Subaru Outback

[Normy]

Originally Posted by Laneco

Normy?

I was thinking about your situation while I was riding my bike yesterday. Funny how random ideas come to me when I'm riding.

Here's my idea. Add up the cost of the car you have, the cost of the repairs, the depreciation for the car, registration, insurance, and whatever it costs to store it (which probably isn't free). That should tell you how much you've spent altogether.

As it's in Memphis, you're using it intermittently. Compare those costs to the cost of renting a car each time you go to Memphis. Even if you rent from the airport lots which would be HUGELY convenient for you, it may be LESS MONEY total than what you've already spent. Plus it would be absolutely zero maintenance and all the associated hassles. All you pay for is the rental cost, which is a controlled cost - no $3,000 transmission surprises, no $1,500 head gasket suprises, etc., plus gasoline.

Might prove absolutely viable.

angela

Thanx Angela!

Well, the problems with that idea are that 1. We arrive to/from work late at night, when the rental places are typically closed, and 2. If I wind up in training, then I'm likely to need the car daily for up to two months. That rental would get a bit expensive.

-What some people at my company do is ditch any sort of car whatsoever and simply stay in hotels. I rent a room in a house about 25 miles outside of town, where I stay when I'm between flights for any length of time. This "crashpad" runs me about $200 per month, plus there are the car expenses. The thing is....this comes right back to my second point: If I wind up in training, it gets real expensive real quick to stay in a hotel for that length of time. Also, the car allows me to go running at Shelby Farms, a large park outside of Memphis, along with trips to the mall, Barnes & Noble, et cetra. That and it is something to tinker with when I get bored....

Anyway, thanx again!

N

[Shifter]

First of all, I have not owned any of the models in question here, but I can tell you it is easier and faster to pull the engine on a sixer to do a clutch job.

And one other thing to watch out for. It seems the foglight switches seem to fail in the on position. From what I can tell, just observations from driving around town, foglight switch failure on the subaru's seem to be in the 80 percent range....

[VINMAN]

Actually, going to look at an '02 and '03 tommorow. Need to get the '44 off the road for a while. I need another DD.

[craigster59]

Originally Posted by VINMAN

Actually, going to look at an '02 and '03 tommorow. Need to get the '44 off the road for a while. I need another DD.

Look for one with the 6 cylinder H6 engine. the 2.5 is a bit underpowered and the 6 has a timing chain as opposed to a belt.

[teenerted1]

Originally Posted by gtc

I like imprezas, but the bigger subarus are just awful. Slow, crap handling, and mediocre interiors. I guess you can mod the turbo motors and swap out the suspension, but that's like polishing a turd.

And people with subarus in the snow are the absolute worst.

hey i only got stuck once and that was due to the fact it snowed 2ft while we were skiing at stevens.

i have passed cops stuck in the snow in my impreza...they hollered for me to stop going up the hill they were at the bottom of in the ditch. i waited to stop till i got to the top got out and yelled down "WHAT?"....he just called back "nevermind"

[Normy]

Well, two days ago I pulled the trigger on the Subaru. I'm now the owner of an '01 Outback "LL Bean" edition.

Two-tone leather seats, fancy floor mats, and a mahogany steering wheel? Yeah, whatever-

I spent a month working on the owner, and finally talked him into trading my old '97 Jetta and $3500 for the Subaru. I had to work on him a bit, and get this- he's a used car salesman.

He told me that he wanted to drive the Jetta before he would approve the deal; Listen- NOTHING worked on that car, save engine, transmission, and brakes! I'm serious- you couldn't even lock the doors any more, they had failed! No air conditioning in 100 degree F Memphis summers, only ONE power window that worked, and it even had a problem with the strut top bearings, where excessive play made the car pull strongly to one side under acceleration, and then strongly to the other power off. It was fun to drive, and still looked good...but it was borderline dangerous!

I noticed that the owner of the place that had the Subaru was a big-time NFL fan; so when I let him drive the Jetta, I kept talking to him about football, and the Super Bowl. You know...about how "The quarterback from the Packers REALLY deserved a Super Bowl victory after sitting second fiddle under Brett Favre for so long", etc. I totally distracted him on the 5 minute drive around the block, and he noticed NONE of these problems! I told him about the door lock and power window, but "conveniently omitted" the other problems, and he bit off on the whole thing!

-I'll bet you right now that I kicked his ass on this deal!

Well, today I woke in Memphis and the sky was gray. Did a run, and came inside and took a shower in the morning. About noon, the snow came, and it is probably a Michigan-grade snow, very thick and wet. Bored, I went to the gym and after the gym, I drove to the grocery store....at 20 mph! The Subaru has no problem accelerating on snow and ice, but stopping? Brakes are brakes. Fortunately I don't have to drive tonight, because the roads here right now are so bad that my roommate spent 3 hours driving the 25 miles from the airport!

This afternoon I drove it around the subdivision, there was about 4 inches of wet snow on the streets. It accelerated normally, with just a touch here and there of front-drive understeer, but you could feel it trying to find a wheel to put the torque towards, front to back, side to side. It felt like driving up a street with patches of snow, when in fact the street was 100% covered with it. Neat!

It will probably be two years before I ever actually need that AWD again....

N