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Suzuki Sidekick vs Subaru


pbz
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i'm not to worried about the oil pan or filter i have the skid plate under them. the only thing i worry about is the rear cvs and mufler components on my gl but like you said those sameris are pretty hard to hurt.

the one bad part about the sameri is the weak trans. thats why i sold mine :headbang:

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I've ripped the rear transfer gears out of 2 d/r 5spds and grenaded the front diff in another... they aren't that strong either.

 

I had a 1" square tube subframe that connected the lower radiator support to the front crossmember with an 1/8" steel skidplate. The oil filter got crushed by a 4" thick piece of ice that got jammed up in there doing some trailbreaking in a frozen pond one winter. Came really close to ripping it off, luckily it held and I noticed it later.

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  • 7 months later...

I know for me and the experiences I've gon through..... I have a 2000 Subaru forester, does great in the snow! And I'm not talkin a little snow 2' or more. My buddy have a sidekick with a 1.9 turbo diesel, I think he's running 30's. so we went up in the snow lots of snow, I Of course got stuck there was so much (bottomed out). But he was good the entire time. The nice thing about his rig we were headed back down and the snow mobilars we had saw had cut track all over the road so he got pulled into a 3' drift.... But it being so light we littlery pulled him out by hand with out tow strap. There's pros and cons to both.

 

I love my forester though, planning on giving it 4" soon :) you won't regret getting one though, I know I havnt. You can go from the town paved roads to snow mud trails in a second with no problem. The 4wd auto system hasn't let me down yet.

 

 

-Prwa

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There is a lot of lift stuff out there for the Samari. I would actually lean towards the Sammi for very rough trails. There must be a way to get more power out of it. 

 

http://www.lowrangeoffroad.com/index.php/suzuki/samurai.html

 

I know I know I didnt say subaru, Just may be more economical if there are a ton of bolt on parts out there instead of heavily modifying a sooby that may be not quite up to the task.

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there is a guy down the street from my house that he did a diesil conversion on his trooper and he says it getts a fair ammout of power out of it. he has it lifted and is running bigger than 30's on it with custom differentails(he has his own shop that he runns and does custom grears for diffs, maybe trans gears, lifts, and he makes cases for the diffs.)

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It's actually not. Some just last longer than others before they leak. But both phases have the issue, just in a different way.

It is. For instance if they all have it then both of mine should and never did. I know countless of others that did not. You do not see 100 of 1000's of complaints on the net or in the news about it the way you do about GM or Neons. the best guestimat put out is about 20% of the 1996-2001 suffer from it and even a smaller amount of the newer ones (external weeping leaks). Using your logic all cars have bad head gaskets as if any car lives long enough it should need one. 

 

be careful with blanket statements. Thats the last I will respond to this misinformation and will go back to the topic at hand.

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It's actually funny you said something about NOT finding 1000's of complaints online about it. You actually do if you search for it. And 2001+ leak as well. They have done many revisions to try to correct the issue, yet it still happens. 96-98 was internal leak, where the coolant could cook the bearings, and mix with the oil as well. And the 99+ was external, where for the most part, it was just oil that leaked, but it still caused issues with overheating.

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Never said they didnt exist, just nthat not all of them have it. Head gaskets do weep with time, it is old age. We leak with old age too. Just due to subarus boxer design whatever leaks usually falls on the exhaust system and becomes quite noticable. Funny how I see more people upset over head gaskets then 1999 transmission failures which seem to happen with more regularity then HG for that year.

 

Now Suzuki Sammis ... they dont have HG issues unless they get old enough, but do seem to like to get belly rubs.

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I have seen and heard of numerous 2.5 head gasket issues with as little as 50k on them. That's more than old age. It had to do with a poor gasket design, and thin metal surrounding the cylinder walls that weren't good at dissipating heat well enough. And yes, 99 autos did have issues as well, but not nearly as numerous and widespread as the 2.5 head gaskets have been! I currently own 2, 2.5 cars. One has had head gaskets done, and one hasn't. The one that hasn't is the first one I have ever seen out of the ones I've worked on, and the ones I've owned that hasn't had any issues, and it has 150k on it. But the other one has had them done twice.

 

Suzuki samurais go awesome. Had a friend with one that we put 235 75 15's and the thing would crawl over everything!

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this thread started as a discussion of subarus vs suzuki SIDEKICKS,yet somehow it migrated to the much more capable suzuki SAMURAI.The sidekick is a mini mall crawler.it has IFS and a solid rear axle.While the samurai has solid axles front and rear,a microscopic wheelbase,and weighs about as much as a feather.

 

this is a sidekick

http://image.motortrend.com/f/features/consumer/1110_celebrity_drive_travel_channel_host_don_wildman/35462272/1991-Suzuki-Sidekick-side.JPG.jpg

 

this is a samurai

http://flipacars.com/pics/Suzuki/suzuki-samurai-13-03.jpg

 

try not to get them mixed up,a samurai is a very capable offroader,a sidekick is very similar to our subaru's in that it doesn't get the respect it deserves until it has a chance to prove its worth.

 

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I think the sameris are more popular just because they get rolled often at a low mileage and they are not worth much in scrap so people turn them into offroaders. You see the sidekicks on the road more because they were better designed and lasted longer, I could see a lot of potential in the side kicks they are just harder to find at the price you can get a sameri for plus all you have to do to make a sameri into a off road rig is put truck tires on it :grin: Just my $0.02

Edited by mikaleda
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