Dan Canning

LAPD woke me at 6:15 on holiday (black) Monday... my car had been in a fender bender and they were outside. Dude's car had been in a 'fender bender'. My car, on the other hand, had been hit by a suspended driver, in a car registered to his mother, in which he was speeding (on my 1-block long street) when he fell asleep. The damage... bent axle on both ends (impact at the wheel), bent frame, obliterated bumper, damaged left front corner panel, broken headlight, damaged hood, damaged rear bumper (driven into the car behind it)... Progressive is holding off on calling it a total loss until the shop sees it from underneath tomorrow, but told me to go ahead and remove everything from it to save myself some trouble. Silver... she's dead. RIP Silver... 1997 Legacy L, only 150K on the original engine, we'd put only 13000 miles on her in the last two years... she had the 2.2 L... sigh, sniff. I've spied a couple of cars to look at tomorrow... a 1996 Legacy L (almost identical to my car, but green, with tint and a factory roof rack) with 105,000 miles, and a 1996 OBW w/ 151K... like my car came back from the shop blue, and pumped up. Both are immaculate, both are one owner cars. One has the 2.2 L, the other the Phase 1 2.5... which do you prefer at the same price?

Thanks, folks. This gives me much peace of mind. It's a hectic week for us, and our Legacy is currently our only car. Is it risky to drive the car like this (i.e., will it damage the transmission operating in fail-safe mode), or am I straight to drive it until early next week, if I don't put excessive mileage on it? You folks are terrific, btw.

Hi, I've got a '97 Legacy L Wagon (automatic). All of these things happened in the following sequence on Saturday: 1) Speedometer/Odometer stopped operating (taking Cruise with them) 2) Check engine light came on (less than 20 miles after speedo stopped working) 3) AT Oil Temp light flashes on start-up (Haven't counted)(began on first start-up after speedo stopped operating) I haven't had any of the codes pulled yet (from the tranny or the engine). I've been reading through posts and saw in a post about a similar speedo issue that the base cable piece may have broken. In a follow-up to that post, it stated that the no speedometer issue will also mess with how the transmission shifts; the TC will not lockup. Is it possible that a problem with a faulty base piece (probably responsible for sending the message to the computer that caused the check engine light to come on) could also be causing the AT light to go off? Or is it more probable that I've got two seperate problems? Any help would be appreciated. Any knowledge I can gather before seeing a mechanic would help since I'm not great with cars. Thanks, Dan