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Andrew Hutchings

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Andrew Hutchings last won the day on May 11 2018

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About Andrew Hutchings

  • Birthday 03/14/1960

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location:
    Barnet, United Kingdom
  • Subaru Model
    Forester Xs 2.0 petrol Automatic Estate

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  1. I'll be calling my dealer on Monday! I've looked at the D.V.L.A. recall notice and it's difficult to tell, with all the asterisks, if my Forester's affected or not. I, too, have not received a letter, but it's better to call and be safe, rather than sorry.
  2. I can't help with the left hand drive one, but I CAN tell you that the Forester is a great vehicle! I bought mine in December 2017 and it snowed all over London 3 days later; the Forester behaved faultlessly and has done so ever since! Mine's a 2 litre automatic and I plan to fit a tow hitch to it soon, to help with vehicle recovery. Although Subarus have a bad press for fuel economy, mine's been returning 34-36 MPG and I don't exactly hang about! I've done 6,000 miles in 5 months and I've done 2 oil & filter changes, working on the basis of changing it every 3,000 miles-in fact I did the last oil & filter change this afternoon-it's so simple on a Subaru to the extent there are arrows printed on the plastic under shield, explaining where to drain the oil from and where the filter is located. In short, the car's brilliant!!
  3. Juddian, thanks for this. Yes, an oil and filter change on a Forester is harder than other vehicles, but having bought a filter cup from my accessory shop and a couple of genuine Subaru filters & sump washers it's not too bad. Oddly the smell of hot oil that dribbled onto the exhaust was the worse thing about the entire job! I do like the instructions printed on the plastic underside of the engine panel, with arrows & easy-release studs. I'm going to use Castrol GTX Magnetec 10w/40 next time as this is what my motor factor recommends and will be adopting a changing schedule of a filter & oil change every 3,000 miles, with an ATF drain & refill every 6,000 miles.
  4. I've recently changed the ATF on my Forester, using genuine Subaru A.T.F., bought from my local dealer. That bit was easy; warm engine & gearbox, park on level road, pull out dipstick, drain old A.T.F., replace plug & top up with new fluid. Having watched the Youtube links about this I see there's a filter I should have changed at the time. So, back under my car with a torch, but I CANNOT see any sign of a filter anywhere! Have I missed a trick? Mine's a 2010, 2 litre non-turbo petrol vehicle, if that helps.
  5. My 2010 Forester is fitted with 225/55 17' Yokohama tyres all round, which are coming up for replacement. Yesterday, while out and about in deepest rural Suffolk, buying a spare engine for a Daf 33 (another story!) Scooby became stuck in a very muddy field and had to be rescued by (of all things) a Land Rover pick-up. Once pulled out I explained that I thought a Subaru would have easily coped with the situation, to which the Land Rover owner explained that it's the TYRES that do the work (obvious, when you consider it) not the transmission and he suggested a set of "town and country" tyres would be better. My question to the community in Scoobyland is this; has anyone fitted town and country tyres and are they OK for ordinary road driving? My car is delightfully smooth and quiet on roads and I don't really want to lose the quietness, but equally I don't want to be recovered by a Land Rover again! Any thoughts?
  6. Having owned my Forester for 3 months now I thought it'd be worth changing the A.T.F., as I didn't know when it had been changed before, if at all! Although the car's only covered 32,000 miles in 7 years, a change wouldn't do any harm and it all looked pretty easy...... And it is! DON'T BE SCARED!........ Read on! The great thing about Foresters is the greater clearance under the car than is available with ordinary vehicles, so I utilised this advantage. But, to begin at the beginning (as they say...) 1/ Order a 4 litre tin of Subaru A.T.F., as supplied by your friendly Subaru dealer.( It's about £50 (+V.A.T.) and is the ONLY one recommended by Subaru) Pay for and collect same from dealer! 2/ Ensure you have a 17mm socket, a ratchet, an extension bar (2, preferably, of differing lengths) an oil drainer (if you haven't one of these, an old washing up bowl will do!) and a funnel with a small enough end to fit into the A.T.F. dipstick hole. 3/ Take the car for a run of about 5 miles, to warm up the A.T.F. and park the car on LEVEL ground, select "park" on the gear selector, switch the engine off, put the handbrake on, open the bonnet & pull out the A.T.F. dipstick. 4/Lie down next to the car, with your head below the front passenger's door (R.H.D.-British cars) Approximately in the middle of the engine you'll see a 17mm plug, on the left hand side of the sump; it's best viewed and reached from just behind the front near-side tyre. 5/ Using your socket, ratchet and various lengths of extension bars, loosen the plug, but NOT ALL THE WAY! 6/ Put your drainer under the plug and completely remove the plug. Try to avoid it falling into the old A.T.F., but if it does, it's not a disaster! 7/ Let it drain away (the reason for pulling the dipstick out at stage 4 is to prevent an air lock, thus slowing the flow rate) until this slows to a dribble. 8/ Put the plug back in, ensuring it's not cross-threaded. (Now the clever bit...) I measured how much ATF came out of my Forester, so you won't have to, and (surprise surprise!) it's 4 litres! 9/ Put your funnel into the A.T.F. dipstick opening, check it fits snugly, open your new 4 litre tin of Subaru A.T.F. & s-l-o-w-l-y pour it in. 10/ Put the used A.T.F. back into the tin & seal it, put the A.T.F. dipstick back into its hole & go for a spin! Gear-changing should be both smoother & quieter, but check level of ATF once the new fluid's mixed in; the level is marked on the stick. Old A.T.F. should be disposed of at a suitable recycling centre. This took me an hour, and I can feel the difference! I'll be doing an A.T.F. change every OTHER oil change from now on, so that after a few changes all the A.T.F. will have been changed. It's not a service item according to Subaru, but I reckon it's worth doing!
  7. Thanks! We've just returned from Derbyshire, where we attended a weekend Daf Owners Club meeting, which is our classic car interest (that's the "rubber band" cars of the 1960s & 70s, NOT the 44 tonne trucks-although it's the same company!) I thought I'd see if motorway running made the car more economical and I've returned 36.9 mpg running from Bakewell in Derbyshire to Sterling Corner, north London, covering 156 miles in just over 3 hours. As far as I'm concerned these rumours of Subaru's poor economy are entirely down to driving style! GO SCOOBIE, GO!
  8. My MPG's improving! The Forester's now returning 34.2 miles per gallon, which I reckon is pretty good! I'm not consciously driving slowly or unnecessarily carefully-in fact, I've noticed the instantaneous MPG is lower at 70 MPH then it is at 60 MPH! Anyway, the car's behaving faultlessly & this greater economy is another "plus" for the Forester!
  9. Although it wasn't a Subaru with which I had this problem-in fact it was a Honda Jazz-I replaced the pollen filter and this seemed to solve the problem! The pollen filter I removed was a Honda original one and the muck that are out with it was terrible! I think the filter was the original one from the car's manufacture! Some of the insects I found inside it would have been of interest to the Natural History Museum and I removed even more detritus by hoovering out the housing. Once I put everything back together the moisture problem was almost completely solved. Another point worth looking at is the gap in front of the bulkhead, where the wiper motor and heater air intake are located. If this area becomes full of leaves etc. (a problem that occurs particularly during autumn) it can cause the heater to draw in air that's more moist than would otherwise be the case. I cleaned out that area on a Citroën I owned until recently and the heater worked much better and the screen cleared more quickly.
  10. You're getting more in your Forester than I am at the moment, although I've only done one "full to full" run since I took ownership. I obtained 30.2 MPG from mine, which is a 2.0 litre automatic, which, being an auto, probably means it's less economical than a manual. Getting 35 MPG from a 2 litre engine-ANY 2 litre engine-is pretty good, but given the terrain you cover that's pretty good going! I'll be monitoring my Subaru's performance and economy and reporting back as things go. My problem is the almost irresistible urge to floor it every now and then, which doesn't do much for the economy!
  11. I've just done the first full to full mileage, to calculate the M.P.G. and I'm getting 30.2, on just over 300 miles of mixed driving, although that did include 2 work runs of 25 miles each way (50 miles per day x 2 = 100 miles) on the M25/M1 at a steady 60-70. One of the more quirky things I noticed was the MPG indicator gave a better (that is a higher MPG) reading at 70 MPH than at 60! I'm still mightily pleased with the car and am not driving it slowly in any way! I've been driving with the gear selector in "D" only throughout all my driving so far.
  12. I've always fitted Michelin tyres to everything I've ever driven and when I'm asked to replace tyres for customers I always fit Michelin, unless specifically asked to fit something else. I've always found them to be the best grippers and although they're not cheap they don't compromise on safety in any way. I'm sure that other reputable makes like Continental, Dunlop or Avon are as good, but I stick with what I KNOW works for me! As one customer said to me after I'd fitted 2 Michelins to the front of her Fiesta: "it now goes where I point it!" My brother was in the Met for many years and there was an urban myth in the force (may even be true!) that when the new fleet of Škoda Octavia cars were delivered to the Met they came shod with Continental tyres (V.W. influence) which were replaced with Michelins!
  13. Sheit! My last car was a 2 litre Citroën Xantia automatic and that returned 35-36 MPG on a run (AND it had 200+K miles on the clock!) I'll have to make a point of only using it on long runs and using the wife's Skoda Fabia for the local stuff! The problem is that the Scoobie's such FUN to drive......
  14. I appreciate economy is more often affected by driving style but as a guide what kind of MPG should I expect to obtain from my Forester? The on board indicator fluctuates from 4 to 99.9, so probably isn't much use and I also realise that occasionally "flooring it" is likely to play havoc with any attempt to drive economically!
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