Hey all...ironically, after the 36K mile mark hit (warranty's gone), my WRX started making some noises and having some problems.

1) When driving down the highway, whenever I let off the gas, I hear a high pitch howling noise that has a slight revolving modulation to it. It stops as soon as I depress the gas pedal even a little...any ideas? If this is normal and has been there the whole time, it just recently got much louder, because I didn’t notice it before.

2) My clutch seemed to give out: I was sitting on a hill and I did the usual hill start, letting the clutch grab the car first, removing the foot from the break...you all know the drill. I'm sure you all, just like me, are very used to where that "grab" happens on the clutch pedal. Well, this time I went to start off and the car rolled backward, so I quick hit the breaks (there was a car behind me at this light) and then tried again, this time letting the clutch out a bit further. It took one more failure even after that before I put on my hazard lights and thought I was doomed. However, I tried once more, this time letting the clutch out however far it took before it grabbed and then releasing the brake. That worked, but the clutch pedal had been released nearly 100% of the way before it finally started to engage the drive train. Naturally, I played with it a bit more at other lights, and ended up killing the engine once. LOL Curiously, after the car restarted, the clutch seemed to act as it usually does...does the ECU have any control over the clutch to where an engine restart would affect the mechanism performance?

3) Sometimes when going uphill, I'll hear a slight pop of air, like the A/C just came on and is burdening the engine, only the A/C is off, but there still comes a windy pop, and then the engine hesitates for a second, then resumes normal operation.

Let me know if you guys have experienced any of these things...I am going to take it in on Monday, but I don’t know what to tell them to check out except for with problem 1 and 2, which could be related to clutch in #2 and hubs, oil seals, and tie rods for problem #1.

Thanks in advance.

 

...it turned out better than I'd hoped...I had just collected a bunch of rocks in my rear bushings...in about an hour, they had it cleaned out and fixed up.

The noises it was making and when they would occur seemed like drive train/clutch problems, but I am happy to find out it wasn’t that serious!
...weird, huh?

 

...replied.