Oh joy, my car is making that godawful grinding noise--you know, worn brake pads on rotors. I once tore the shit out of the rotors on my '88.5 Escort GT because at the time, I didn't know how to replace brake pads (and I'm lazy, and didn't have the money to get them fixed anyway). Now I've done front and rear brakes on all kinds of cars and trucks, so doing the Subaru should be a piece of cake. I haven't bought a repair manual for that car yet, and I hope I never have to. I think I can figure things out on my own well enough.
I should probably bleed the brake lines while I've got the front wheels off, but I hate bleeding brakes. The brake pedal has always been pretty spongy, but as cold and windy as it's been outside, it's not worth freezing my ass off even more just to have that nice solid feeling when you hit the brakes. I'll wait 'til it warms up a bit outside, then maybe I'll get around to it.