Rear All Wheel Drive Clutch

[SVX_MY_BABY]

My rear AWD clutches have been acting up for a while. I thought it was just binding due to sitting for the winter, but it has not gone away. I can also feel a similar binding/slip when going straight when in first or reverse. The car drives great other than that. No problems with shifting.

Any idea where to start to fix the problem before my whole transmission goes?

[JACOBBOCAJ]

I had same problem when i got my car. After alot of reading threads and talking to various subaru technicians I found that adding limited slip additive to transmission fluid would fix the problem. A few months later it came back. Did a tranny flush with mobile1 and havent had the problem occur again in over a year.

[Huskymaniac]

Originally Posted by SVX_MY_BABY

My rear AWD clutches have been acting up for a while. I thought it was just binding due to sitting for the winter, but it has not gone away. I can also feel a similar binding/slip when going straight when in first or reverse. The car drives great other than that. No problems with shifting.

Any idea where to start to fix the problem before my whole transmission goes?

I had a similar problem on my 97 Outback. I added Lubegard in the red bottle to a fresh dose of ATF (complete drain and re-fill). It worked great and the problem went away and hadn't come back as of the last 40K miles. As the person above mentioned, if that doesn't work you can try a synthetic ATF like Mobil 1 or Redline. I can't vouch for it but, if you are daring, you can go all the way and add Lubegard (red) to the synthetic ATF. It depends on how bad the binding is and how long it has been going on.

This all assumes it is the center, clutch-type, differential that is binding.