Locate an Auto Repair Shop in Forest Hills, New York

It is still holding. Since there is no pressure on the oil, it doesn't take much to stop it. The keys however, are to clearly identify where the leak is coming from, get a good solid contact, and a large patch area. Depending on the leak area, this may not always be possible. I thought it might work, as the RTV compound is not easy to remove once applied (from experience with scraping old gaskets). The idea is not much different than putting a patch on a bicycle inner tube. John

I had two doors in my '10 Forester whose locks decided not to work with the remote or the door switch. The manual lock mechanisms worked just fine, though. Of course, we discovered they were not working strictly by chance, so I have no idea how long we were leaving it unlocked unwittingly. I took it in for warranty repair a couple of weeks ago, and the shop said that they were "frozen," and worked fine once the car had warmed up indoors for a couple hours. I was skeptical, so I watched them like a hawk for a few days after we took the car back, and so far they work just fine. My cars also live outside, in Fairbanks, AK, so locks that don't work in cold weather are not acceptable to me. This was, however, the first time I had ever had a problem with any "frozen" locks on any car, so hopefully it was just an unhappy convergence of conditions. See if you can borrow a garage from a friend for an evening, and open the car up to increase air flow to help it warm faster. Four hours should be enough time to do the trick if that's the problem.

The seats are very good. I was worried too because the seats in our Forester are pretty lousy. Here's some stuff I like: the trip clock the radio controls on the steering wheel the big side-mirrors

Thanks. I thought that might have something to do with it.

That low front end really sticks out there. That it does. I had the same problem with my Outback ('96) when I took it off road. My Forester, a 2010, has nice angles on it. It sure could use a rear LSD though. The VDC does nothing for you in those situations, so you're basically stuck with open differentials.