Car problem- wierd vibration

Fuel consumption has risen actually. From 360miles a tank to 280…

Replacing a caliper isn’t difficult if you’ve got the right tools. It’s exactly the same as changing one on a bike but bigger, more expensive and dirtier.

If your fuel consumption has risen that could be another symptom of a sticking brake. Does one wheel get hotter than the others? (although admittedly that’s a very sticky brake)

Hora – if its perm 4wd then you don’t have the option to switch between the two

What model/year of car is it? Has it had any modifications? Who did the clutch work and is the work covered by a warrenty?

Just jack it up and rotate the wheels. If it is the caliper you want to get on that before the alloy welds itself to the hub. Had this on mates beemer and took ages with smacking it with plastic mallet before it finally gave way. Changing a caliper is easy enough if you have the tools as Lootenant said. It’s rebleeding thats more difficult

It is permanent 4wd and its changeable between rev (holds first out on the high setting)- as that worked fine yesterday I assumed it would be fine. surely it would be fubar that as well (or at least give an indication)?

clutch is covered by a 12month warranty.

Will report back later- off back to tyre place first to have all balancing rechecked and check calipers etc..

Unless I’m wrong transfer boxes are working all the time – its nowt to do with whether you choose high or low range or whether you ‘rev it’ (WTF? are you refering to the button that gives you low range?). The transfer box sends power from the engine to both the front and rear axles in your car.

I manged to **** the one on our Surf by drifting it round round-a-bouts and doing burn outs and other such chavvie activites. If it gets a regular thrashing (and it sounds like it does as you’ve had to put a new clutch in it) then its probably knackered. As Subaru box’s are an intergrated part of the transmission, it’ll be expensive.

Oh, and don’t EVER switch between modes while driving along….ever
Best bet is to take it back to where you had the clutch done, rather than asking on an MTB forum

Mornin’ I took it to my normal tyre place (INDIE not shaggers) and had the wheels re-rebalanced again. One rear was out by a way, the others still fine. Plus the disc on the nearestside front is heavily scored round the radius so something hefty was lodged in there. Can scored-discs get through an MOT?

Ok. Its returned. With a vengenance. Noticed a low vibration now at lower speeds and again as soon as I head 60ish on the motorway it starts:

a) Does it go (immediately) when i dip the clutch and coast?
– As soon as I dipped the clutch in it went/smooth as a babies bot. Even though I scrubbed no speed off at all. Did this a fair few times- immediate smoothness.
b) Does it go if I brake, lightly or firmly?
– No
c) Does it go immediately if I let right off the throttle? (no)
Revised- if I lift off the throttle it lessens considerably but returns asap as soon as I apply any throttle

Taking it the to the Subaru indie today- if its up on a rmap would it be quick to diagnose???

Try & work out if its RPM related, try same speed different gear & see what happens. Have you tried to go through the RPM stationary to see if its a mount?

The mounts are ‘known’ (dodgy/soggy) on the Foresters. I am leaning towards a propshaft though

Crikey, what a set of symptoms, the fact that dipping the clutch makes it go away rules out wheel/hub balance issues and pretty much rules out suspension problems to start with. You’re down to driveline components. Its not rev dependent, as that’s been ruled out by it not occuring in 1st, 2nd and 3rd to redline.
So that leaves something wheel-speed related that vanishes when torque is not transferred to/from the engine….leaving drive/propshafts, diffs and their mountings. Oh and the bearings on the output stage of the gearbox and the transfer box? Can anyone think of anything I’ve missed? Bearings failing on the transmission may be identifiable by lubricant leaks around the shaft seals. 4WD transmissions are a bitch to diagnose, especially as the vibrations can resonate from one end to the other and sound like they’re coming from the back when they arent etc.

Two months ago the clutch was changed. Although at the time the flywheel was checked and found to be ok- it could be a worn flywheel????

I was under the car last night with a headtorch and noticed a darker (recent) patch on a cross member under the engine- either side of the cross member was normal/dry. I can visualise the part it came from but cant explain! Will take a piccie

If it were the clutch I’d expect it to occur with revs, whether engaged or disengaged. You could remove the “input” stage (inc clutch) of the gearbox from the equation by putting the box into neutral when it happens; this detatches all box, clutch and engine components apart from the output shaft and transfer box from the rotation. If it were a worn fly (as in surface wear) I’d expect vibrations to occur when slipping the clutch but not in normal use unless you also notice a slipping clutch in normal use lol.

There really isnt anything else that can go wrong with the fly unless its a dual-mass one, but that would be rev related, not wheel-speed related as you have.

Sounds like a problem I had with my Range Rover a while ago – turned out to be a broken coil spring on the front suspension, only became apparent when the front end started to lift a bit at speed, also depended on the load in the car.
At rest , almost impossible to spot, only when lifted bodily and the front end dropped down was it visible.
Might be worth a look ?
D.

sounds like centre propshaft bearing to me,I did a renault kangoo a while back with simelar noises/symptoms.

also check engine mount/gearbox mountings.

davey99 – a spring would continue to cause problems when the clutch was pressed? I’m more inclined to agree with fullbouncebill having had the same problem on my celica, though I’m not jumping to conclusions yet.

Hora,You havent isolated the possible wheel bearing noise yet,I would sedscribe this as a Dron-ing noise (rather than vibration)

If you rock the steering left to right on a flat road the noise should come and go,It will be noisier on the faulty wheel bearing side,Its harder to diagnose front to back but would be confirmed by free play if the wheel is rocked top to bottom (jacked up)

I would have thought the Kwik fit fitter Should 😕 have found this when the wheels were balanced but I am lening more towards a drive shaft/centre bearing by what you have said.

Its just a case of checking the bearing by rocking up and down with your hand,there should be no up or down movment.

good luck and keep us informed. 😀

Propshaft would be the next thing I checked, followed by rear diff mounts.

I believe the Foresters share a lot with the Impreza, so it may be worth asking on scoobynet.com, and for really clever people try bbs.22b.com.

Subaru wheel bearings are notoriously week. Had one fail on my Impreza at 25k miles that was silent except when leaned on very hard at over 100mph.

Rear wheel bearings tend to rumble (but quietly) on the subarus, fronts tend to be quiet but can give you a lot of pad knock off.

Cheers guys. Will report back later. I took the car to the subaru garage yesterday and he RAGGED it up a 50mph dual carriage way and back with no violent-shakes. Back on the motorway today and hey-presto!
Garage thinks its the fly wheel (when they changed the clutch) however I want to investigate ALL first before removing gearboxes etc..

The propshaft should have no movement (up and down) etc at all? When I wiggle it?

Will of course keep you updated.

“The propshaft should have no movement (up and down) etc at all? When I wiggle it?”

No.

“I was under the car last night with a headtorch and noticed a darker (recent) patch on a cross member under the engine- either side of the cross member was normal/dry”

😉

You could be onto something there,If the Crankshaft oil seal has gone(oil leak/flywheel clutch contamination?) its possible the first motion shaft/bearing has freeplay in it causing vibration through the gearbox/engine mountings.

If one of the mountings is cracked this will amplify the vibration at the given speed.

Usually the flywheels are dished to avoid gearbox oil contamination,although i have seen problems (juddering) caused by mechanics contaminating the clutch with anti seize used to lubricate the splines! 😳

I had a lot of noisy vibration at certain points in the rev range – gearbox oil was very low, topped it up and it almost completely went. Something’s worn in there now though due to having been run with low oil.

Engine mounts – to test this, have someone rev the engine and let the clutch out whilst the handbrake (or if you can manage it, footbrake) is on to stop the car moving. You should see the engine mounts wobble about if they are gone (at least, that worked on my car).

If your fuel consumption has risen that could be another symptom of a sticking brake. Does one wheel get hotter than the others? (although admittedly that’s a very sticky brake)

I had a brake that was only slightly binding – you could barely tell whilst driving/coasting to a stop etc, and there was no pulling. The wheel was still noticably very much hotter than the others though when you got out and checked. Didn’t even have to touch it, you could feel the heat radiating.

Update. The Indie garage is quite good (no main dealer H&S stuff)- as soon as it was up on the ramp I was under there. Noticed straight away there there was alot of grease flung around (a great deal) under and above the inner CV joint.

Removed (engine end seperated itself- housing from the bearing inside). The cv joint at the other end felt like a bag of broken stones when rotated etc.

I’m off to a Dismantlers today to pick up another (saves £300) and was thinking….pick up the other front driveshaft ‘just incase’?

There was grease on the back of the brake caliper on the other side (nearside) but the driveshaft isnt split/loose etc. Could it be that this side was replaced in the past and the spannermonkey didnt bother to clean up the surrounding grease afterwards?

Ps. Car had one owner before me.

Sorted 😀

I sourced a front driveshaft from a Subaru Dismantlers in Hebden Bridge and it. The original cv joint was obviously broken when you rotated etc.

£100 labour and it drives smooth, fast and the steering (of course) feels alot tighter now on turn in etc.

Thank you very much for your time and help guys. Very much appreciated. Thanks to your time I saved myself an additional cost of circa £500+ as the garage thought the problem was internal/flywheel related. If I had trusted their experience I would have had this expense then eventually the real problem sorted later on.

Thank you.

Excellent news!

Your round, then?