the legacy outbacks make a clunking noise (at least mine did for the first 40k miles, and other posters had similar sounds) and it was attributed to the struts. Are you sure about the trans and axles? does it sound like a noise that should happen if you bootom out the car on railroad tracks or something? It would always happen in a turn with accel and was not a big deal. It just sounded scary, but i've never actually had a problem. It doesn't do it anymore though (60k miles now)...