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If they can't buy it with savings/cash and have money for the insurance they should not get it!

Yes put the E brake on before shifting into park and turning off the car. It will keep the tension off the parking lock in the trans.

It’ll be a clutch throw out bearing - the symptoms you shared are text book TOB wearing out. Cheers Bennie

Thanks Captain Obvious! Rebuilding struts? There are some manufacturers that offer a service to refurbish their own older lines of struts but none of these that I am aware of. Could someone else rebuild them? Probably, but not at a price you or think is reasonable. The demand is far too low which is why you can't find much in replacements. Many of the parts I've found since I got my wagon are very old aftermarket stock manufactured 8-10 years ago that is still lurking in the basements of dirty parts warehouses. I still enjoy driving my DL but the day will come where the cost and effort to keep it on the road will exceed my limits and it will get parted out. Hopefully, someone else will drive their 3rd gen a few more years from the parts I offer up when that day comes. The best thing I found at the time I needed front struts was the Sachs mentioned earlier in this thread. I don't need the rears as the fell good and don't look that old. I'm not going to buy them "just in case" either.

There's a class action on rod bearing failures. Engine replacement cost is rarely less than $10k. I have no less than 6 of that exact chassis awaiting engine builds at my shop currently. Wouldn't touch it with someone else's dirty d1ck beaters without lots of records and a thorough inspection including FILTER CUT and detailed inspection of contents. Young man will have REALLY high insurance costs. Manual transmission and turbocharger are both HUGE red flags to the insurance providers. Likely going to be $300 to $600 a month to insure it for a new driver. Transmission and drivetrain on them is pretty solid but he's going to burn through clutches. That model is easily capable of 315 HP @ THE WHEELS with an intake, exhaust, and a custom tune. That's not the 265 HP that's advertised. That's 360 HP at the crank and that's only going to cost him about $2k to get it there. He likely already knows this and isn't telling mom. He will be dangerous in short order or he will pick a poor choice for a tuner and blow it up. See my first sentence...... Honestly a terrible idea for a first car. GD

when the cable broke on my 02 forester, i had the shift mechanism completely apart - cleaned and re-lubricated everything.. pretty simple mechanism in general if you have the time to do it, might be worth while to get in there and have a look see.. make sure there is nothing physically getting in the way and everything is working the way it should. the other alternative to malfunction would be the brake switch down at the pedal.. And now that i am thinking about it.. that could be the source of what you are feeling.. the plunger of the brake switch doing funky things... hmmmm...

Ok thanks ! Yeah that electrical switch has to engage mechanically and I’m just thinking that part of it might be sticking etc. Old school they had a plunger shaft and then I think the “hairpin” contact if I recall. So far the last couple of trips I haven’t had too much trouble with it. Seems playing with the parking brake at the right time also helps. Or it’s my brain again. But I’m going to try the method you suggested Heartless and see if that does anything.

that switch is 100% electrical, so not sure how brake pedal "pressure" is making a difference.. unless there is something related to the brake switch that is affecting operation (the one that tells the brake lights to come on - and unless i am majorly mistaken, it also tells the shifter switch it is ok to release) *see page 37 of the "1990 Legacy Wiring Diagrams" found here: http://jdmfsm.info/Auto/Japan/Subaru/Legacy_Outback/1990-1994/ going to toss this out there as something to try.. when you put your foot on the brake and are ready to move the shift lever, try pushing it forward just a tad, before pulling back..

i am just grateful i was not the one that did the axle work - that time.. LOL they had to come get the car, for free, and get it taken care of. and I completely understand about the lack of sleep and memory issues - oh, boy, do i understand!!

1. Kids these days. Why, when I was a boy... I wasn't "a great kid". I was kind of an @sshole. My dad gave me a '64 Rambler Classic (287ci) that had a very funny story attached to it that I won't get into here. But it was safe because I was wrapped in so much Detroit iron that I could have spent a day on the demo derby track and the paint would barely have been scratched. It's long gone, but I'm (gradually) restoring another one now and plan to put an (AMC) 327 in. My ultimate goal is to find an old tube car radio for it. If I can, it'll get the vanity plate "EMP HARD". 2. When my girls turned 16 (just under four years ago), the plan was to give them the '99 Forester that a friend had given me (it had been his dad's and the AT was funky). I replaced the tranny and cleaned it up and it gave us great service for a few years, then a deer wiped it out. We got more insurance money for it than expected, so I got a really nice '02 Forester (blown motor, but all mod cons) for $500 from a country junkyard. Put in a new motor, got everything cleaned up and dialed in, and then a deer wiped it out - just prior to their birthday. So with the insurance money we got another Forester ('01) for about $500, and other than it getting a little banged up when a moose ran them off the road on the way to school (them, not the moose, and it sounds funny, but that's actually very serious sh!t), they're still driving it (though it's seen a HG job, and later a full engine rebuild (spun rod bearing)). They're also on their second ragtop Mustang, but I won't get into that other than to say we jam econo. 3. A few years ago I drove by a used car dealer that had one of those portable fluorescent-moveable-letters signs out by the road. It said "30 CARS UNDER $15,000!" I did the mental math and thought, "yeah, that's about right." The moral of this story is: I'm really fsck'ing long-winded. No, not that, the other moral: New drivers, regardless of how "good" they are, need cheap cars that'll take a beating and keep them as safe as possible. 4WD good. $13K USD bad. Turbo bad - I don't have (and haven't had) one, but I'm surrounded by horror stories. I'm with you - I think he should start out with something more modest... and learn to pull a wrench so that if he wants to "graduate" into something sportier later it won't be a money pit.

The older I get, the more clearly I recall things that never happened.

Avoid. A decade old turbo with no known history. I'd suggest an outback as they're larger and heavier and safer because of it. There's no substitute for size and impreza's are small. The highest risk for accidents is 16-19 year olds so safety isn't a bad consideration. Scour the wrecked auto auctions and look at totaled Subaru's - I buy from those places and it seems to me outbacks fare better as the weight suggests they should. There are turbo Outbacks and they come in H6's for a little extra power without the turbo's maintenance, repair, and failure horror stories. Any turbo gas engine is one small failure away from $5,000+ in repairs. My buddies 30k mile cream puff turbo blew up a a year or two ago - $10k repairs. And more. It happens. But let's be realistic - if the kid is looking at this and it's even remotely possible for his parents to be entertaining it - then practicality and finances are obviously of little concern. This kid obviously has free reign to get some sporty aesthetic he's after. That car is nothing remotely close to a good financial or safety decision, so those things probably don't matter much beyond just talking about it. If that's true, let's mitigate all the heat/synthetic oil/intervals/mods/maintenance issues possible with a turbo. I would want documentation on timely synthetic oil changes. Those engines are extremely unforgiving. Non-turbo's - who cares, don't let it get low and change it sometimes and they're fine. Turbo's...they like to blow up if you give them a reason. Get the VIN and pull all the data on it - VIN check, carfax, ask owner for maintenance history, and call the local subaru dealers to see what's been done to it. Pay particular attention to the oil changes and oil/cooling/turbo related work/repairs/modifications. At a minimum it needs a timing belt job ($1,000 at a dealer if it's done properly with Subaru belt, pulleys, tensioner). Mileage doesn't matter, it'll well past the age limit.

that SPFI intake is very similar to the carb intake i have on my EJ22 the differences that i can see is are the shape of the inlets to the heads...my ones have ports that are the same shape as a MPFI manifold which allows me to bolt it straight onto a MPFI block and the inlet hole on my one is sort of oval to suit the twin barrels on the original carb apart from that they are pretty much the same oh and the larger of the two water temp sensor ports will take the temp sensor out of a EA81 so you temp gauge works right

Thanks for the details which I will pass along. He’s a great young man. Did downhill bicycle until an eye issue. Not a new driver, currently owns a Forester for a couple years now. Sure the insurance was discussed at the head. That alone should kill the deal. They still want it ....