`95 Legacy leaking BIG puddles of red fluid...

[Bradley Walker]

This morning my mom got up and went to take her `95 Legacy out to do errands
and noticed when driving 3 miles up the road to the post office, a drip that
was leaving a visible fluid line on the pavement. When she got to the post
office, she noticed it was smoking pretty bad underneath the car and
immediately brought it back. At that point I went outside and noticed a 3'
wide puddle of oil/fluid on the driveway. I took some papertowels and
soaked up some of the oil noticing that it was red color which ruled out a
oil pan leak. That along with checking the engine oil showed that it was
still full. So I got to noticing that the smoke was coming from the rear
area of the block and I got to thinking if it was the transmission fluid.
Sure enough when I checked the transmission fluid dip stick it was a little
bit below L and had appearantly leaked most of the transmission fluid out.

When I looked under the car I noticed a visible dripping coming off of the
exhaust (explains the smoke) to a rate of about 1 big drip every 15 seconds.
I got to thinking, if this was a rear main seal, it wouldn't leak that much
fluid out in a period of 12 hours. Because last night when I had her car
out to go get a bite to eat, it was working fine in that no drips, no smoke,
nothing was happening. Whatever happened happened between 2am last night
and this morning. I called the dealership and they doubted it was the
tranny pan or the rear mail seal if it was leaking that fast. They said it
might be some fluid lines. Did something get tossed up under there while
driving last night that severed a line??

Thoughts, ideas??

 

[JohnO]

Whatever happened happened between 2am last night
and this morning. I called the dealership and they doubted it was the
tranny pan or the rear mail seal if it was leaking that fast. They said it
might be some fluid lines. Did something get tossed up under there while
driving last night that severed a line??

Scoot over a little...I can't quite see it from here, there isn't
enough light. ;-)

You'll have to climb under there and have a look for yourself. Could be
anything, really.

-John O

 

[Dmitriy]

It might be the power steering, I'm pretty sure it uses the same fluid
as the AT... which is red in color. The steering rack, along with the
power steering lines is right in the area you described, right above a
part of the exhaust header... There was a guy who had his power
steering lines get damaged by the heat from his after market header at
a local autocross... it smoked like crazy!

Check under the car, where it's leaking, if there is a bunch of power
steering tubing in that area... that might be it.

 

[JohnO]

It might be the power steering,

Good idea.... if the tranny leaked as much as a line on the road for a
couple miles, seems like the level on the dipstick would be a bit lower
than just at "L".

-John O

 

[AS]

The 95 legacy, auto, has two pipes, that go from the driver's side of
the transmission to the radiator. Check them.

On the left hand side too, towards the front of the transmission there
are several plugs, one of which could be leaking.

The other possible leak areas would be the torque converter seals and it
could be a significant amount (would leak by the bottom front of the
transmission), the shifter seal (doubt it would leak that much and all
of the sudden) and the rear driveshaft seal(that would leak on the
exhaust pipe shield)

Good luck!!

 

[Dmitriy]

Also... eventhough I haven't dealt with ATs in a looong time... I seem
to remember the ones in Subarus needing a huge amount of fluid.
Something like 12 quarts. So even if you lost a quart (which would be
one BIG puddle)... you only lost 1/12 of the fluid... and I'm not sure
how that would register on the dip stick.

Again... the only way to find out for sure, is to get under the car and
poke around. If the fluid is all over the place, clean everything up,
go drive around a bit, and then get under there again to see where new
fluid is appearing.

--Dmitriy

 

[Bradley Walker]

I wanted to update everyone that the car was towed to the dealership
yesterday. They called back and said that the 'tailshaft' seal had blown
out and just leaked all the fluid out. They are going to replace that, do a
transmission fluid flush and also (in another search pertaining to the check
engine light that came on the day prior) that a coil was weak causing a
cylender missfire. All for $650.