2001 Forester Problems - Need Advice!

[Aaron]

Hello everyone. Thanks for reading my post. I'll get right to it. I recently purchased a 2001 Subaru Forester L. It has a manual transmission, and 88,000 miles. It is my first Subaru, and I am very excited. The car has been well cared for and the previous owners kept meticulous records.

After driving it for a few days, I began to notice several things that could be potential problems. I had a Subaru dealership check it out (they did the basic $70 used car 1,200,063 point check). It got a clean bill of health except that it has a small leak in a valve cover that is leaking into the plug chamber (i hope i got that right). He said tht it was not something I needed to worry about right away, but something I would want to get fixed in the future - and then he sent me on my way.

I will now list out the other things that I think could potentially be wrong. Any insight into these problems would be very much appreciated. Here goes:

1. The rear brakes are squeeling when coming to a stop at low speeds. It's a high-pitch squeel, and only when I come to a stop. Wouldn't the dealer have seen poor brakes when inspecting? Any ideas?

2. The rear-end jumps and shakes the car when I let-off the clutch in first gear? The car bounces, and I have to re-engage the clutch and let it out slower. Is this an AWD thing (I have never owned an AWD before), or is it something I should be concerned about?

3. The clutch feels like it might be slipping. When shifting from 2nd to 3rd, or from 3rd to 4th, there is a delay from when I let off the clutch, and when the gear catches. I let off the clutch, and then there is a 1-3 second delay, and then the gear catches (you can feel it and hear it).

4. Puff of blue smoke when starting in the morning. I believe this could be from the oil leaking into the plug chamber. After first startup, the exhaust looks and smells very clean.

So sorry for the incredibly long email. I'm just worried that our new (to us) Subaru might have some issues. I need to figure this out before it is too late to go back to the seller with the problems. Thanks so anyone who can help me out with this.

[hozomeen]

I have a 1998 Subaru Forester with 147,000 miles on it (purchased with 71k miles) and here are my thoughts -

1. This may just be to brake dust. I had squealing brakes a couple of times and it seemed to get better when I had the shop clean off the rotors. If the previous owners gave you their service records, is there any info about the last time the brakes were worked on?

2. This may be a clutch problem... see no. 3.

3. This definitely sounds like a clutch problem. Mine is a manual transmission too and after driving several thousand miles with the problems you are describing I went ahead and sprung for a new clutch. This was at 132k miles. It got to the point where I was having to rev the engine up to get it in 1st gear when I first started it in the morning. My private mechanic (located via the "mechanic x-files" page on Cartalk.com ) charged me $345 for the clutch kit and 3.6 hrs of labor, if I am reading his handwriting correctly.

Hope this helps.

4. Can't help you with this one, never experienced it.