norfolkRX

Pothole damage to the rear o/s tyre meant that I had to fit the skinny spare. The top of the locking wheel nut (the bit with the key) has now detached from the body of the nut so now I can't get the skinny wheel off!! . . . unbelievable . . . It seems that the standard wheel stud is too long to use with the standard skinny spare wheel and the locking wheel nut . . . how am I going to get the spare wheel off now? 😭 Does anyone know the the spec for a standard wheel nut for a 17" factory alloy - even if I get the nut off somehow, I still need to source a new one - any ideas. Help! . . . . please . . . 2010 Impreza Hatchback Edit: as you can see the from the photo, the locking part has just sheared off.

Final update for these tyres - rears have now done 51,101 miles but although the tread is legal, they are not providing the stability they used to do. It now feels like the back end is moving around so I don't have confidence that I used to in corners or even, depending on road surface, the straights. The tread may be OK but the tyre carcase has had it after something like 5 years use. I'm not fitting the same again as they are discontinued and their replacements are too new to market to tell what they're like. So I've moved to 17" Dunlop BluResponse Sport instead which seem to get good reviews - time will tell. So far the immediate effect is a quieter and more 'on rails' ride.

Am I right in thinking that having trouble selecting reverse gear is a known problem with Imprezas? (2.0l n/a 2010 model) If so, are there any fixes that can make the problem go away? Also I'm not sure whether it's likely to be the gearbox or the selector mechanism. Cheers

Just thought it might be worth passing this on. Been doing a lot of night driving on rural roads recently and with the rain and traffic film on the screen and oncoming headlights it's been difficult. I've tried all sorts of methods to get the traffic film off, and even thought Rainex might help, but it made the problem worse. At the suggestion of someone at Wilco Motor Spares, I tried detergent and amazingly it took off not only the traffic film but the Rainex too. I used one Tesco (other brands are available!) non-bio detergent tablet (like for washing clothes) crushed up with a small amount of water and spread it all over the screen with a sponge. It was left for about 5 minutes and then well rinsed off with water - result, a clearer cleaner windscreen than I've had all winter and it cost next to nothing.

A Christmas update on the Falken Ziex ZE-914 205/50 R17W tyres I have fitted. Although I had to change the fronts, surprisingly the rears have now done 48,750 miles and they're still not below 3 mm. They're wearing better than on any other car I've had.

Seems like the 2010 Impreza and Outback use the same foglights - the lights, Koito part number 114-77828 however use different housings to fit their respective cars. For the Impreza, the housing is Koito part number 114-20912 and for the Outback it is 114-20960. This is handy because there seem to be a lot more Outback foglights for sale than Impreza, if you need to replace one - mine was cracked due to stone damage. Replacement is simple; remove two plastic fixing securing the undertray under the foglight and bend the tray back out the way. Next undo the three fixings (see photo) and this will release the housing. Disconnect the electrical connector. To remove the light from the housing use long-nosed pliers to pinch together the tabs and push the light away from the housing making sure you release at the other two points (see photo). You'll probably have to adjust where the beam is pointing after refitting it. I managed to pick up a good spare from Ebay for not much money whereas I've been quoted £210 by a Subaru main dealer just for the foglight.

Just wondering whether it's worth replacing the shocks after 70k miles to get back a bit of the ride and handling it used to have (standard road use). Looks like for £220 you can get a full set from buycarparts.co.uk of KYB shocks - does anyone have experience of KYB? Also whether the change will make a difference. Thanks

Well, I took the car in for the fuel pump harness recall which took about an hour. I'm not sure exactly what they did but it seems to have required the nearest cover plate (to the camera) to be removed (see photo of underneath the back seat). Only problem was that afterwards the car smelt of petrol for about six days although it seems to have finally gone today. I assume that a small amount of fuel was spilt when they accessed the fuel pump and it wasn't sufficiently cleaned up - not good in this hot weather.

Just got a safety recall for the RX, does anyone know what this involves?

It's just started recently but doesn't happen all the time - when I release the brake pedal, there's a small single metallic ping noise. It sounds to me a bit like a sticky microswitch or something similar. I tried looking in the brake pedal area while releasing the brake pedal but of course the noise wouldn't show itself. Does anyone know what it's likely to be? Many thanks

I put on a new Dayco cambelt kit when I bought the car at 35k miles - both the Japanese made toothed roller and the small idler roller (factory fitted?) were pretty rough in spite of the low mileage. I'm now (at 58k) having to fit another timing kit because both the tensioner roller and the small idler roller are noisy and on the way out. The smaller idler is running very hot. Has anyone else had premature roller failure and any recommendations for quality replacement parts? Thanks

Is the AHBL sensitive to slope or load distribution or both? I have to park on a slight upward slope when arriving home and the other half usually gets out to open the gate - after about ten seconds I noticed the headlights were auto adjusted upwards whereas I would have thought they would have adjusted downwards for being on the slope. Is this correct operation? BTW it's a 2010 RX Thanks

+1 It's going in for a service soon and that's on my list of jobs to do.

Just had to change the front tyres because they were worn down on the inside shoulder - I don't think they've done badly having been on for just under 32,000 miles. There was obviously some feathering of the tread blocks as they were getting noisier. Yes I don't drive like I stole it, but the roads round here are rough, mostly potholed unclassified and 'B' roads so they don't get an easy life. The rear tyres have still got life left at about 4mm (they were originally fitted at the same time as the fronts). I went for the same again - Falken Ziex ZE-914 205/50 R17W and the new tyres were noticeably quieter. I would rate these as reasonably good for grip, noise & comfort and mid-range for price.

Wow, you certainly get some strange effects when the battery voltage is low - hazards flashing, security lights going on and off and siren sounding depending on what you do. I'm not sure any of it is helpful in allowing you to concentrate on working out what the problem is. Original problem was being locked out so I had to use the key to get in and then only the driver's door would unlock (even from the inside). The dashboard lit up as usual (so low voltage was not high on my list of suspects) but the car wouldn't start. As I'd had a mystery electronic problem before, I thought it was the return of that so I thought I'd disconnect the battery and 'reset' the system. Achieved nothing apart from the siren going off when I reconnected it. Turned out to be a battery nearly at the end of it's life, not helped by an interior light being left on for a day. Fitted a new Yuasa HSB005 with a cold crank of 550A - it's expensive but it's got a five year guarantee and, so far, it is fine.

Well just 'cos it's there, I decided to take it apart It's made up of about 10 parts heat sealed in the outer sleeve

It comes as a complete assembly (as per photo), the part number is for Trim Code: G30, Colour Code: C6P Once the plastic cam round the steel shaft has broken, it's history. In my case it came apart leaving half of it inside - the only way in is to cut the plastic covering which would leave it looking like a taxi. If you don't need the mirrors, the only difference between left and right is the spigot that attaches to the body - that broke too when I tried to get it apart.

Seems like the sun visor on the 2008/9 MY hatchback is not a strong design. The up/down mechanism (a plastic cam) has failed on mine after only 45k miles. Just posting so we can see if this is a common fault. A main dealer new one is around £60. I suppose it is down to the number of east or west journeys you do when the sun is low

Thanks for the offer. I was expecting it to be in the owners manual but I've managed to find the Alarm leaflet in the misc paperwork that came with the car, so I'll have a read through of that.

So is that a dealer only thing?

Just wondered what this key pad on the cover by the driver's knee was for as I can see no ref to it in the service manual. Also is there any rhyme or reason behind which Impreza models get push button start.

Flat compared to Durham but not dead flat like the Fens. No motorways at all and only a few dual carriageways so speeds down in general which probably helps with the economy. Main thing for mpg is to stay out of built-up areas. As we've got the same (standard?) model, you can always PM me print out from FreeSSM and I'll run a check on mine under the same conditions - and we can compare?

With my similar Impreza 2.0 RX, I have averaged 34.8 mpg over 19 months. This is mostly local commuting, B and unclassified road driving with the occasional long trip. I start getting twitchy when I get to 350ish as the the garages here are few and far between. I also find that the computer is optimistic.

With a bit more research, I think the front O2 sensor may be called "air/fuel sensor #1" though I'm not 100% on that . . . I thought the attached might be useful, which is for non-turbo cars? FreeSSM measuring blocks.pdf

I used this cable (not an advert) which comes with instructions and a disc with FreeSSM and drivers on it. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281376830830 For the price, less than a tenner, I thought it was worth a try. I'm running it on an old laptop which seems to be running Windows 8.1. I also put a screen grab program on there as FreeSSM doesn't seem to include anything to record live data, so you can look it over later.