Recently I found small puddles of gear oil beneath the rear differential on my '97 Legacy wagon. There was a fair amount of gear oil around the casing, so I took it in for a diagnosis (I'm not much of a DIY'er). The diag- nosis was that it had come out the overflow hole and that there were no leaks. The service rep said it must have been overfilled.
I don't specifically recall ever servicing this differential, but if it was part of a recommended routine service it was done. Certainly not in recent memory.
SO my question is why it would overflow after such a long time. Also, it appeared this happened 2 or maybe
3 times, and then it had bled off enough so there was no more draining.This may have happened initially after pulling into the garage after a long highway trip. But I take a lot of these, some in the heat of summer and it's never happened before.
Can anyone explain why now?