Puff sound

Well I just bought my first car about 3 weeks ago, its been in the shop for 2 of those weeks after I discovered that I needed several repairs costing ~2400$ total. The car cost 3300. Anyways I got screwed by the sketchy guy who sold me the car. To get back to the point, the car had transmission problems and did not make a puff noise before the repairs. It creates this sound sometimes on acceleration, slowing, shifting, and pushing in the clutch. It has almost a 100% chance of making this puff when starting the car up. Think you have any idea what the problem is?

Let’s try to narrow this down some. Besides the word “puff”, can you describe the noise a little better? Now, try to figure out where it’s coming from. Is it really coming from inside the transmission, or is it maybe coming from one end of the car or another. From your post, this sounds virtually impossible to identify.

Thank you for putting my thoughts into words, Chase.
Even though I can usually provide some help with Subaru-related questions, my only thought when reading the OP’s question was…Huh?

I suspect this “puff” sound may be coming from the exhaust, a sort of muffled backfire. But until we get further details it is still anyone’s guess.