Questions and Answers

Subaru Legacy Whistles While It Works Q. The vehicle I own is a 1997 Subaru Legacy GT. It is a 2.5 litre flat 4 cylinder engine with automatic transmission and all wheel drive. There is currently 136,000 kilometers on it. It is fuel injected, has ABS brakes, P/S, A/C, and cruise control. I am having two separate problems. The first being that when I accelerate hard, like highway merging, there is a high pitched whistling sound. My car is not turbo-charged.

The sound goes away when I feel the car change gears. I took it to my garage, not a Subaru dealership, and they said it was wind going through the car. I find this hard to believe because it goes away when the gear changes not the speed. The second problem is when I casually take off from a stop the first gear change is often quite hard and jolting. I don't know if this is normal or what.

Thank you for your time,
Steve

A. This may sound funny, but I believe you need a transmission filter and fluid change. A Subaru transmission will make a whistling type noise when the transmission filter starts to clog. And since you have a hard 1-2 shift. I would recommend getting the transmission filter and fluid changed. Don't get a transmission flush, just drop the pan, replace the filter and replace the lost transmission fluid.