2four– thank you thank you!
SilverOnyx– Thanks for the chart and videos. I found out early on in my research that Subaru changes a lot sometimes even if it’s the same car only a year apart. I was trying my best to make sure the sources I read were ONLY for the 2022 Subaru Outback Limited XT 2.4L CVT, but I really couldn’t find much since it’s such a new car. So I was trying to find similarities etc. and it really wasn’t working.
I wasn’t even sure where to look to figure out what stream I had, maybe it would make my searches a lot more efficient. THANK YOU for the transmission model. How do you find this out anyway? I am new to Subaru. I’m still young, but I come from a family of enthusiasts of a different brand of cars. It amazes me that cars can be so different from manufacturer. It’s intriguing!
The juice I had got from a neighbor for me is off brand. Yes, I tried to research why there seem to be so many people who are adamant that Subaru’s CVT oil is special and you SHOULD NOT use anything else, but I have not found any posts that clearly prove that an outside brand fluid has compressed their car, and Subaru’s recommendation to use their special fluid is the be all and end all. Not sure of using what I have yet, but it’s what I have now.
Here is a link to what I have: Full Synthetic CVT Fluid – Lubegard
I live in a very remote area, almost off the grid, at least 3 hours from any dealer. So buying Subaru’s brand formula is a big question of whether I’m going to make a trip or ask a neighbor to just “pop out” a local dealer for me. Hell, if I was in a real city, I probably would have had the car towed on a flatbed to a dealer and been done with it. These damn city people love to pay EXTRA because they have to send any of their employees to our area because of the “terrain”. The quote I got for a flatbed tow was $500. It hurts. a. a lot.
The brand claims it is compatible. I know this makes a lot of people uncomfortable. And the threads I’m seeing make me uncomfortable as well, but I’m on the fence about whether I should wait and special order directly from Subaru. Waiting is an option for me, but it means risking being stuck in the woods for longer than I’d like.
I know the refilling process is complicated, but I measured exactly how much oil I drained (and bought extra just in case), and went through the process very carefully, and I’m still confident I can do it. I have an OBD that monitors the transaxle fluid temps in real time, a new compression ring for the fill hole bolt, a hand pump, a pan to hold under the fill hole for the fluid to come out when it reaches the right temperature, and an extra set of hands.
I know I’m coming off as someone who shouldn’t try this procedure myself. The truth of the matter is- I grew up helping my dad fix his cars. My significant other grew up in a household where they pay other people to do everything for them. Apparently I inspired my boyfriend to try changing his own oil for the first time in his life. He tried this without me there. It drained him. He then came to me and said the car is spinning in place and won’t move. I told him to turn off the car immediately and wait until we figure things out.
Also, I was having my dad go between me and his fellow Subaru mechanic to ask questions. My dad is getting there in age, but he is all I have to go to with car questions. I sent him pictures of the tranny, and he sent them to the mechanic. Dad swears to me left and right the mechanic said the hole we were looking at IS DEFINITELY the filler hole, it can’t be anything else.
I just went back to him with the information that our Subaru mechanic was somehow wrong, and he went back and re-read their messages. Lo and behold, the mechanic never said this was the right hole. He said it was the wrong hole and then sent my dad a picture of the back of the log where it should be. My father missed this. He’s getting old, and it’s really disgusting. But what can you do?
I’m afraid of wrecking this car while trying to fix it, so I want all the details before I get my hands on it. My bf is the type to get impatient and keep trying the same thing over and over again until she breaks something, or gives up and pays someone else to deal with it. I’m trying to teach him to be a smarter person about things like this, but I think it’s hard for him to get that from a girl. It seems the roles are reversed and it makes it feel weird.
If you want to laugh, here are some horrible things I wish I didn’t know/see my bf do during this nightmare:
- Before we realized that he drained the transom oil instead of the engine oil, he saw that the engine oil dipstick was reading quite high (because it now had twice the amount of oil it was supposed to). He took the old strut oil and poured it “back” into the engine oil hole because he thought it would “push the oil level back down…or something”. Yes, we flushed everything and redid the engine oil properly.
- He admitted to me that when his car was rolling in place instead of going forward in D or reverse in R, he just kept pumping the gas for a while to see if that would “fix” it.
- HE ADMITTED PUTTING THE CAR IN NEUTRAL, GETTING OUT OF THE CAR WITH NO ONE ELSE IN THE SIDE AND PARKING, AND ATTEMPTING TO PUSH IT FORWARD “TO SEE IF THE WHEELS WOULD TURN.” The car is parked 6″ from a 10′ drop.
- When we removed the bolt from what we thought was the filler hole, I went back inside the house to find out why it looked so strange. While I was gone, he tried to pump a can of juice into it anyway. Then he pumped another amount of fluid into it anyway. Then, when that wasn’t working, he suggested we take pliers and “pull out” whatever is blocking that hole. I said no, we’ll stop and think and research more and figure out what we’re doing before we break something.
I think I have the mindset to do it. I just need my partner to cooperate and not try and force things to just “work”. I was just too confused and had laser vision because my dad insisted that our Subaru mechanic promised we had the right hole. I’m trying my best!
