Hi Laura!
Hi- I just looked at a '97 Outback with 173,000 miles that I'm thinking
of buying. Head gasket was replaced at 120,000. The engine has a
pronounced knock - doesn't sound like piston noise, but rather two
blocks of wood hitting each other. The owner described this as "that
Subaru knock" and nothing to be concerned about. I'm new to Subarus -
does this sound right to anyone, or should we avoid this car?
Thanks, Laura
As someone else mentioned, unless the car is real inexpensive, and/or
you are capable of performing engine work yourself, I'd pass on it;
there are plenty of good ones out there. A slight tic-tic-tic from a
cold engine is fairly typical, and this should go away as the engine
warms to operating temperature. A knocking sound is nearly always a
bad sign.
I'll give you a real world example:
I have a '99 Forry that I purchased last year for the princely sum of
$2500. It had an issue similar to what you are describing, a
pronounced knock in the engine block. The previous owners' mechanic
had diagnosed a failing rod bearing (basically the engine is history
at this point), and after a careful listen with a stethoscope, I had
to agree. The car was in great condition otherwise, with only 107K
miles.
Since I _had_ a perfectly good EJ22 Legacy motor sitting in the
garage, I figured to graft this engine into the Forry, and went ahead
with the deal.
As it turned out, the knocking noise was coming from one of the timing
belt pulleys (the cogged one FWIW), the bearing had disintegrated, and
the bearing shell was hammering against the inner race as the timing
belt turned. Simply amazing that it didn't toss the belt, but there
you have it; a perfectly good Forester for $2500, plus about $300 for
timing belt parts, fresh waterpump, new hoses and such, and a weekend
to install everything.
If the same job had gone to a shop, the cost would probably have been
a grand or more; still a pretty good deal for the car, but you get the
picture.
I will add a comment for those of you who might be interested:
When I serviced the timing belt on my wifes' '02 Forester at about
120K (yea, yea, I know; the book sez 105K. sue me ;-), that same
cogged pulley was failing, and the rest of them were marginal at best.
Do keep an eye on those idlers, folks; they work hard for their money
and are easily overlooked during a timing belt job. Unless they are
absolutely perfect, I'd highly advise installing new ones along with
the timing belt; cheap insurance in my book.
ByeBye! S.
Steve Jernigan KG0MB
Laboratory Manager
Microelectronics Research
University of Colorado
(719) 262-3101
