Swayze88

Wow, that looks like a lot of brute force went into getting that out! How many miles were on the car for them to look like that?

Good advice for anyone with an air hammer. I had a good go at the ears with a hammer and chisel to try and get it to rotate. But no luck. Maybe time to invest in an air hammer!

So our XV (2012) has just hit 70,000 miles and a couple months ago one of the rear wheel bearings started to go bad. It was just before the Mot and I didn't have time to deal with it so let the Mot garage do the work. To get a subaru part was going to cost ~£180+vat so they ended up fitting an aftermarket part for around £120 + 2 hours labour. Anyway fast forward a couple months and the other side starts to rumble. I managed to get a subaru one from ebay for the price of an aftermarket one, and with some spare time thought I'd have a go myself. Last weekend I watched a few YouTube videos and started taking things apart. All went well until the final removal of the assembly. That thing would not budge! I spent a couple hours trying everything to get it out with no luck. As time was marching on and my wife needed the car the next day I soaked what I could with penetrating spray, cut my losses and put it all back together. Fast forward to today. Having a better understanding of what I was getting myself into I went down to my friends unit so we could use the lift and have a better go at it. To start with we tried the same deal, put the 4 bolts through loosely from the back and hit them with a hammer. No go. Put everything back together loosely and roll car back and forward left and right to try and break the rust. No go. Three prong puller on the drive shaft/axle. I stopped when I thought I was going to wreck the CV joint. In the end we had to release the two non pillow /ball connections to the suspension (of a toltal 4) so we could get enough movement of the hub to pull the axle out. After that, bolt it all together again to hold it firm. We then tried another puller but couldn't get anything solid to pull against. Eventually it came down to getting the biggest socket we could onto the back of the housing and hitting it as hard as we could again and again. Anyway, once it popped out, I cleaned up the rust put a large amount of copper grease on and put the new one in. So in short. If you have some rust on your car, don't trust the YouTube videos, and be prepared to get some use out your big hammer. If it doesn't go easily you might have to go to pound town on it. 💪

As the title suggests, I'm curious to know what the oil change intervals are on the petrol XV, my petrol forester (turbo) was 7,500 miles and the Diesel XV is 12,000 miles, so I would imagine it falls somewhere between the two, but cannot find any info. I think in America they suggest 7,500 but don't know if we will be any different. Maybe someone with a petrol could let me know what the service booklet says.

Hey Dogconker, I've had my XV remapped for about 6,000 miles now, got it done through Quantum tuning. (this is on my 2011 plate) There map is a generic map, so if the car is standard it will probably be OK. I really wanted to get mine done by a professional, like Litchfield motors in Gloucester, but coming from Scotland made it unrealistic. (Litchfield used to offer diesel remapping on their website, but it has since been updated). These guys look to be a little closer to you than to me, so might be worth speaking to them? As for the Quantum map, it was cheap, I think i got it on a deal and it cost somewhere around £250/£300 Its faster, that's for sure, my mpg has increased slightly, i wouldn't say 10% but maybe 5% (now averaging about 47.4mpg) mainly 60-70mph A-roads, with a little bit of town driving. Driving seems a bit more like it should, its a normal diesel now... if that makes sense, you can pull from lower down the rev range, potter around town in 4th etc. I've not had it dyno tested, so I cannot say if the claims of 180bhp are true or not. As for do's and Dont's. I try to be sympathetic to the engine, and not race it before its warmed up, and give it a mile or so being gentle to cool down before shutting down. Also having read every horror story under the sun regarding the early generation diesel crankshaft failures (although I've been told by a Subaru mechanic that they have had zero crankshaft failures in the revised engine), i tend to not give it full throttle until above 2,000 rpm. I've also started to do intermediate oil changes between services ~ 6,000ish miles. probably overkill, but it helps me sleep at night. Let me know if you have any other questions, and I'll see if I can help.

I built myself a rally window hole thing. Always liked how these looked on Foresters , but couldn't see any in Europe to buy and didn't want to spend $$$ to get them from America. These are definitely form over function but could be useful if i were to put a piece of insect mesh between the layers, for camping ventilation if you were sleeping in the car. I was also considering putting in a 12V fan and connecting it to the Auxiliary to get some airflow through the car. This one turned out OK, but there are a few cracks and chips from cutting, and the pressure from the rivets caused one of the holes to generate a crack, so some other fixing might be better. Think i'm going to see if i can get a trace of the shape and get one cut on a laser cutter/etcher so its smoother and neater than my Jigsaw job.

Aberdeen Chris, I've been eyeing this grill bonnet combo for ages now, i just feel like its a shame to have a top TMIC and not have a scoop! If i did buy it i'd be getting it painted orange to match the car though. not a fan of random Carbon panels. Biggest issue stopping me from buying one is that I can only find it from China / Alibaba type stores and that I cant be 100% sure the scoop actually goes through or if its just a gimic with no airpath behind it! If anyone feels like getting one of these maybe we could club together and get a group buy? @Aberdeen Chris if you want to loose a few days of your life looking at diesel mods.... then click the link... http://www.cardomain.com/ride/3998684/2010-subaru-impreza/

Reviving an old post, but it might be of interest to any owners going to get the tracking done. Our 2013 XV had bad scrubbing on the outside of the tyres and wore out a new set very quickly. Went to get the tracking done at the Subaru garage and they said nothing was too wrong. I've been putting a bit more pressure in the tyres since and they seem to be ok. As a side note, I'm standing in the garage getting my 2012 done and the Hunter system didn't have the XV listed! Luckily they were able to pull up Subaru USA and find a crosstrek so fingers crossed the settings are the same!

Not sure why that didn't work, hopefully this one will.

So i've been doing a lot of looking around and there seems to be a general thought that the removal of the back box on a Diesel makes sod all diference to the sound. I thought I'd try it out and see if it made any difference. Its only two bolts, it will take 20 mins I thought, well of course one of the bolts snapped in the flange, so it suddenly became a bit more of a pain in the ... rear. when you need bolt extractors, stud extractors, an impact gun and a breaker bar, its not been a sucessful day! In general i'd say there is very little difference. Driving around I couldn't notice a change until above around 3,000 rpm, which to be honest I rarely go above unless i'm in a rush. Above 3,000 rpm there was a louder "wooshing" sound, which I think might have been due to the exhaust pointing straight into the boot space. Anyway, Here is a video and you can decide for yourselves. https://youtu.be/yVaOEn4lNZ8 I've put it back on due to the direction the exhaust points, but might see if I can get a couple bends of pipe and delete it permenantly. The back box weighs 9.5Kg if anyone is bothered.

Hey Sinver, i'm pretty sure the XV uses R1234yf gas which is the new far less damaging to the environment replacement for R-134a. I would not try and top up with the R-134a gas, as the next time you take it to be gassed by a garage they will see the R1234yf is contaminated and have to clean the whole system. Unfortunately the Environmental benefits of R-1234yf come at a cost. its expensive stuff compared to the old R-134a, I would be tempted to take it somewhere like (Please don't shout at me) KwiK Fit, as they can test if the system has a leak prior to putting any gas in, typically they don't charge you if they don't fill it up. Hope that helps.

Good to know that they are dealing with it. Interesting to hear they have only replaced one injector. Good news for us as I can't imagine they are cheap or easy to do. Just because they have only had to replace one doesn't mean that you won't be the second! They hadn't don't any wiring looms till I took mine in 😁 Good luck tomorrow, hope all is fixed.

Any chance this is related to the wiring harness recall? Have you had/do you know if the loom has been checked? Not sure if it was fixed for the 2014 model, but might be worth a check as that sounds fairly dodgy. Hope you get it sorted! Let us know what the outcome is.

I Don't like fake Carbon , but I like chrome even less. I decided to give wrapping the grill a go. It wasn't the easiest, as the grille bends and twists in every direction just to keep you on your toes. I think it looks pretty good, hopefully it lasts a bit longer than the plastidip did. (Halfords own brand). One day maybe when I'm feeling flush i'll get a black sports grille from America/Japan and be done with all the painting/wrapping! The tiger claw scratches are the reflection of a fence, don't worry!

Check the water pump is spinning freely? I had issues with sporadic overheating which was the water pump jamming.

Ooh, must be getting excited! No sleep for you tonight! Make sure you get some pictures when you pick it up!

Washed the cars, then decided to wrap the roof bars as the plastidip wasn't so good. Its pretty rough, but looks ok from afar!

Booked in with Quantum over the weekend and managed to pop along to a local(ish) garage last night and get the map put on the car. A very straight forward procedure, with the exception of the car not wanting to communicate via the OBD2 port while the battery booster was up at 14V, once lowered to around 13V the ECU started to communicate. Strange, but true. He downloaded the Original Map, sent it off to Quantum, and shortly after they returned it. He Loaded it onto the ECU and away we went. The fitter asked when the last oil change was done (Friday Night) said to keep on top of oil changes as the turbo will be working harder. - seems like reasonable advice. Drive-ability seems the same as before, no weirdness to report. Definitely has a little more go to it, and pulls a bit more from lower down. I've not been brave enough to go full hooligan yet, but will keep you updated. I've reset the trip computer to compare my fuel consumption over the next few miles. If i can restrain from flooring it too much i'm expecting the MPG to go up.

Another 6,000 miles, another oil change. This time it was a little different. Installed my Fumoto valve (F105N M20-1.5) *edit that's for the diesel, not sure if the petrol is the same. Couple pictures showing how low it hangs out the bottom, I think if I were buying another I wouldn't get the long nipple. One thing I did note was that the length of the thread on the valve was maybe 5mm longer than the oil pan is thick, so it will protrude into the pan preventing a complete drain of the old oil. Take from that what you will. I pushed the plastic up with a spirit level and the lowest metal on the underside sits about halfway down the nipple, so you'd have to be sliding the belly of the car along the ground to have a problem... But I've done that before in my old forester.

Could it be slapping of the timing chain? a failing tensioner?

I got it from subaru-parts.co.uk and it was £75, however I think it might have been the last one they had as its now showing out of stock :( https://subaru-parts.co.uk/product/genuine-subaru-sliding-arm-rest-impreza-xv/ The Part number is J2010FJ100VH Nice improvement, I like it, and as its OEM it matches the interior properly and fitted easily.

@Aberdeen Chris So an exciting box arrived for my XV today! While shopping for oil filters I noticed you can get a sliding arm rest, coming from a forester with captains chairs I always wanted a bit more left arm lean so I bought it! Super easy to install, the panel at the back pulls off from the bottom then straight out at the top. 4 screws hold the arm rest on. As you can see from the pictures it's physically the same size as the fixed one, with the exception of the hollowed out section. The armrest slides forward over the centre cup holder about half way. Hopefully it won't disrupt my morning coffee! Tomorrow will be the test. (Apologies for the muck! Probably should have wiped the dog prints off it before taking the pictures!)