1996 Subaru Outback from North America - Comments

I had a reoccurring clutch problem. I had it replaced twice in the first year under warranty, no problems now.

The catalytic converter was replaced

at 120k miles.

I had to have the transmission rebuilt at 75k miles, probably my fault, I had to replace the transmission in my 2nd Subaru too.

There was a recall on the alternator which was replaced by Subaru and my rental car was covered by them as well.

My most recent problem was a spark plug that stripped out. My mechanic was able to re-thread the hole, at minimal cost.

This car even with the high mileage still looks and feels like new.

It's very tight and even though it's geared low and a bit underpowered at times with the manual transmission that's easily compensated for.

I'm not afraid to take it anywhere, handles great on any road or off road condition.

The amount of cargo and passenger space is more than enough to transport anything,

I think it is not normal to have to replace the trans. at 75k miles. After reading this and speaking to others with the same year outback this seems to be a common problem. I own a 1996 outback wagon, was purchased with 20k miles at 23k we took car back to Subaru explaining clutch was not performing right and was making strange noise in 1st gear when you took your foot of the clutch and gas and was coasting, Subaru looked at our car replaced the clutch and at 26k we took it back stating still clutch still not performing right. Subaru looked at it again and did some more adjustments to clutch. Drove car for a while and took back again around 40k with the same compliant of bad clutch performance due to strange noise in 1st gear, at that time district mang. came out looked at our car, made more adjustments to our clutch and pressure plate and test drove with us and admitted to hearing strange sound in 1st gear, but said was not the clutch nor a serious problem. Now at around 100k clutch is popping out of 3rd and 5th gear, which is due to a bad Trans.

This is the noise that we were complaining about over and over starting at 23k and was told that it was no major problem and now that our warranty is over Subaru does not want to help us out, even though at 23k and 26k and 40k when car was under warranty they either missed the problem or just out right lied and did not want to replace trans.

Also on top of this we have had to replace engine also which makes me wonder if the bad Trans. caused engine problems.

A Subaru with an Fuji engine should not have to replace the Trans. at 75k or even at 100k.

Something sounds fishy if you ask me..

I believe this year was when Subaru was using the "Hill Holder Clutch." They also discontinued this the next year with the 97' outbacks... More than likely all that hassle was due to this new clutch design they were using in the 96, then immediately got rid of. That could also explain why it was acting up in the 1st gear.