[EvilDragon]

Hi everyone! I bought one of the last Foresters with a manual transmission in Massachusetts, drove it home today. I look forward to learning everything there is to know about being a Subaru Forester owner.

 

[2.5x_sleeper]

Welcome to the forum from Oregon! :biggrin:

Bobby...

['07 FSXT MODding Journal] ['03 X MODding Journal]

 

[Lateralus]

Welcome! When I purchased my Forester, desiring a manual certainly narrowed the search for me also. It was one of the best vehicles that I've ever had.

What questions do you have, if any?

 

[EvilDragon]

The main question that I have is how to do the engine break-in and avoid the 6MT oil consumption if necessary. There's a long break-in thread, if someone could tell me the basics and if anything special is required to be done (other than not flogging it past 4000k RPM).

 

[Jonbeans1968]

Hey does your transmission have a two-ish step to be put in gear?

 

[Lateralus]

The main question that I have is how to do the engine break-in and avoid the 6MT oil consumption if necessary. There's a long break-in thread, if someone could tell me the basics and if anything special is required to be done (other than not flogging it past 4000k RPM).

I'd wait for others to chime in on the break-in; typically there are wildly different opinions on what you should do there (some say to baby it while others say to thrash on it in order to seat the piston rings). One thing that most agree on, however, is the importance of varying the RPMs during the break in period. I don't know what your traffic situation is based on your proximity to the city, but I'd try to avoid highway driving/constant RPMs as much as possible just to try to give the engine more of a workout. Others may feel differently. If I recall correctly, I took it pretty easy on mine during the break-in period with normal driving in the lower half of the RPM range...working up to brisk acceleration every now and then to help seat the rings. No clue if I did it correctly or not, but I didn't break anything and drove it to just shy of 100K over the course of 4.5 years before trading it in. I did develop a pretty significant oil consumption issue during that time, but I had the FB25 which was known to be prone to having that issue. I eventually did get the short block replaced at 95xxx miles or so and it seemed to resolve the issue, but around that time I had developed the itch for another vehicle. My buddy who worked at the dealership and coordinated the engine work gave me a pretty hard time about having them go through that, only to trade the vehicle shortly afterwards, but I wasn't really vehicle shopping when I had the work done and at least it was (hopefully) resolved for the next owner.

They did tell me at the dealership that the MT models were more prone to oil consumption and told me to try to rev match when downshifting in order to minimize it. But take that for what it's worth, as mine was a 2012 5MT and may have behaved differently than yours will.

 

[EvilDragon]

Hey does your transmission have a two-ish step to be put in gear?

What do you mean?

 

[EvilDragon]

But take that for what it's worth, as mine was a 2012 5MT and may have behaved differently than yours will.

Thank you for the advice! My plan is to vary the RPMs and do a couple of oil changes early on, since that seems to help with the engine break-in. Subaru oil and filters seem pretty cheap, so I will prob stick to that.