Ranger83

Name away! I took the last Michelin off my OBW with 57,000 and they still had 6/32nd" of tread. We just replaced the tires on the cargo van at work - 95,000 miles on the front and 75,000 on the rears and still had 5/32" tread. The HydroEdges on the OBW now have gone 32,000 miles and have 9/32nd of tread left - new was 11/32nd. They're fantastic in rain, very good in snow and have good dry road cornering power. There isn't a tire on the market that's cheap enough to make it worthwhile cutting corners. The last OBW we sold went in a day when the buyers expressed confidence that it had been well maintained. Why did they think so? "You bought Michelins." I've had excellent luck with Goodyears as well, but they're not much less expensive, tire-to-tire. If you have specific data that shows that another less expensive tire has the snow traction, ice traction, wet braking power, and dry cornering power of the HydroEdge and costs less, I'm all ears. Certainly the tirerack surveys listed above indicate otherwise. Tires are one of those areas that if you "Cheap Out" you are going to think about it every time the weather gets bad. BTW NTB will give you a tire tread depth gage to measure your trad for free.

You should be able to get an AMAZING deal on the Baja - they're pretty much anchored to the showrooms. That means resale value won't be great. If you need AWD over MPG and performance, Subarus are a good choice.

Go to cartalk.com and look in their mechanix reviews. I asked here about a garage in Manchester, NH (there are a bazillion Subarus around) and got no replies. Cartalk referenced 4-5 good shops.

I have had great luck and can recommend the Michelin HydroEdge. It's excellent and one of the top-rated ones on the Tirerack Reviews, BTW. There's a new Goodyear M&S rated all season that's also an assymetrical M&S all-season tire. It is also highly rated on the Tirerack Reviews. I just put the new Nokian Hakka MRI's on a Honda Accord with traction control and ABS. We just did a three-way test of the Honda (2005 V6) versus my 97 OBW and a Honda Civic (no snows or ABS or Traction Control). The Subaru with Nokians would be the best, but the Honda with them did very well - it steered much better and stopped a little better than the Scubie. I have 31,000 miles on them and the trad has worn from 11/32nd new to a little over 9/32nd.

Replace the OEM tires. Replace the OEM speakers.

The headgasket issue is real but over-represented on this board. People who don't have problems don't post here. I replaced my head gaskets, pre-emptively, at 140,000 miles. So if you drive double what the average driver does, you might face it in three years. I have friends with Subarus with 125,000 to 212,000 miles, and two have had headgaskets., out of eight.

VanBortsel is $153 more than the local dealer price. I wound up buying a Honda Accord V6. I didn't want a turbo and you can only buy the H6 with a bunch of other stuff. I tested the Accord on Monday (in snow) and it was surprisingly capable, while being immensely more powerful than the 2.5 Subaru and EPA 30 mpg on the highway. If the dealer salespeople had not been such dolts we would have just purchased the Subaru without looking at anything else. But I refuse to buy from unprofessional salespeople. Just posted my 97 OBW for sale, but if I don't get what I want I'll keep it for a winter beater.

Did you check the mileage before and after? Did it change?

As mentioned in the header, I asked for New England pricing because they're all CA emissions. It's not worth the time or effort to travel far, especially since geting it into service this year gets me an addiitional $4,000 in accelerated depreciation, and I have a $1,000 discount coupon from Subaru USA.

I have not driven one. Some say the H6 is too peaky and doesn't deliver much better performance at road speeds. Others say they're far more relaxed on the highway, in hills, and with a load. If you own one, do you find the cost difference worthwhile? What kind of real-world mileage are you getting? Just considering it, I don't fit in the cars with sunroof and it looks like thaey all come with them.

So, how did that come about? The actual dealer costs is supposed to be $21,979.

What did you pay for yours?

We have purchased two Subarus from Wakefield [MA] Subaru. Their service department is the best dealer service department I've dealt with, of any brand. IRA Subaru, a few miles away, by contrast has a reputation for pushing parts. And Car Mart Subaru in Wilmington MA is probably on a first-name basis with the Attorney General's office. Salespeople are a different matter. We're buying a Subaru wagon for our NH office and I took a Legacy wagon for a test drive at Manchester Subaru. I had a good enough price form them and planned to buy that day. Q. What is the ground clearance of the Legacy. A. Don't know. (No one at dealership knew - it's 5.9") Q. How do you lower the seat? A. This seat isn't adjustable for height (it is). Q. Is a limited slip rear differential available on the Legacy? A. They all have it. (Only available on Outback). Q. What kind of mileage do they get? A. "15 to 30 mpg." Q. How long have you worked here? A. "Eight months." This is when I turned the car around, drove back to the dealer, and left. Subaru has two product families with three engine configurations. Just how hard can this be to learn?

Try subarugt.com. I think there's a service bulletin out on this.

Tread depth on most new passenger tires is about 11/32nd of an inch. When they get down to 5/32nd or so you'll get better dry handling and much worse wet adhesion. NTB will give you thegage to measure tread depth, usually. If oyu are getting vinbration while driving, since the mechanic presumably checked that the wheel lugs are tight, try having them rotated and balanced. That should run you $20-50. Is the bussing while braking? If so you could have a problem with an ABS sensor.

Does that model have disc brakes on the rear? If so you may trash the brake rotor.

Anyone bought or rsearched an Outback 2.5i w/auto in New England? The MSRP is a little different here because Boch is the distributor. One delaer shows MSRP as $25,790, and invoice of $24,190. Best price I have so far is $24,000.

Go to cartalk.com and look in the mechanix files. There are a lot of good Subaru shops that arn't listed by the make - mine isn't - but they show nearly 30 independent garages in Worcester alone. In general you won't find many good mechanics that are willing to let you buy mechanical parts and have them installed. First, if it's not the right part they won't have any way to get the right stuff quickly. Second, they won't be familiar with the service life of the product you select or how it may hold up. Fnally, they base their labor rates on also making some margin on parts and may charge more accordingly. But you can always ask.

Does Subaru of NEw England have different pricing? One dealer says invoice price on a Legacy 2.5i Wagon, Automatic, is $22,702. Edmunds lists $21,501 plus $575 shipping = $22,076. Nashua quoted $22,286 plus a document fee of $149.

As a follow-up, we've decided we probably will buy a Subaru or another wagon this year for business use. So I make an appointment with the Sales Manager at Manchester [NH] Subaru, a dealership that is generally well regarded. The salesperson assigned me - who has been selling Subarus for 8 months - cannot tell me how much higher the Outback Wagon is compared to the Legacyor if there is any difference in spring rate, suspension settings, or load capacity. He does tell me that the Outback suspension is "stiffer but rides better." In fact no one can tell me the load capacity, which CU says is 900 lbs. We go for a test drive, during which he tells me that you cannot adjust the manual seat in the Legacy for height (you can); that all Subarus have limited slip differentials (they don't); and that mileage ranges from 15mpg to 30 (according to customers). I was pretty sure I had a pretty good handle on the differences between the two models, but got so much wrong information that now I'm not sure. Won't be buying from this salesperson - that's for sure. I haven't decided whether to call up and get someone else, or drive down to Nashua Subaru. They are a little farther away but also have a good reputation and were quite straightforward on the phone and via email, although the price they offered initially was not compelling. Or just give up and buy something else. The Nissan salesperson was a lot better informed and could say, "I don't know but I'll get the right answer."

Sir, I am only questioning the original poster's claim that his gas mileage has improved nearly 10%. I raced cars for several years and always did precise before-and-after performance tests on any changes made. You always subjectively believe that a change you've made and spent money on improves performance. Scientific Method often indicates otherwise. But if you believe him, with gasoline at anywhere from $2-4 per gallon, this mileage improvement is well worth the expense and everyone should run right out and make the change. As I already get better mileage than that on average with an automatic 97 OBW with 150K miles on it, I'm not interested. I have my engine oil analyzed by www.natrib.com, an oil analysis firm every 50K miles. There's no reason for me to change to a synthetic. Not even the synthetic manufacturers claim an improvement like this - they post testimonials, instead. Lets hear back in 5,000 miles about the averages before and after. I'm skeptical about this claimed improvement for a couple of reasons. First, because he has mileage for city and highway - is he driving an entire tank in the city, and an entire tank on the highway, or is he mingling the two numbers as estimates? Second, I can calculate my mileage to 10ths of a gallon, so round numbers make me sceptical - rounding up or down could account for a third of the claimed improvement. Third, as mentioned previously, the mileage given as the baseline is at the low range for this vehicle, so any driving style change would likely move the average up. What mileage are others getting with manual shift 00-03 vehicles in mixed driving? But as they say, "No one would be happier to be proven wrong."

When you find out, let me know, my 97 OBW with 150K does the same thing.

Lets see, costs savings over switching the tires to the proper rims - about $40? Cost to repair bearings or other components worn out by the increased loads, or to repair damage caused by an accident due to handling or braking problems resulting from the change in wheel offset - more than $40. This is a very, very bad idea. Change the tires to the Subaru rims. The increased rolling diameter is not significant.

I use a Garmin 2610, which will mount either directly in front of you or on top of the dash in the center. We just bought a Nissan Quest van and elected to use the Garmin in lieu of the factory setup. It's a lot easier to upload waypoints and create custom routes, and that model uses a memory card instead of DVD or hard drive.

Right, two cars with very highly tuned engines and no concern over fuel economy specify synthetics as stock. So do Corvettes and M1 tanks. The question at hand is if it yields a nearly 10% improvement in mileage, or really if it improves mileage at all. Accountants seldom have any role in automotive design and development. Or perhaps I can be more precise by saying that in my time in the R&D group of parts supplier to Chrysler, GM, Ford, and VW I never met an accountant. All engineers are concerned with value engineering, and all systems have cost targets - and tooling cost targets - to maintain. If the original poster has recorded his precise mileage for the last 5,000 miles - and that's only one or two oil changes - and then records it for another 5,000 with the synthetic and still nets a nearly 10% increase in fuel mileage, then it will be a more persuasive argument.