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Stay away from S turbo with Gearbox whine?

3K views 25 replies 10 participants last post by  euroviking 
#1 ·
Hi everyone!

Been on this forum for a little while being a big fozzy fan.
Have been looking to buy either an early XT or an S turbo for pretty long but today i stood there with the cash in hand looking at a beautiful white S turbo with nice paint, no rust, well serviced and only 110 000k's on the clock. This was the first SF5 i have testdriven and my first impression was that it was increddibly wooly in the steering and suspenssion, altho it is a jeepy little car and i was planing on wrx struts and springs with new breaks and stuff so i guess that will be sorted out.
I was sold on the car untill i got up to speed and got into 4th and 5th gear where the gearbox sounded straight cut. I previosly owned a Porsche 944 and those gears are almost semi straight cut and are clearly audible but in this forester it was overpowering the engine and the roadnoise. The owner said it had been like that since he bought it and that he didnt find it strange. The sound grew/went up in pitch with RPM's (or speed since i only heard it in 4th and 5th over 60KM/H) but got louder under load and dissapeard when clutch pedal was pressed down.

After the drive i went under the car to look and found the exhaust under the gearbox and the gearbox itself looking "wet" and oily around the shaft exit. He said that he "topped up" the gearbox oil with 750ml of new oil before it reached the right lvl 20000km after last service, but stated he didnt reflect over the geargbox possibly leaking. My thought is oilstarvation at some point and a bearing or two are badly hurt and on there merry way? Car is still upp for grabs, and in impecible condition with the gearbox as the exception.

Not many of these cars around and certainly not that have run so little. What would this cost to replace if i was to knock that of the sales price? Or should i just look elswere? Is this a typical problem for the S-turbos?

Thanks

Marcus
 
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#3 ·
If that would be diff you would heard the whine noise on all gears. 99% if it whine not crunch is due to failure of bearings although saying that it should be audiable on all gears again, and typically those are bearings at the bottom end of gearbox, next to oil pump and Center diff. If you hear on 4th and 5th it most likely the synchro failure. On those gearbox, 4 and 5 have single synchro and are common problem. If it comes about leak it looks like main shaft seal gone.
You probably looking for rebuilding gearbox. API which is probably the only decent place (most reputable) to do the job, they would charge you somewhere between £750 to £1000 for rebuilding gearbox.
I would go and look better example. I don't think topping up oil is solution for shoot seal.....
 
#5 ·
I almost got ahead of myself an bought it but that was before he decided to disclose that he topped up the box earlier same year. I thought almost a liter sounded extremely mutch too. I would give him a cheap offer but I really don't feel like repairing the gearbox anyway so I'll look elsewhere.

Thank alot guys!
 
#9 ·
Yeah, I sort of bottom out everything about those gearboxes right now.>:) Basically you really have to be very careful with them, is it new or remanufactured? Also small differences across years (even months) can fu... your drivetrain. If I Would be at your place now I defo go with rebuilding gearbox.
But Sean know his stuff, and he know this gearbox I would be confident to buy it:wink2:
 
#10 ·
Personally, I'd keep well away from that car - if it was 750ml short on the gearbox oil, which is an easy thing to deal with...imagine how the rest of the car has been treated....timing belt etc.

You never stated your budget but there must be better examples out there?
 
#12 ·
Well he has receipts on cambelt change and also clutch change from previous owners. There are two more on sale but they have 200 000+ kms on the clock as do most of these cars. He wanted 3000£ for it initially and was not willing to let I go for mutch less and not recognizing the gearbox screaming as a fault. It's been on sale for ages so I texted him that o would have it for just under 2000£ so that I could get a rebuild and then in the end, for around £3000, have a nice car since it seems in good nick in general. No body rust and very mildly rusted undercarriage witch is a rare sight on cars this old on our salty roads up here.
A rebuild is 1000£ in the UK? It will probably be more here in Sweden tho. A Ecutek map costs 850£ here :p.
 
#13 ·
THREE THOUSAND QUID!!!!

This must be gold plated buddy . Usually they go for around £800-£2000 depending on the obvious things.

Secondhand gearbox will set you back £300-£400 + shipping so I'd only pay £1400 Top.

You say the noise goes away when clutch is engaged.
What about in neutral?

sounds like the input prop shaft bearing.

BUY IT fix the leak and try Molyslip gearbox additive and some quality oil.>:) And enjoy the Gen1 Foz.

Whats the rear diff condition like ; any leaks or shaft movement?
Got any pics?
 
#14 ·
The seller is quite a way off, so I only drove it once. Ye, I decided to not invest. Seller was clearly hiding faults and I didn't want to gamble. For 800£ you get a banged upp rusted one with broken radiator and 300 000km on the clock, and auto. Saw a 02 with 170 000km that seemed good with the service history, for 2800£. Got sold before I had time to call. So I'm gonna look for something like that. The 03-04 XTs are 6000£ for a decent one. So that's not an option atm. Rather spend the money on mods.
Ty again all!
 
#18 ·
Well, need to step over here and make our British friends more aware of the prices of Subaru in rest Europe. Forget you will find ANY Subaru for similar money in Europe. I was looking for the last 2 months car in Poland, and was thinking about importing one from Germany, France, Greece, etc. I can easly say you have to double UK price to buy Subaru in rest of Europe.
What you forgetting is unfortunately or fortunately you are one of only few countries in the world having steering wheel on the wrong side.>:)
Hence your market is pretty close. Also the fact you have quite long history with Subaru in motorsport, widely available parts sources, your price are much much lower than anywhere else.

If this S-turbo have genuine 110k on a clock, clean body, service history, and even with fault gearbox. Anything between 1.5k-2.5k it would be good price. As an example, 03-05MY Forester over 200k on a clock you still looking around min 4k. So don't treat rest of the EU the same as UK in respect of parts.
 
#22 ·
It's as you say konkret. And it's even more expencive here than the rest of Europe date to really high taxes, and it's prettyexpencive to live here in general but salarys are higher to Ofc.
There are 6 s turbos on sale in the whole ofSweden. There are only 20 1st gen legacy gt s in Sweden. Olde Japanese turbocars and Japanese turbocars in general are in short supply and very sought after. A nice masda 323 gt is as expencive as an evo 7 here. A masda rx7 fetches if done nicely, 15000-20000£

I'm now looking towards buying a fuzzy that has 250-300k on the clock but that has been serviced well and doesn't seem sloppy in drivetrain or suspension nor makes transmission noises. And try renovating the engine with new bearings and pistonrings, valve seals, some kind of jdm spec camshafts with good flow, Ofc waterpump belts and pulleys. I would go for new wheel bearings, full pollybush conversion new rotors and wrx struts and Springs with sti ARBs. Since I'd anyway change all this on a more expencive car with less km's on the clock (with the exception for the engine overhaul) why not buy one with more km's? Is this a bad idea? A nice one with 170-190k km's goes for around 2800-3000? while I could probably get one that have ran 250-300k km's for 1500-1700£.
 
#24 ·
How long has you been looking for that car?
My forester came after 2 months of looking and testing every forester in local advertisment site (ok, Latvia is small country but still).
So, just try and search a bit more. Maybe some local subaru sites with forums could help, as some people like to sell cars to
closed circle of enthusiasts more than to random people who would not appreciate the car.
 
#26 ·
I've been looking at these cars sporadically for atleast a year and there are basically no low milage ones on the market. I've also thought that if I find one that has 150k km's on it and I get it for 2300£ there is no guarantee the gearbox is more healthy than the a nicely looked after one that has gone 240k km's. The difference is that I can get the last one for 1400£ and rebuild the engine with new bearings and pistons with freshly machined cylinders and crank and new valveseals and headstuds. I have friends that have done this and I have place to do this. Might as well track down a new pair of cams aswell. Then I know the bearings and the internals are good for +100 horses over stock.
I think I'm gonna go this route since I'm anyways gonna swap all the suspension on either of them. Just try to find one with a quiet nice feeling box and transmission.
 
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