Today I went and looked at the car at the dealership. They said they hadn't had a chance to do the mechanical inspection yet, so it sat pretty much as it was traded in. It's a one owner car, dealership serviced, and they had the full history of the car available (they showed me the print invoices for the last 200K). It has had every Subaru-scheduled service since new. He wasn't able to determine from the printouts when the timing belt was last done, or whether the head gaskets had been changed. I will call back Monday when the service dept. is open so they can get computer access to search.
No leaks in the engine bay that I could see. I checked before we started it, and after I had test driven it. There was what looked like an old coolant leak near where a line goes into the top passenger side of the motor, but it was old and dry. No wet spots under the car at all. Shoulda seen the look on the sales lady's face when I whipped out the flashlight and inspection mirror.
Body was in great shape. No rust that I could detect anywhere at all. The floors were in mint shape, and had been undercoated with some kind of grey fluffy-rubbery kind of stuff. The paint was good, no dents or door dings, but in need of a buff and wax job to bring it back up to new. One issue with it I will mention at the bottom in the questions. Exhaust looked original and in good shape. No serious rust at all.
We took it for a ride. Took 2 tries to start it, but it looked like it had been sitting for about a week in the cold, so no surprise. Fortunately there had been about an inch of fresh snow the night before. I found the pedals a bit too close together for a set of ski-feet like mine, but nothing I couldn't adjust to. Idled nice and smooth, no clanks, rattles or drama. I checked the oil, and while it looked to be a little overfilled, it was a nice golden color. No signs of coolant. Coolant looked to be free of oil.
Was a really fun drive. I regretted getting back into the rental Neon afterwards. I took it to a nice big wide private parking lot and tested the AWD and ABS out. The AWD was indeed impressive and fun (think I scared the sales lady a bit tho ). The ABS was kind of ... weird. I've only driven a few vehicles with first gen ABS, and none of them Subarus so it's hard for me to judge.
Holy cow that engine has a growl! Do all Subarus growl like that? The engine sound was very clear inside the passenger compartment, almost like there was no attempt at sound deadening. The sales lady indicated that the exhaust arrangement was the reason it was so clearly audible. Not complaining, I like the sound, just wondering if that was normal or if I should be looking for exhaust holes.
Interior was nice, no rips in the upholstery, stains, funny smells or anything at all. Rear seats had plenty of space for carting my elderly parents around when they come to visit. Stereo sounded nice, in fact it had a JBL sub woofer mounted in the truck. Is that a factory option? The head unit was stock Subaru. It was equipped with some kind of autostart.
When we went back to the dealership, we talked about the car for a bit. She said that they had yet to do the mechanical inspection that all used cars get before they go out. When we talked about the timing belt and head gaskets, she said that if the car was due for them they would be done before it left the dealership. It would be completely caught up to Subaru service schedules. I asked her if it was their policy to repair all defects in used cars before selling them, she assured me it was so. It will definitely be getting a new windshield because local safety requirements say that it must be unblemished to pass. I'm not used to this kind of treatment! The cars I buy are usually "as is".
So it seems like a really well cared for Scuby. We talked about the price, and she indicated that it was open to negotiation. She was pretty straightforward in that she said I could expect to pay about what I would in a private sale plus about $2500CDN because that's their standard markup. If the car comes with all mechanical issues fixed, I can't begrudge them a little extra. It's worth it for such a nice specimen.
So... sorry for the novel, but I have some questions:
I noticed the rocker panels on the bottom of both doors had really rough orange peel to the paint. I knocked on both and it didn't feel or sound like bondo. Are Scubys prone to rusting out the bottoms of the doors? Or do they apply some kind of chip guard down there? All four doors had exactly the same texture below the middle trim, so it looks too regular to be a poor repair.
The manual shifter was receiving a lot of vibration when I revved the car up. Is this normal? I have a ring with a loose setting, and the vibration was strong enough to make the stone "buzz" whenever the ring was in contact with the shifter. Is this a sign of clutch going out? Bad transmission mount perhaps? I drive FWD cars where the shifter is isolated by cables, so I'm not sure how much vibration a shifter attached to the transmission should receive. She said it would get looked at by the service department, and if it needed a new clutch or mount it would get one.
As I said, the ABS felt... weird. I'm used to a regular "thump thump thump" feel... this was like periods of no action, separated by a VERY rapid up-down pulsation, then nothing again... alternating as long as the car was sliding. Is that normal for a Scuby? The ABS light was not lit, and the brake fluid was full.
Thanks a lot for the help and information guys, hopefully a new Scuby owner is born. Both my wife and I really really liked this car and had a great experience with this dealer. We compared notes afterward, and honestly it felt like we were buying a new car, not a used almost ten year old car. They were really decent to us, something we're not used to.
