27th May 2009, 19:21
I have a 2000 forester and am replacing my rear wheel bearings for the first time. It has 93,000 miles and hope that I don't have the same problem as everyone else with repeated wheel bearing replacements. overall a good car, I almost have it paid off and hope to keep the repairs to a minimum.
17th Sep 2009, 15:23
I have a 2002 Forester with about 96000 miles on it. The left rear wheel bearing went at about 94000 and the right rear has just started to make lots of noise.
Otherwise it has been a good car (but I really hate those rear disc brakes! They just rot away!)
My local mechanic does my work. I was very interested in the comments about using bearings from a Legacy. Is there any more info on this?
13th Oct 2009, 20:42
I guess I won't be buying this 1999 Subaru Forester for $3900 can at 160 000 km anymore!!!
23rd Dec 2009, 17:35
Bought my 1999 Forester new and moved to Alaska. Car only has about 62,000 miles at surface road speeds, but they are HARD miles in constant mud, gravel, ice, snow, marine salt air. I've tried to do regular maintenance on schedule.
The car runs great, handles great, handles snow and ice just fine when other drivers are stuck home. It's my driveway plow.
Starting to have the common rear wheel bearing problems now at 57,000-62,000 miles. I'll be happy to try better replacement parts or procedure (such as a different seal, packing or no packing, etc) to keep the car. No dealer closer than a $800 marine barge trip, not an option.
Maybe I expect less of a car in this environment than some people... things wear out with harsh use. I don't consider an annual repair of about $300 a problem considering it hasn't needed anything else but normal servicing at all.
21st Jun 2010, 20:07
I have a 1999 Forester. I bought it at auction in 2008 for about $3,000. It needed about $700 of work immediately, but since then hasn't been any trouble.
Except for one thing. The high-pitched whine.
It's pretty hard for me to diagnose it since, A.) It only kicks in at speeds over 40 mph and B.) I know nothing about cars.
The noise does not always happen. I've gone weeks without hearing it. But then for weeks it will happen every time I drive it.
It kicks in around 40 mph, and the sound does not change much when I accelerate to higher speeds. It also will not "shut off" until I get below 10 mph (at lower speeds the sound changes from a constant high-pitched whine to an oscillating whine).
If I stop the car for a few minutes, sometimes the sound will not come back during that trip.
I notice that if I do not warm up the car and then accelerate sharply within the first couple minutes of driving, the sound is almost guaranteed to occur.
I took it to my local mechanic, and he drove it around, but did not get it over 40 mph, and therefore did not hear the sound. He told me "It's probably the transmission, which means you just have to deal with it until it craps out." But I have shifted into neutral on the freeway and the sound does not stop.
My friend thinks it could be the radiator fan, since its speed is not directly linked to the car speed (and since the sound doesn't really change much with speed, except at very low speeds). But I doubt he is right. The radiator fan doesn't turn off just because you stop the car, but the whine does stop (always) when the car gets below 5-10 mph.
15th Aug 2010, 21:14
I tried balancing the tires, changing rear differential fluid, doing an alignment job to stop the rear end noise in my 2002 Subaru Forester. With 116,000 miles, the noise is worse when steering to the left.
After reading all the comments, I guess it's the left rear wheel bearings! I'm going to look for Legacy bearings and put them on or find a fair mechanic for the job.
13th Mar 2009, 16:08
I own a 2002 Subaru Forester and I'm on my fifth wheel bearing replacement. Obviously not under warranty any longer, here comes more $$$ out of my pocket.