (other than cost)? I changed the oil very frequently when my Celica GTS was new, and the original 2.2R engine in it now has over 325k miles on it (without a ring job).

I asked the Subaru salesguy about engine break-in on my new

2006 Legacy SE, and he specifically said not to do the first oil change before at least the first 1000 miles. Not sure why... But hopefully I'll get a good bit of milage out of that Subaru boxer 4 engine as well.

IMHO. YMMV.

This goes back to a 'theory' that the factory puts in a 'special break-in oil' . No one seems to know and most folks just do what the manual says. That should prevent warranty issues. Those folks who claim oil analysis shows elevated molybdenum in the factory oil say it points to it being 'special'. Critics of that idea say the moly is from an assembly grease that just dilutes into the oil at first start has is insignificant. Some other makes of cars are known to ship from the factory with 'normal' or 'normal but synthetic' oils. You might enjoy info and the forums at

.

Carl

Thank you for selectively editing my post.

To answer your questions

1 Cost as you have already identified

2 The stupid waste of a precious resource

3 Your comments about a Toyota are irrelevant as is your post.

4 Subaru sales guys are just that, sales guys

5 Your cryptic and childish abbreviations demonstrate your mind set.

H>

Some oil pans suffer wear every time the oil is changed, causing the drain plug threads in the pan to wear out even when the plugs are threaded in carefully and torqued properly. That's a big problem with Hondas, even to the extent that NAPA carries single and double oversize drain plugs. I presume there is a thriving business in replacing Honda oil drain pans.

Dunno about Subarus.

Mike

wingman25 wrote: ...

Congratulations. I just bought a new 2006 2.5i SE a couple weeks ago, and, so far, am quite happy with my purchase.

Make sure to read the reviews on these items before agreeing to purchase any of them. These items are sometimes used to hide an extra high markup which is pure profit for the dealer out of your pocket. An extended warranty, at a fair price, might be considered similar to buying a kind of insurance. Note that insurance is usually quite profitable for the insurance companies, averaged over a large pool of customers. But for any single customer, insurance helps share the risk of an individual case of bad luck. It's your decision whether to self insure (betting you'll do average or better in your repair needs), or to buy insurance to cover any potential worse than average luck in the future.

IMHO. YMMV.

I try to edit down to that to which I am replying, although I sometime over or under edit. But I've only been replying to usenet posts for nearly 2 decades now.

Interesting you bring that up, given that in terms of "wasting" fossil fuels, the Subaru looked to consume more petrocarbons than almost all of the other alternative vehicles I was evaluating. This was almost the only negative point I found in my personal pre-purchase comparisons. Hopefully, in terms of overall safety over a much wider range of driving conditions, this was was a worthwhile trade-off compared to wasting far less precious resources.

IMHO. YMMV.

-- rhn A.T nicholson d.0.t C-o-M

Ron. You newbie, you tyro, you naif, you! What were you thinking.

Keep up the excellent work. ;) Your post made me realize that I've been reading Usenet since 1990. What a concept. And I'm the better person for it!

Thats too bad. Its all downhill from here! (Read: You can't get a better car, you are not spoiled.)

Extended warranties are being given out "free" for a limited time in Australia... I'd say they'd definately be negotiable when purchasing the car.

Keep in mind, if they're giving out "free" extended warranties, then the company must have some faith in the product...

...Ric

Suppose your car lasts 200k instead of 300k miles and then ends up on a local junk yard. How much precious resources would be wasted

1. Building a replacement

1. Contaminating the environment with all the cancerogens floating in side the 200k mile car

???

Or you want to claim that the junkards treat all the hazardous waste properly?

Having said that I have no clue what happens to the used motor oil that I leave for the harzardous waste company to pick up. Do they somehow recycle it?

Doing dyno changes myself every 4k now and planning to switch to SuperTech 5w30 synthetic at 7.5k intervals.

On 2006-04-10, ric_man penned:

Or simply building the cost of the warranty into the price of the car ...

On 2006-04-09, Ron N. penned:

You can always do what I do regarding pet insurance. I don't buy an insurance policy, but I set aside some amount every month in case of a vet emergency.

It's not as good as warranty if things go really wrong, but by definition that's a small percentage of car buyers (otherwise the insurance would be priced higher). So odds are that by doing this, worst case you spend as much as you would have if you'd paid for a warranty, and best case you come out ahead.

Then again, warranty prices are probably based on how much it costs

*them* to repair it, not how much it would have cost you, so that may change the math considerably ...

The default 36K/3Y warranty has been pretty handy for me because I've had a lot of rattle and plastic pieces falling off type problems. In one instance the dealership had my car for about a week. Never mechanical problems, just aesthetic (but extremely annoying). I'd imagine that would have been pretty damaging to my finances without the warranty.

Unfortunately, I have about 6K left and it's only been two years =/

Anyone have opinions on GAP insurance? I got it for my car, and it seemed like a reasonable idea as long as your loan is underwater ...

What happens in Australia is totally different in the USA.

The Subaru 5 year warranty in Australia is a no charge extra 2 years unlimited kilometres added to the original Subaru 3 years unlimited kilometres making a total of 5 years.

In the USA some dealers will offer an extended warranty for an extra charge with different conditions attached. The customer has to work out the value proposition.

It compar>

Thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences and responding. I left this post unattended for a few days and look what someone started :) A whole debate on oil changes... it's good though to keeping your opinions flowing in.

You know what i did with my Honda? I could 'feel' when it needed a change and then i gave it one. I knew just when it was time - i didn't ever keep a track of it but i know i never went over 5K. That's probably the reason why the engine now purrs better in it than when i bought it did 2 years ago. I honestly wouldn't want to sell it - after all the work i put into it myself to keep it running like new. But i guess i need a four door now. Moving in with folks and planning to find an Indian wife soon. :)

Now having said that - i love my cars so much that you shouldn't be surprized if i tell i might actually plan on sleeping in the car or with it in the garage for the first few weeks! :)

Still haven't picked it up. I was talking to the dealer today about how many kms would i expect on it and he said around 50kms - on asking him how - he responded the mechanics drive it to test it. Really? 50kms of testing?

Not taking the warranty - cannot afford it. Neither the paint protection. I might get a 3M film installed to prevent stone chips (but not from the dealer).