My 2000 Forester with a manual transmission has 140K miles on it and over the past 6 months has developed a repeating clunk when the steering wheel is cranked all the way over in either direction and I’m moving - like when I’m backing out of a parking space. It happens in both forward and reverse gears. The weird thing is it doesn’t happen when the car is cold, but only after it’s been driven for a while and the gear oil warms up. It has gotten progressively worse so that now after it’s been driven for 45 minutes on the hiway, the clunking is so bad it shakes the whole car.
We have two excellent Subaru mechanics here in Santa Fe - one says he’s seen this situation a couple of times and the solution is replacing the transmission ($1,500 used if I can find one) and the other said that there was a service bulletin on this issue and changed out the transfer case oil (no help at all).
Anyone had similar issues? Any suggestions?
Thanks
i have the same thing on my 03 forester.
i’m told it’s the viscous coupling.
i was told not to worry about it but it’s LOUD and sounds horrible.
i posted a similar question here:
http://community.cartalk.com/posts/list/2124042.page
this may also be of help:
http://www.subaruforester.org/vbulletin/f89/shudder-when-turning-sharp-51404/