Subaru Forester Pricing and Specs

This is a bit of a known problem in the six-speed manual (which I assume is the transmission you’re talking about) in this model Forester. Some examples of this model were manufactured with a missing oil passageway. Over time, this can lead to poor lubrication of the third and fourth gears, leading to failure.

The noise and clunk that you’re hearing now might be the start of this failure. The good news is that Subaru actually recalled affected vehicles to fix this problem, so you need to contact a Subaru dealership to see if your car was one of the affected ones and what can be done about it now.

It’s worth remembering that this recall was issued back in the day (2010) but if the problem is the one identified in the recall, that shouldn’t matter as Australian vehicle recalls don’t have an expiry date.

This generation of the Subaru Forester used the 2.5-litre FB25 engine which made use of a timing chain that should be good for the life of the vehicle.

For the record, the vast majority of engines that use a rubber toothed timing belt have what’s called a dry belt. A relatively small number of engines use wet-belt technology which is where the rubber belt operates in an oil bath situation. This tech has proved to be problematic for some car-makers and Ford, for one, is moving to a timing chain layout for the new engine in its Ranger, Everest and Transit line-up.

Most cars have a rotary dial somewhere on the dashboard to control the brightness of the dashboard lights. On this model Subaru it’s extremely well hidden. But if you look closely at the indicator stalk, you should see a collar surrounding it towards the tip of the stalk. This collar can be twisted in either direction to either brighten or darken the dashboard lighting. However, I’ve read that while some of the lights will adjust this way, the speedometer’s brightness is non-adjustable.

I’m told that by holding the climate control off button down for a few seconds, you can also adjust the intensity of the lighting for that function as well.