Piss weak Subaru drivetrain stuff

[GTSBoy]

After a couple of recent drives in the wife's '98 Liberty Outback, during which it made horrible clunking noises when trying to turn hard left into car parks (and jumped and stuttered and generally felt like the handbrake was pulled on) I convinced her that something was wrong and that it should be looked at.

So the buggered front CV joint boot that was going to be replaced got replaced, and the CV joint with it seeing as it was there and there was suspicion.....but naturally it wasn't the CV joint. Suspicion is firmly on the front diff, but the car drives absolutely fine all the time, except when turning hard left.

Question is......have any of you people had failures with these Subie diffs that had similar symptoms? Diagnosis and $$?

Car has to be significantly dismantled to investigate further (or it has to break down on side of road I suppose), so I am interested to hear anything that can help before such things happen.

cheers

[MartyHusseinXF]

Sounds centre diffish.

Kind of like the VR4 I drove with a locked centre diff.

Does the wheel get harder to turn as well?

[GTSBoy]

Power steering kind of masks those sorts of problems. Vague memory might suggest that the wheel was harder to turn, but that might just be the power of suggestion.

Ta for your input.

[bahaimus]

I had a strange creaking/clunking noise in my WRX when turning hard left. When I had it serviced, they tightened up a couple of front subrame bolts............

[JZK25]

Is it auto or manual? Transfer solenoid on auto's is a very common fault. The viscous coupling is prone to failure on TY754 manuals also causing the same binding problem.

[GTSBoy]

'Tis manual......will look into viscous coupling and bolts as options.

cheers