cookie

The BMW is my daily driver. The Subaru does the chores. If BMW had not offered 4 years free maintenence and my particular Subaru had not required head gaskets and clutch it would be about equal. this was just a function of the fact that Subaru installed the organic clutches and the mediocre head gaskets in 99. What this does not take into acount is that the BMW cost almost twice as much as a Subaru. For twice as much money I don't really expect my head gaskets to blow. I bet if you went cost per mile the Subaru might win because it was so much less expensive to buy.

A happy Nipper is important after all! Happy New Year to you and your Subaru! Nip is right, that seems expensive but it should pay in the long run. If you get four more years out of it that's $212 a year.

if it were mine I'd probably just bite the bullet and go for the new $850 rear assembly. A junk yard unit from a car of your year will often have exactly the same problem. Don't ask me how I know, they aren't pretty stories.

Clutch judder would also be my first guess since it is an 01 and many of them are prone to it. Cold weather makes it worse. I changed my 99 to the upgraded clutch because of this, an 01 clutch is also reaching it's sell by date in many cases.

Sounds like the clutches or duty solenoid to me. This is a pretty standard problem and there are folks on this board who have pulled the rear off the tranny and fixed it themselves. I think Subaru offers the pieces together and I'm very surprised someone has not told you this. First I'd check the wiring and then change the rear part of the tranny if it were mine. Search under duty solenoid and I bet you get a lot of hits plus some of the automatic folks will chime in when they notice this.

I also have a BMW, an M Roadster. And yes it has been cheaper to maintain also than my Forester. They do have thier problems too, the cooling system is better to change out at a far lower mileage than Subarus. A number of BMW's problems come from thier quest for lightness and horsepower, such as the cracking issues in the 3 series. No such problems with Subaru there as Subaru seems to know how folks use these cars. BMW buys thier auto trannies from GM and ZF and have had major problems with both.

Write some letters. Just becuse one person says it won't fly didn't discourage the Wright brothers. Although it's therapudic to vent here, vent to Subaru. See if they will send a lawyer to small claims court.

My last Mercedes had a few interesting quirks. It would wear out cams at about 90,000 miles, I had three. The most interesting one was the front damper. It had a rubber core that could slip and cost $700 just for the part. It went twice when I turned the AC on in spite of fitting the upgraded type. Folks used to pay a couple grand when it happened off warranty. I just lost a damper, a tow, and a weekend. Yep, they all have issues. I've done two toyota head gaskets for friends myself.

A couple of things here. First when the water pump was changed did the add conditioner again? That might take care of it. Second Subaru covered my head gaskets when I had no warranty at all and they had not yet done the recall. I suggest you calmly contact your local Subaru rep on it. I've had GM give me an entire egine miles off warranty so nothing lost in trying. By the way I had a complete service file and the gasket change had been done by a subaru dealer.

I think tirerack also has charts on what fits.

When you modify a new car you also ruin the value. If you want to modify a car get an older one. Get another dealer.

We don't get the same engines you guys do here in the US. You get both genuine Kiwi imports and JDM products, some specs are hard to come by for us. I am convinced the average Kiwi shop can make anything fit anything.

don't hold your breath until you need the rear one. I bought both when I did the front and thought I would wait to see when the rear craps out. I think I've been waiting 20,000 miles..and still going.

You are going to need a mechanic you can trust when you have the car, so now is the time to find a good Subaru person. They are also going to know what to look for on a wrecked car, bad gaps on body panels, corrosion, tires wearing funny, tracking crabwise when going down the road. Just follow the car and you can learn a lot. A good mechanic will also tell you what work it is likely to need in the near future. A salvage title does really hurt a car's value as many folks won't buy a salvage car at all. The bad repair folks have been known to stuff air bags so they don't work and do a lot of other things that its hard to see. Flood cars were a real problem after Katrina. That being said if you are wary a salvage title can be a deal. A friend got good service out of a Honda that had been stolen and stripped. Nothing serious had been hurt and with new panels, seats, and radio it was fine. Just have it carefully inspected as it's your money.

Gary is another of the guys who love the Impreza! If an Imp would do the job for me I'd love it. I have a Forester so I can get the high roof, but I have to use the 2.5 since that's all they came with here. All the folks I know who have had Imps or outback sports have had great luck. This would not be the case among full size 2.5 owners.

It isn't that big a deal but the last couple of cars I had in Jersey and NY that old were really beat. Here in San Mateo the body would still be pretty good and the roads are a treat here compared to back east. The salt makes the smallest job under the car a pain in the butt. Here I can drop a ten year old exhaust pipe in a few minutes and the bolts are still reusuable. In salt states guys really earn thier repairs. This is why I say the condition of the rest of the car would be pretty improtant and only he can see it.

For me it might depend on the rest of the car's condition. Somebody wants that car because at the worst a 95 2.2 engine that runs good is nice to have. If I was broke I'd drive it till it dropped and put a used tranny in if the rest of the car was ok. When I was a student that is exactly what I did with the heaps that came my way. Since I'm a middle aged guy with a job and not that much time if it was mine I'd say I got my miles out of it and buy a few years old car.

Depends on engine, tranny, and condition for me. If things were equal I'd take the 99. If the 97 has the 2.5 and has not had head gaskets fitted it may be more of a risk.

Just to give you an idea I have a perfect running 99 Forester. With the mixed city and freeway driving I do in San Mateo CA (mild climate no warm up), I get 23-24 in the winter. If you do a lot of city driving and some warm up, maybe some snow, winter gas, you may not be that far off. These cars are four wheel drive and are relatively heavy, this gives us a bit of fuel mileage penaly for passing the guys shoveling out thier cars. I came to subaru from a Jeep and I still feel great after a fill up. I think I'm getting nearly 66% better mileage.

It really depends on what you want to do with your car, and maybe how old you are. I'm running stock settings on my Subaru, a little lower tire profile, WRX rear sway bar, 15% stiffer struts. It is far nicer than a stock Forester of the same vintage and handles very well in corners. Testing showed 50 50 breakaway in parking lot stuff. The car gave me 70,000 miles on the last set of tires. I know that I could get a little better handling by lowering and increaseing camber, but I'll guarantee you I won't get 70,000 miles out of the tires. On my BMW M Roadster I am currently running Bilstiens, big sways, and 1 degree of camber. If I am lucky I'll get 25,000 miles out of the current set of SO3s at $1,000 a set. BMW owners constantly complain about the factory setting rear camber at a rate good for a racetrack (3% on many models), and they eat tires for lunch. If you want more camber and faster time at the track be prepared to sacrifice some tire wear.

I would be most concerned about fuel dilution, but when you are broke enough to run without a thermostat in the winter that may not be your biggest concern. I would probably change the oil more often while running that way to protect the bearings.

If you do a search you should see several threads on this. My first thought would be the filler pipe since they are known to rust out, but you really have to get under there and look.

I was thinking right inside my full size spare. This is going to depend on whether the battery I have as a spare in the garage fits. I was thinking of a boat or camper isolator and running the heavy cable under the carpet. The spare battery I have has a drain tube so you could run it outside.

I have speed bleeders on my BMW and will probably add them to the subie when I change the fluid next. Between those and keeping hoses submerged in a jar of brake fluid it makes one man bleeding pretty easy. A lot of folks swear by those pressure bleeders that go on the master cyl. If I'm only doing it every few years speed bleeders seem cheap and easy. If I had a shop I'd do it with the master cyl type as it would pay for itself. I used to use an electric fuel pump on trucks.

By yhe way Nip I'm thinking of adding a second battery in my spare tire well.