Keeping a High-Mile Subaru Alive: Catalytic Converters, Timing Belt Kits and Drive Shafts for Forester, Outback, Legacy and Impreza

The Wagon That Started It: Subaru's 1970s Bet on Four-Wheel Drive

In the early 1970s, four-wheel drive in America meant a truck. It meant a transfer case, a lever on the floor, leaf springs and a ride that rearranged your spine. Then Subaru did something odd: it took a small, unremarkable family wagon called the Leone, bolted the rear axle into the driveline full-time, and sold it to people who had no intention of going off-road at all. They just wanted to get up an unplowed driveway in February.

It worked. Ski towns bought them. Rural mail carriers bought them. Vermont and Colorado and the Pacific Northwest bought them by the thousand, and fifty years later the descendants of that wagon are the reason a Subaru with 220,000 miles on it is a completely normal thing to see in a parking lot. The flat-four boxer engine sits low and wide, the drivetrain sends power to all four corners without being asked, and the cars simply refuse to be embarrassing enough to replace.

Which creates a specific kind of owner problem. The car is still good. The car is not worth $4,000 in dealer labor. So you fix the one thing that broke, and you drive it another two years. Here is what we have on the shelf for exactly that.

Emissions: the catalytic converter and the secondary air pump

The single most common way a high-mile Subaru fails inspection is a P0420 code — catalyst efficiency below threshold. Our PHILTOP rear catalytic converter for the 2.5L Forester, Outback, Impreza and Legacy is $140.99, stainless steel body, ceramic substrate, 2-inch inlet and outlet, with provision for both pre- and post-catalyst oxygen sensors and EPA certification labeling. That last detail matters more than people expect: a converter without EPA compliance markings is a converter that can get an otherwise healthy car rejected at the shop.

The other emissions gremlin on Foresters is the secondary air injection system, which pumps air into the exhaust during cold start to light off the catalyst faster. When the pump seizes, you get a check-engine light and, often, a loud groan on startup. We have a secondary air pump, part number 14828-AA050, for the Forester at $87.29. It is worth diagnosing this one properly before you buy — the code can also come from a stuck valve or a torn hose — but if the pump itself is dead, the part is the whole job.

Driveline: the CVT prop shaft and the 2.2L timing belt

The 2010-2012 Outback with the 2.5L and the CVT has a known weak point in the rear driveshaft assembly, where a failing center support bearing announces itself as a vibration or drone that gets worse with speed. We have a rear drive shaft / prop shaft assembly for the 2010-2012 Outback 2.5L CVT AWD at $169.95, cross-referenced to Subaru part numbers 27111AJ11A, 27111AJ11B and 27111AJ11C. Replace it as an assembly. Chasing a bearing inside a balanced shaft is not a driveway job.

Older is a different conversation. For the 1995-1998 Impreza and the 2.2L Legacy, we have an AxleyHub timing belt kit with water pump at $161.09. The reason to do this job is almost never the belt on its own — it is that the water pump, the idlers and the tensioner all live behind the same covers and all have roughly the same service life. Doing the belt without the pump means paying the labor twice. Getting the kit in one box is the entire point.

Brakes, steering and the small annoying stuff

Front brakes on the 2010-2018 Forester: a GAIASURGE front rotor and ceramic pad kit with 11.6-inch drilled-and-slotted cast iron rotors, $84.99 for both sides with pads included. On a 2001-2004 Outback with a whining pump and heavy steering, the power steering pump with pulley is $45.00. And if your idle has gone strange, the AUTOREBO electronic throttle body, S20431, for the Forester, Outback, Legacy and Impreza is $29.99 — down from $59.98, which is the kind of number that makes a diagnostic gamble affordable.

Then there is the one that drives people crazy: the head unit on the 2018-2019 Legacy and Outback, where the touchscreen stops registering taps in a strip across the middle. The radio still works. The screen just will not listen. A replacement touchscreen digitizer for the 2018-2019 Legacy and Outback is $71.99 — versus a dealer quote for a whole new head unit that generally starts with a number you will not enjoy.

How to buy parts for a car you plan to keep

Two rules. First, buy the assembly when the failure point is inside a balanced or sealed component — driveshafts, pumps, throttle bodies. Second, buy the kit when the labor is shared — timing belts, brakes. Everything above is a single unit, ships from our Mesa warehouse, and comes back to us free within 30 days if you ordered the wrong year.