Mr B

What thermostat ? I tend use only original as aftermarket not so good in water flow design and rated temp opening, you could try lower temp rated thermostat too . if a 2.5 then head gaskets very common and don't have all the usual symptoms associated with head gasket failures .

Ball joint and wishbone (corrosion issue, has a recall) and wishbone bushes need good looking at . Check steering rack bushes too . can you feel any play in steering when stationary and rock steering wheel left to right .

Should be a Denso DOX0307 , 4 wire, they about £80 You have fault code ? P0032 ! has wiring to sensor been verified with test meter ? Would need engine code or reg number be 100% opie oils does them and subaru owners club members gets 10% discount I believe . Do not buy any cheap ones as they junk, direct Denso cheapest good ones you will get .

I'll follow your lead on body repair as not my speciality I only do mud guard/turret and underbody rust repair and even then not on a large scale, anything not bolt on requiring top coat paint goes to a local bodyshop . Will be interested in how impreza sill repair sections work out, good chance be ideal and give you enough material make an easy and neat fix .

No idea off hand on impreza full sill panels to the forester but likely impreza repair sill sections do you and any internal strengthening that rotted you self fabricate, The full sill panel from subaru is pretty pricey to chop up for repair . Big job to fit it complete . Don't think you got massive amount of options but if you look at impreza repair sill panels (not that easy find but have seen them before around £40 a side) they could be an option pending on extent of rot . I hate bodywork and rusty cars lol . good luck .

Search for them as rocker panels. Lot of good body repairers will fabricate them depending on actual amount needs doing, If sills are bad you defiantly want check the rear arch inner mud guard where goes down to sill and right up in the strut tower side walls as both of those areas rot fast and bad on some of the SG foresters, The mud guard arch being a common one for mot failure as near seat belt mounting point, Got look hard and tap the metal as they rot internally so look quite good visually . rear subframe flat parts near the 2 bolt mounting points into the shell can rot from top through also so best giving whole rear end good inspection before committing to some work . Sills not so common at that age .

That good you can choose the bodyshop, many cars get more vandalized by bodyshops than from the accident lol . Hope all turns out sweet and you get some gain from the hassle .

Can be a mess in terms of insurance claims with modded agreed value cars. Hope it all works out and repairs get her back to former glory . Main thing is you and your kids not badly hurt . Amount of east europeans here you need a startrek translator :-S

Did the other drivers insurance except blame . Least rear quarter just a scuff and with roof trim you can finish panel paint easy .Could of been worse and at least fully fixable to good standard in right hands.

Expect the ICP kits not bad, they private brand them and unsure who the oem is . Good luck with car, if HG gets done hope it goes smoothly and you get the old Fozzy on the road showing up the modern junk . Can't believe you managed lift one out of my own Devon back yard without me knowing lol :-)

your clock display blank ? If you stuck I can probably fix your current one if post it to me .

Yeh, if you remove the support bar at back of engine to bulkhead and 2 engine mounts in the subframe you can jack it up quite a bit and move it to side at a time and wedge in situ to maximise space for each head . The SOHC is super simple head tear down in the frame, it does only takes a little over an hour to pull whole engine in the workshop but on a drive I would do in frame . you will have to mess with belt to do water pump, nothing to it to be honest and you best checking idler gears and tensioner anyway whole rad with fans attached pulls out in 5 minutes and access is beautiful . Crank bolt easily loosened with breaker bar while wheels still on ground with manual tranny put in high gear . Just align the cam and crank marks then make your own marks from belt teeth to the 2 cam pulleys and the crank pulley teeth and put a C next to crank mark (can't go wrong on timing if do this) . you can use a wrench to back off the hydraulic tensioner in situ SLOWLY and have a test fitted grenade pin ready lock it down (small hex key works perfect) . If you have any bulldog clips use a couple keep cambelt in place on the cam pulleys (saves having issue of needing 3rd hand and belt jumping few teeth) . I expect pump rotor to be fine, I never seen one rotted out bad, pumps are very high quality, would look here though for pump and water ways before committing to head removal. Pump can not jam without serious failure as it cambelt driven by toothed gear Only buy japanese made pump as european ones are junk in comparison, same with any idler gears for cambelt and tensioner if needed, get the oem japan koyo/ntn ones via ICP (not expensive) I would assume coolant mainly water as someone been topping it up for some while . I've had a couple that impossible pinpoint HG failed but when pulled could see it was HG issue . ej202 HG not super common like 2.2 and the famous 2.5 lol but possible low mileage/short trips caused more fuel in oil and that what generally eating at the gasket coating as oil hangs in the boxer engine at the joint area even when stationary . Don't use HG with full surface sealing coating as they super fussy on block and head fine surface finish, MLS with the sealing bead are better on these ej202 NA builds. No need skim heads unless not flat or has pitting or digs . same goes for block. razor blades, wet and dry, scotch brite and brake clean does wonders cleaning mating surfaces .Head bolts are reusable, check condition/threads before reuse . New rocker gaskets and plug tube gaskets a must, oem is generally best on these but better kits can be okay . If you thinking of selling it as is I probably interested as always after Forester SF manuals preferably with winter pack . Don't know how I missed it in Devon as I on to most within southwest region .

Pressure test the cooling system, look under the engine at head gasket join and see if looks oily/wet . inspect system for any minor leak. Pull the plugs and check colours . As mentioned above chemical tester are pretty useless at times when only minute amounts of exhaust gas enter cooling system, you better off using a gas analyser . Other thing you can check is waterpump rotor not a rotted mess but they don't generally go bad on these . also check thermostat fitted correct and system bled well . I certainly wouldn't swap low mileage engine if all else tests perfect, it easy enough pull heads in situ for a home repair and sohc is super easy (jack engine up and can move to sides to increase working space) . Cheap job if do it yourself as it mainly labour .Certainly want compression test engine and leak down test engine if can as may conclude fault and at minimum get base line of engine health before committing repair effort . Low mileage engine can be more issue than a more normal 100K example . little use and poor coolant and oil quality and service could lead to gasket decay . Blueprint felpro, Victor reinz do pretty nice gasket kits, ebay good source of heavily discounted prices .

dpf regen only happens when specific conditions are met which is not driving in traffic in city or changing up through gears and shouldn't be a cause of oil loss . If oil level dropping you either burning it or leaking it . Smoke under driving conditions you mentioned is either engine oil getting burnt or diesel oil delivery issue due to perhaps injector issue (ecu injector learning or actual injector physical fault)

Lol , you bend him over and i'll shove a bmw fsm up his ar5e :-)

tgv sensor is same as the throttle position sensor so that makes sourcing them far easier/cheaper . You can remove the tgv system which not a bad thing as they are common fault ... Glad see you proper diagnosed and verified the fault and had a play on freessm . Top job and staple trick looks effective :-) job jobbed .

any idea on location of vibration ? front middle or rear . how vibration felt, through seat, steering wheel etc etc ... does vibration stop as soon as clutch dipped (assuming manual !) If goes instantly it pretty much illuminates suspension related and points towards drivetrain .

Go to a sigma installer and the will do it via cable and software. Option 2 is if still got a remote but it not working is send it away to repair service like see on ebay and if get it back fixed then use the opportunity enter new pin with working remote .

^ What I said was transmission wind up, this is when likes of poor wear matched tyres or tyre with low pressure causes rolling radius of tyres differ too much thus the different rotational circumference causes the props and driveshafts to fight against each other as they turning at too different speeds that the 4wd system can not handle. Rear bearings pretty common cause of noise so check them out thoroughly . Only way we pick up lot of bearings is via running in gear on ramp and with stethoscope or long screwdriver on rear hubs .

They came to the diesel to late and with poor design and tightening emissions . Modern diesels are useless due to stringent emissions and dpf that choking the power and potential efficiency from them . Only way we buy pre 2011 subaru diesels is already broken and for scrap money virtually, Picked up a few super tidy ones for later engine swap. Unless you got deep pockets stay away from early diesels and if not doing very high miles stay away from diesel full stop as absolutely no savings if account for thorough servicing, at least one expensive fault and fact the mpg pretty poor .

You can fix the clocks, normally bit of reflowing or bit more solder fixes issue. remove the clock board from the black plastic housing it sits in and plug it in car loom and press components on board until you hit spot that makes it work then hone in on each board component joint till find likely suspect. I found large resistor to right of lcd issue on a couple, fixed more than a dozen over the years with nothing more than soldering iron and solder and 30 minutes patience ...

Check wheel bearing temps with laser and also around the diff housing and see what pick up from that . Don't jump to conclusions as bearings a common source of some serious noise, hopefully temps make something obvious, if having hard time pinpoint it get it on a lift and run it in gear on lift and listen for noises and check bearing play while wheels off ground .

I would contact rallyflapz for fitting details, seems pretty much what you want at fairly reasonable cost .

tricky one really as hard have right tyres all year round and matched for odd scenarios . Tyres good in mud won't be so good on road and will have more noise and worse MPG . If your yoko's well worn that wouldn't of helped as plenty tread depth helps a lot in mud .You going have weigh up what most important to you in tyre features and make a choice. Other option is spare set of wheels for more winter and off road use, couple farmers I do work for have second set of rims for more off road type tyre for wet and wintery times . I like nokian weatherproof as a all season tyre M+S rated, has good fuel and wet weather rating, pretty good all rounder but still likely need a tug in a real muddy field scenario .

import car parts ICP or aftermarket online best bet in term of 'goods in hand time' and cost .