What the heck is a trans axle?

[beautysmistress]

Took my 2003 Baja in for a front end alignment. Ask them to try to figure out where the occasional rubbing noise was coming from. They told me it’s the trans axle. Could someone explain what that is? Not something I’ve worked on before. I asked the shop if they can fix it and they said they don’t do that kind of work. They could only replace it for me. Anyone know what would cause a rubbing noise to come from that area? Kind of sounds like when your brakes are starting to go bad.
My next question would be are they hard to work on? Can they be ordered new or have they stop making them?
I’m up in alaska and there are not a lot of these around to get parts off of. Thank you in advance for any information or guidance.

[anarchy1024]

A transmission transfers engine power to the driveshaft, while a transaxle combines the transmission and differential into a single unit, often found in front-wheel drive vehicles. In essence, a transaxle is a type of transmission where the differential is integrated within the same unit.

(Explanation from Google)

Basically, the shop is saying that something in the transmission (with integrated front differential; a.k.a. transaxle) is going bad. Working on the insides of a transmission may require special tools (depending on what's wrong with it) and at least specialized knowledge, plus acquiring new parts that may or may not be available. Many (most?) general repair shops (i.e. not transmission specialists) will offer to replace the transmission with a used one, rather than try to rebuild the existing one. Besides the specialized tools and knowledge, if the rebuild isn't done perfectly, or depending on the failure, if bits of metal remained in the transmission after the rebuild, it may possibly fail quicker than a good condition used one. Bits of metal may be circulating in the oil chewing up the bearings inside, which would require the replacement of all internal bearings, and if all of the metal debris isn't cleaned out, the new replacements will quickly be destroyed as well. Plus, a transmission rebuild is very labour-intensive and requires specialist knowledge, so tends to be quite pricey. There's a risk either way.

A brand new transmission direct from Subaru is serious $$$, so personally I'd try to find a decent used one (which is what I did with both my 2003 Baja and 2002 Outback; they use most of the same parts, including transmission). Not sure about automatics, but the manuals are very interchangeable between different models/years. My Baja currently has one from a 2010(?) Forester, and the Outback has one from a 1998 Impreza, so you/they don't necessarily need to pull one from another Baja.

[beautysmistress]

Thank you so much for the detailed reply. Doesn’t sound like something I wanna tackle. She’s getting close to 160,000 miles so I’ll just start looking around for another transmission. Sounds like a swap might be the easiest answer. Hard part will be finding one up here
Thank you again

[anarchy1024]

You're welcome. In terms of doing it on your own... at least for the manuals, I'd say it's "intermediate difficulty." More difficult than brake pads/rotors, but less than head gaskets. It is time-consuming, though, especially if it's your first time, and/or if stuff is rusted.

I don't think you said if it's manual or automatic. Attached is what I followed to do mine (manual), but it'll at least give you an idea of what's involved in doing the swap.