So I got it back finally yesterday and so far it seems to drive fine (though today it did seem like it slipped out of gear between 3rd & 4th but I’m not sure if that was me not fully depressing the clutch, or something else - I’m keeping notes).
The guy now said that the roller bearing was “pitted” and they “overlooked” it before. It didn’t fall out, or they didn’t forget to put it back in. However what I thought of AFTER leaving the shop is WHY would it start making this really loud scraping noise only after having work done on the car? If the bearing was pitted, it was pitted before it got the work done too, but I’d never had any noise or anything weird at all. (I asked him to describe pitted, and he said it had “scorch marks” on it). I called today and his explanation was that because he replaced the clutch and the differential, all the components were now more tightly in there, and that would cause it to make the noise because they’re adding more pressure on it. It doesn’t make sense to me, but is that a possible explanation? I have the parts and can take photos but I’m not sure what I should take pics of exactly - everything? Just the differential and bearing?
Frankly I suspect he’s lying about something but I’m just not sure what. Oh, I called the Subaru shop and since I have the order form from them, I determined they did put the correct differential in my car. So that’s one thing outta the way. That’s not to say the shop installed it correctly… they did tell me (the tech) they used the same tools on all cars, so they don’t ahve any special Subaru tools.
About all I can do is offer my sincerest condolences. The more you relate about this issue the deeper the crap gets.
Jumping out of 3/4th gear could be caused by any one of several problems in the transmission and is not related to your fully depressing the clutch.
Every single thing you’ve stated on this post is nothing but utter BS and that includes the bit about the “same tools”. As I stated, setting up a Subaru ring/pinion is different than setting up a ring/pinion on a “normal” differential and if those Subaru tools are not available then it must be worked around. This is going to take a huge amount of time and thought to do.
I assume the now “scorched” bearing he’s talking about is one or both differential carrier bearings. Maybe the fact that slopped this thing together is what caused this bearing to pit and scorch. Assembing the ring/pinion incorrectly will ruin the carrier bearings, along with some other things; such as that new ring/pinion gear.
After taking another look at some specs, it shows that a 5 speed manual car comes with 4.11 gears and automatics come with 4.44 gears so I’m still very puzzled as to why they’re considering it “correct”.
Maybe you should contact the Subaru regional office, provide the VIN of the car and the part no. of the new gear set and verify it through them. It may not even make any difference anyway since the new gearset is not going to last long and it could already be damaged.
My opinion? After hearing all of what you’ve been told, these people are flat full of it and I’m not sure I would even want them changing my oil much less doing a differential repair.