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  #1  
Old 05-23-2006, 08:28 AM
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OT Outback suspension

I have an '05 Outback. I just dropped it off at the dealer - I think the car has a loose tie rod end or ball joint. Every time I back down my driveway (it's steep, and I turn the wheel to the right to make it onto the road) I feel a clunk through the steering wheel when the front wheels hit the gutter.

The service writer had me take the car out for a drive with a mechanic, so I could reproduce the symptoms. I was able to, in a mild fashion (not a lot of steep driveways in Champaign, period, but I found a driveway to a business that had a bump on the way in), but the mechanic seemed to already be providing excuses. 'When you hit a bump with the wheels turned at high speeds, the suspension gets bound up.' I was doing maybe 15mph each time.

Does anybody have a current-gen Legacy or Outback? Does yours have any slop up front? If they don't fix it, and say the car's fine, I'm gonna be really disappointed. I'm also going to just waste more of their time until they fix the thing, so they might as well get it right the first time. :P

Ironically, the other complaint I had about the car was pretty minor - the dash buzzes on bumpy roads. That the mechanic heard, and agreed that it was really annoying.
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  #2  
Old 05-23-2006, 09:41 AM
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Ah, I see how it is. Worden Martin wants a fight.

They just called and said they didn't find anything wrong with the suspension, that the noise I hear and the clunk in the steering wheel is normal. I'm not happy about that. I've never had a Subaru that 'clunked' when everything was normal.

And, of course, they ran through a list of things they thought I should do while they had the car in there. 'Your brakes are pretty dirty, so you have those serviced.' I actually stifled a laugh. 'And it looks like your fuel injectors have never been cleaned.' Nice one. 'Your tires are showing some alignment wear.'

The alignment, it turns out, is covered under warranty. So I had them do that. Mr Service Writer wasn't thrilled about me picking the one thing out of the list they weren't going to get any money out of.
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  #3  
Old 05-23-2006, 03:16 PM
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svxcuseme svxcuseme is offline
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Right on! Stick it to Em'.... Crooks!

Sorry no experience with that issue.
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Old 05-23-2006, 03:31 PM
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My old legacy has poor struts all around and only clunks in the rear left when I'm briskly making my way down a trail (off road)

My mother's jeep had pretty much everything in the front end replaced and got a similar "it is normal/in your head" story all the while until I insisted they put in new strut mounts and mysteriously the clunking stopped.
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  #5  
Old 05-23-2006, 04:29 PM
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Post the question here http://www.ultimatesubaru.net/forum/

i know that there was on other (1995-1999) soobies a TSB on clunking in the steering wheel that involved the universal joint on the sterring column. I do beleive if you go to an autozone they will pull up all the TSB for your car for free. I havent heard anyone complain of this in the newer soobies.

It could be a sway bar bracket, they should have put the car on a lift and grabes the sway bars to see if they were tight.
Keep anydocumentation on the problem incase it is something and it gets worse.

nipper
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Old 05-23-2006, 08:09 PM
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I should post the latest on this one. The service manager actually intervened while I was arguing with the service writer. The latter had actually told me that 'all cars will do that.' I had just gotten through explaining to the service writer that he was wating everybody's time, because they were going to fix the problem eventually, when the service manager stepped in.

The manager fetched my car and I rode along with him so he could see the symptoms himself. He did agree with me that the clunk did not seem normal. Riding in the passenger seat, I noticed that the clunk is pretty pronounced on that side - I can hear it clearly and feel it through the floor. Anyway, he said he'd take a demo Outback home for the night and see if he could make it do the same thing.

I was glad to get some sort of acknowledgement of the problem, instead of the ridiculous brush-off I had gotten so far.

Oh, and I have looked up TSBs. I havn't found anything dealing with the front suspension on '05 and later Legacys or Outbacks.
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  #7  
Old 05-25-2006, 10:07 AM
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Hey, another update.

I talked to the service manager, Bill, who told me that he did take a new Outback home.

'I don't really want to tell you this, but the car did exactly the same thing.'

When I told Bill that I had to take the car on a very long trip in a couple weeks, he promised that, if I made an appointment, they'd go over the car very carefully and try to find the problem. If they still couldn't find it, then it wouldn't be anything to worry about on a long trip.

Right now I'm very disappointed in Subaru. This 'clunk' is very unbecoming.
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  #8  
Old 05-25-2006, 10:21 AM
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nick:

i don't recall having this problem with my 05 legacy 2.5gt sedan, but i do know how you feel about not your dealership not acknowledging obvious problems with their vehicle. my automatic climate control system did not blow cold air in defrost mode. i took it to two different dealers and both refused to see there was a problem. it concerns me because both hyundais are mostly likely going away by the end of june and i am seriously looking at another pre-owned subaru.
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  #9  
Old 05-25-2006, 10:34 AM
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I did just find a couple threads in the NASIOC Outback forum. It seems that the clunking may have been a problem with the previous generation of Outbacks. There's a TSB for those, and it prescribes the installation of a dampened u-joint on the steering column.
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