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At only a tad over 66k miles on my 05 Subaru Legacy AWD wagon when I bought it last year, there was a noise in the drivetrain that was hard to diagnose for the next 10,000 miles. I'm talking a loud "tone" kind of noise that would change with speed, not constant in any frequency but variable. I checked the wheel bearings, the brakes, the CV joints....couldn't find anything obvious. By the time it started sounding like flying saucer in a science fiction movie, I finally took it to a friends shop and put it up on the 2 post lift. Jumped in and cranked it up after it was 6 feet in the air and put it in gear and got her up to about 50 mph while my friend listened from below.
BAD MOVE. The suspension geometry is WAY out of whack when the car is in the air and luckily I only managed to rip one CV boot and sling grease everywhere from spinning up the drivetrain. Nothing positive diagnosed from that inspection.
Then, about 500 miles later, doing about 70 on the interstate the ole flying saucer finally made one last series of "tones" before about 1/4 mile later thought I had run over an IED.
BAM! WHAM WHAM WHAM POW POW POW........!
Pulled over and had her flat bedded home.
Turns out the carrier bearing on the front to rear driveshaft was the culprit and when it finally decided it was done it went out with a BANG! Of course it's not a replacement item and I wound up having to replace the entire driveshaft, but that's another story.
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