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>Navigating the

SubaruTechnical Information

Website

Welcome to http://techinfo.subaru.com,where you can access

all the same information that authorized Subaru dealers get.

Navigating the

SubaruTechnical Information

Website

Welcome to http://techinfo.subaru.com,where you can access

all the same information that authorized Subaru dealers get.

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It won’t be news to you that the Internet is a great source of information on how to tackle an unfamiliar or difficult repair.Not surprisingly, however, that informationcan sometimes be contradictory, is often

incomplete, and, worse still, not up-to-date withthe latest revisions and modifications.

The Subaru solution to making sure that themost accurate and timely information is always atyour fingertips when you’re working on one of itsvehicles is to host a website designed with you,the repair technician, in mind.The following is alook at the features of that site, and how to navi-gate it most efficiently.We’ll be talking about thecontent found under “Reference Publications” thismonth, and save “Diagnostic Service Information”for a future issue of The End Wrench.

Address

The URL for the Subaru website ishttp://techinfo.subaru.com, and once accessedyou are presented with a screen like the one shownin Figure 1.This screen provides a basic overviewof how the site works, including the different levels of subscriptions tothe site from a minimum of 72 hours through a full 365 days. A veryhelpful FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) hotlink is provided thatgives details on subscription fees (a chart is provided later in this article), how to manage PDF (Portable Document Format) files, theshopping cart and more.

At the bottom of the page you will find some helpful hotlink iconsto sites for The End Wrench, SPT performance parts, Kent-Moore Toolsand the Y.E.S. (Youth Educational Systems) automotive web page.

If you are already a subscriber to http://techinfo.subaru.com, then atthe top of the page there is an area for you to enter your user nameand password. If you aren’t yet a subscriber, you can still access thewebsite by using the features to the left of the page, which will aidyou in your search for information. Let’s take a closer look at thatpart of the web page, which is divided into three sections that allowthe three different types of searches shown in Figure 2.

Point to the “Reference Publications” tab and select a model year andmodel from the pop-up menu, or simply click on the “ReferencePublications” tab.When opened, it gives you a selection of publicationsfrom which to choose, as shown in Figure 3. Once a publication is cho-sen, the text can be entered in the box below to further refine yoursearch.The more specific the text inquiry, the better your chances areof getting where you want to go on the first try.

Bulletins

For example, let’s choose “Subaru Bulletins” as the publicationtype. Once we do so, the web page activates and you are directed tothe following screen (Figure 4).

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Figure 1: Most of us grew up with paper service manuals, then graduated to information on CD and DVD. Thanks to the Internet, now we can be sure of always having the most complete andup-to-date information possible.

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Figure 3 (above)

Figure 2 (left)

There’s a lot of useful informationon this page on how to proceed withyour search, and a hotlink that helpsyou understand how the TSBs(Technical Service Bulletins) aregrouped categorically.That is, from 01General Specifications to 18 ServiceManual Corrections.

On the left side of the page there isalso now a list of six fields, all of which

contain drop-down information. Yourchoice in the first box is type of bul-letin:Technical,Warranty, or State IM.The next drop-down box lets youchoose the model year, your range ofchoices being 1990 to 2005. After youselect the model year, the next box letsyou choose the model. This is all-encompassing, showing every Subarumodel sold in the U.S. from 1990 to

the current model year. As you movedown to the next fields, you are askedto select the transmission type, thenengine size, and, finally, drive train(AWD, FWD or 4WD).You need notcomplete all these fields, especiallysince you may not know all the infor-mation at the time of your search.Themore information you enter, however,the quicker you will “drill down” to theinformation you seek. You can refineyour search further still by adding keytext to help you get to where you wantto be. Pretty impressive, yet that’s onlyone way of getting to the informationyou want.There are other avenues.

VIN

Having a VIN (Vehicle IdentificationNumber) is always helpful when tryingto find information about a vehicle. AVIN is quite long, however, and can beeasy to copy down wrong by transpos-ing numbers. Luckily, the Subaru sys-tem is such that all you need are thelast eight digits of the VIN.

Once you enter the VIN into thefield shown in section #2 of Figure 2you will then need to add some text tohelp the search engine understandwhat it is you’re looking for. In ourexample, we are looking up a 1999Forester and seeking informationabout the throttle body. Our result isshown in Figure 5.

Specificity

Ever helpful, the search engine givesyou two groups of hotlinks to ponder.The first set of hotlinks is groupedunder the heading, “This information isspecifically related to your vehicle,”and lists three publications: ServiceManual, Owners Manual, andProduct/Service Campaign Bulletins.The next grouping — “This generalinformation may or may not be specif-ic to your vehicle” — has broader, lessspecific information related to oursearch similar to what is covered in anew model overview. Time should betaken to click through the listedoptions to make sure there isn’t some-thing on the list that might be relevant.

Navigating the Subaru Website

Figure 4

Figure 5

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This brings up two points not yetdiscussed. First, as you might havenoticed, so far as we’ve dug deeperinto the http://techinfo.subaru.comwebsite we haven’t been asked for auser name or password. We’ll get tothat soon, but, believe it or not, we candive in deeper still to access informa-tion about our 1999 Forester throttlebody before we are asked to pay foranything. And that takes us to our sec-ond point, which is how do we knowwhich publication we want?

Let’s go back a step to the first set ofhotlinks in Figure 5. As you clickthrough the three offered options youwill find that the Service Manual optionis the only one with useful informationabout our throttle body.When “OwnersManual” is clicked, it comes up with amessage that essentially tells you that there isn’t any throttle body-relat-ed information in the Owners Manual, so that’s a dead end. When“Product/Service Campaign Bulletins”is accessed, you come up empty again.

Figure 6

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Navigating the Subaru Website

This is good because you can now feelconfident that the information in theService Manual will be up-to-date, pro-vided a Technical Service Bulletin hasn’tbeen issued, or a correction to theService Manual made.You can check onthis, and should have already done so inour exercise above, by clicking throughthe links shown on the same page.

Service Manuals

Okay, let’s see what happens whenwe click on “Subaru Service Manual.”What appears is a list of sections(Figure 6) from the Service Manualthat are in some way related to thethrottle body. In our example, threemajor sections are shown: Engine,Mechanical Components, andDiagnostic, under each of which thereis a set of sub categories to help youfurther dial into what you need. Thesections and sub categories are allhotlinks that when accessed give youfurther details about what’s containedwithin. Keep in mind that the list thatis being presented to us is specific toour request for information about athrottle body. But, honestly, it’s stillnot enough information on which tomake a decision about which specificdocuments you might want beforehaving to get out the credit card.

Take note of a blue icon next to thefield, “Add to Cart.”When you click onit, a dialog box opens telling you whatyou will get should you decide to pur-chase a hard copy of the material.Another icon, this time red, is the PDFlink that is used to open up the fileonline and access information immedi-ately. Like the “Add to Cart” icon, thisone requires you to reach into yourpocket.

Registering and purchasing materi-als from the techinfo site is very simi-lar to any other website purchase.First, you choose a user name, providean e-mail address, then create a pass-word, which you must then confirm.Don’t forget to put a check in the boxto be automatically notified of futureupdates and bulletins — a handy fea-ture. The different types of subscrip-tions are shown in the figure below.

Hard Copy or PDF?

Once you have gone through theregistration process and have deter-mined what kind of subscription youwant, you will find that you are direct-ed back to the screen in Figure 6 fromwhich you can decide what you wantto do.You have two choices, purchasehard copies of the materials, or accessthe information online using the PDF

file format. Let’s assume you choosethe PDF file. You’ll need AdobeAcrobat Reader. If you don’t have it(it’s freeware), Subaru provides a con-venient link for you to go get it.

After installing Adobe AcrobatReader click on the icon next to thepiece of material you want and thefile will open.You can print out all orpart of the file and/or save it to yourhard drive. Subaru does not recom-mend saving the file for concernsabout how current the file will beshould updates become available at alater date. However, it’s faster to save the file to a hard drive and thenprint it out. A suggestion to ensureyou always have the most recentinformation would be to change thename of the file to include the date ofyour download.

For Instance

As an example, when clicking on“Component Parts, Air Intake System(42.31 kb),” if you chose “save to file”as an option (which can also be doneafter the file opens using a menuoption in Adobe Acrobat Reader), thefile would appear on your hard driveas “MSA5TCD99F8085,” not a veryuser-friendly file name. You canchange the name of the file duringdownload, or later, if you wish tosomething like 1999 Forester Air IntakeParts-System 7-30-05. The good newsis that almost all current computeroperating systems will allow a longname like this. But if that doesn’twork for you, set up a subdirectory inyour “My Documents” folder forSubaru/Forester and a file name suchas, “AirInSys7-30-05.” Either way, at aquick glance you’ll know how currentthe file is the next time a problemarises where you need this type ofinformation. Even then you shouldalways return to the techinfo site tomake sure there aren’t any updates.

Let’s say you prefer to get a hardcopy of the information instead.Whenyou click on “Add to Cart” a windowopens and tells you what’s available.Like other websites, here you canmodify your order by changing quanti-ties or deleting items. Once you have

Figure 7

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decided what you want, you can proceed to checkout andfinalize the purchase. All rather simple.

There’s still one other method for finding informationon the techinfo website. If you’ll remember in Figure 2,the third section was a search option for finding a knownpublication. Subaru uses MSA numbers for manuals andsuch, which is what you would put in here. The followingchart will help you interpret the Subaru publication partsnumbering system and can also be a useful guide to whatpublication will have the most helpful information for theissue you’re dealing with. A great feature is that the complete part number need not be known. All you need to do is enter one of the part number suffixes from thechart below.

Pub Numbers

For repair purposes, the two most important publicationnumbers are MSA5P and MSA5T. When you perform awildcard search using these two numbers, a list will be dis-played that shows all the publications that start with the suf-fix you entered. And that’s a critical point; unless you addthe rest of the part number you’ll need to go through the listto determine which publication is most applicable for yourneed. Example: If MSA5T is entered, the site will return a

complete list of every service manual available in the system– not very helpful.When MSA5P is entered, a shorter list isreturned, which is easier to sort through, but you still haveto go through the synopses to determine applicability to thecar you’re working on.

The Subaru techinfo site is certainly one of the handiesttools not in your toolbox for repairing a Subaru. Not only doesthe site give you immediate access to up-to-date service man-uals, but also a listing of the latest repair techniques and cor-rected/revised procedures. Designed for the pace of today’sbusiness needs, Subaru gives you the flexibility of getting theinformation you need when you need it with just a few sim-ple keystrokes and clicks of a mouse. By going directly to the

source, you are always assured of having the best and most accurate information about

how to diagnose, repair and maintain any Subaru vehicle.