legacycentral bbs

I have a few questions if you guys dont mind helping a lady out..

I'm a female and I dont know much about cars. I just bought a used 91 Subaru Legacy LS for $900, was that a good deal. It seems to run ok, I only had it 2 days. It seems that when you put your foot on the gas you hear the roaring of the motor, are you supposed to hear that? Or is that just normal motor noise?

I was wondering, wheres my Cup Holder?????? I cant find one

Is this a good denpendable car?

Whats the "manual" button on the shifter do?

There is also 2 other button on the "left hand" side of the sterring wheel I dont know that they do, maybe rear defrost?

The private owner that sold it to me didnt tell me anything except that the car didnt have the original motor.

Anything else I need to know about this car? Do they have a lot of problems? I like it and I hope it runs well for me.

Ohh, I forgot... I had a key made for it today nad it works for starting the car and the trunk but it doesnt work for the door, the hardware guy said "Subaru keys are hard to make"!

Can you describe the roaring noise a bit more? Or get a video of it somehow?

The cup holder is right above the stereo. It's a pull-out tray.

The manual button is so you can manually select a gear to use. It's useful if you're towing something and going down a hill, and in the snow.

If you're referring to the two rectangular buttons with little bumps on them, the one on the left is the rear defroster and the other is cruise control.

You should ask the owner what motor he/she put in.

For getting a spare key, I recommend going to the Subaru dealer and they can make you one.

Thanks asc_up....

I say roaring noise but I guess its just the engine noise, when you put your foot on the gas you hear it and when you take your foot off you dont hear it, maybe this is normal? My ex gave it a test drive and said dont worry about it but I worry about all noises.

And today just driving 5 miles and I stopped and the store I thought I smelled something burning not a whole lot and the car was making a "pinging" sound like it was cooling off when I shut off the car.

I'll have to look for that cup holder tomorow, really I couldnt find one!

It says, "cup holder" on it. It's just under the HVAC controls.

Thanks evolutionmovement...

I'll have a look tomorrow, I'm not dressed to go outside right now. All I saw was something like a flip-up drawer?

evolutionmovement wrote:It's just under the HVAC controls.

In case that doesn't make sense to you, HVAC = your heater, vent and A/C buttons.

Silly me, I was going to ask what HVAC was

Women ah!

Thanks for clearing that up for me

Drag your finger down from the HVAC controls and where the console starts to come back out like a shelf, you'll see edge of the tray. It pulls out. The annoying thing about it is that your drinks will block the stereo.

Welcome to Legacy Central.

The noises these cars make sometimes drives me nuts too. The exhaust pinging is normal and a little burning oil smell is typical for a car that old, depending when the new/used engine was put in. As long as you don't see smoke or the smell is overpowering.

Bottom line, these things are built pretty well and should last well beyond the fenders rusting off, as long as most of the maintenance is done. IE - change the oil, brakes, coolant etc. If the car was beaten like a mangey dog all it's life, well almost any car won't do well with that. Still, $900 is money well spent on a typically reliable car.

How many miles are on it total?

Well the roaring um is it very load?? The engine should rev up and make noise so thats a good thing. Whether it is to much we don't know. Is the car automatic or manual? maybe the burning smell is the clutch, or its possible a axle boot broke and the grease spewed onto the exhaust and is now creating a roaring when you accelerate since the axle is not as smooth without grease sealed in.

It would be an auto since it has the manual button

Post up where you are located other than Penn...

There are plenty of LCers that will check out your car if you drive to their vicinity.

Welcome to the BBS! Good job on finding this place, you won't find better help anywhere! Unless you know a Subie mechanic personally I guess......

In the picture below you can see the cupholder lip. It's right above the stereo and below the two slider switches. If your car looks like that you can hook your finger under the lip and pull out the cupholder.

Unfortunately the tray can be pulled all the way out rather easily and it wouldn't surprise me if yours is gone. If it is lost you will have a half inch hollow space there.





Subaru's in general are found to be "noisy". Any modification (air intake or exhaust improvements for example) or decay (rusted out exhaust/muffler with a hole) can sound abnormal to someone unnacustomed to boxer engines

If you are able to share a picture of your engine bay, it might be very revealing about what is going on with noises, especially considering a motor swap.


Good luck!

I vote for a noisy 4EAT transmission.

The noise may also be an exhaust leak.

These cars when properly maintained will last a long while.

The manual button is only active when the gear selector is in 2 or 3. Here's a detailed write-up on my site.
www.surrealmirage.com/subaru/trans.html#manualbutton

Do you have an owner's manual? If so, I'd recommend reading it. I know....may be boring, but you'll find out a lot about the car. If you don't have one, I scanned the one from my 90 legacy...which should be more or less the same as your 91.
http://www.main.experiencetherave.com/s ... ual_Scans/

Towards the bottom there's a zipped file that has all the scans in a single pdf file.

Thank you for all your wonderful replys!

I found my cup holder

Thanks Dynamic Entry for the photo!

I dont have a manual to read for the car, thats why I have a tons of questions.

My camera is dead I have to wait for a friend to come over, I want to get a shot of the motor to post.

There is a black knob on the bottom on the shifter, what is that for?

I need to get front breaks put on, so my ex is gonna do the job, do these cars have any problems when installing your own brakes?


As for the engine noise when on the gas, the way you talk about the legacy is just might be the car itself. I was used to hearing my old piece of junk I scrapped at the junkyard it was a 92 Dodge Shadow, many problems with that car

The black button right in front of the shifter is so that you can change gears with the car off (useful for some dash work). Also when the car is on, you normally have to press the brake pedal to shift out of park, that button will let you override that in case it stops working.

Brakes are as easy as they get and no special tools to compress the pistons or anything are needed.