I have a 2001 Forester. a few days ago i started hearing a clicking noise like the one you get from a bad CV joint. this morning i took it to a local subaru shop and we could not reproduce the noise they checked it out and said everything looked ok. this morning i was driving and all of a sudden i herd a thud and it felt as if my front passenger wheel is binding up. the car shakes and there is a loud metal grinding noise comming from the transaxle and my clutch is slipping bad. About 4 months ago i had my tranny and my clutch replaced and about a year ago i had my CV joints done
Have the tires always been rotated every 5k or every 7.5k?
Are your tires all of the same brand, size, and tread depth?
Have you ever replaced just one tire, or two or three tires, rather than all 4 tires?
If the answer to any of those questions is a “yes”, then I suspect that you have problems with the center differential/viscous coupler.
Unfortunately, too many people fail to read the caveats in the Subaru Owner’s Manual regarding the importance of “matched tires”, with resulting damage to the center differential/viscous coupler.
My 2001 Forester has a broken viscous coupler and I have always had matching tires. I’ve been told it is not a safety issue and encouraged to ignore the thunking and clicking. My Forester is a manual. I’m told the automatics don’t have viscous couplers.
There’s not enough info known to be able to make much of a guess here but some possibilities could be:
CV shaft dislodged from the transmission.
Halfshaft nut not properly tightened; stripped hub splines.
Internal fault in the transmission final drive spider gears.
Faulty transmission seeing as how you state that was replaced 4 months ago. Assuming a used unit, one would hope the transmission oil level was inspected.