Help New SVX owner here
 

Hi
First - I recently started noticing the temperature guage - and I noticed it goes to H very quickly. A few observations - it seems to have a mind of its won kind of - sometimes when I am just waiting to pay a toll it does not cool off. It gets to H pretty quickly on hills, If I keep it at below 2k rpms it seems fine. A few times with NO throttle apllied the rpm still reads at 2k RPMs.

Second- Steering - sometimes it very smooth a low speeds , and sometimes I feel like I am driving a manual it is very tuff to steer.

Third - the A/C turns on nice and cold after say 5 to 10 minutes no more cold air.

Anyinsight and advice sincerely appreciated.

Help
 

Don't drive your car! Replacing heat gaskets and fixing all the oil seals that get toasted can be pricey. Could be a ton of things for the overheating. I'll start with the easy things to check.

1. Check your fluid level. Is it at the high point of the overflow res. by the drivers side strut tower? If not fill it up with 50 anifreeze and 50. If it was low check it in a week or so to see if it goes down. If so you have a leak (either internal or external)

2. If it still overheats with the proper amount of fluid let it heat up and see if your rad fan turns on (should come on if it rises a hair above normal operating temp). If it doesn't come on test the fan on the battery cables with 2 wires one going to each post and then to the fan. If the fan works if wired directly but not when the car heats up it could be a bad fuse, bad ground, bad connection or bad coolant temp sensor.

3. If the fan works normally check your radiator cap and your thermonstat. They are both only a couple bucks so I'd just replace them. The cap needs to hold pressure and sometimes don't with age. The thermostat could simply be sticking. A good way to test it is with the car running and warm pinch the return hose from the eng to the rad. If you get a woosh of fluid when you let go (think garden hose that you put a kink in) then it is working fine. If not it is probably bad or maybe your water pump isn't pumping strong enough.

4. Finally if you've tackled or tested everything above and still have problems have a shop do a leakdown and pressure test of your engine and cooling system. Could be a lot of things but worst of all a bad head gasket. Very pricey which is why I said DON'T drive it until you get the problem solved.

Shameless Plug/Thread Hijacking
 

http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/show...threadid=10361

Soon to come New Jersey Meet... barring any car issues of course, also, if its not running, come anyway... we can help you join the "family".

re: steering
 

welcome to the club. you know i have the same problem with the steering. i drove another svx with 55k miles on it and the steering was smooth all the time. any suggestions?

help a new svx owner
 

i agree with benebob about the overheating,fix that first. but when thats ok, use a new turkey baster to siphon as much of the fluid as you can out of the power steering resivour. replace it with DEXRON 2 automatic transmission oil. you will probably have to do it 3 or 4 times, driving it for a couple of days in between each change to flush out all the old dirty stuff. my 96 was whining and binding, and that took care of it

Re: Help New SVX owner here
 

With water temp, steering, and A/C all funky at times it sounds like you may have a loose drive belt. Check for excessive slack.
Dan