I did something dumb Friday night.

 

Out at a friends place about 20 minutes out of town, and I'm driving back in around 12:30 am to go home. I get stuck behind this SUV doing like 40, and decided to take a short cut. It's a road that cuts off of the main road we're on, it runs over about 200 yards to another main road which intersects with the first road so it makes a little triangle in the woods there. And people quite often use this little offshoot road to pass slow pokes.

 

So I get to this road, drop into 4th gear and hang hard right to make the turn, except I misjudge where the edge of the road is. See where this is going?

 

Right wheels drop off into the ditch, and I mean literally DROP. It's about a 2 foot straight drop into a drain that runs under the road at this corner. It's only about 45° corner, which is normally easily doable at 40 mph. Unless you miss the road.

 

So anyway, the right side of the car just plain drops. BAM! It hits the road, tire bounces back up out of the ditch (more of a hole), car heads on two wheels for the ditch on the opposite side of the road. Wheels drop back onto the road, pull hard right on the steering wheel to keep out of the other ditch, car straightens out and the excitements over. I coast for about 50 feet and don't feel anything significantly wrong, so I gun it and keep going. So I get past slowpoke at a price.

 

Car feels OK and I don't see any plumes of smoke billowing out behind me from some possible massive oil leaks so I just drive on into town like nothing happened.

 

Put it up on the lift at work the next morning and I find... scrape marks on the tow hook (given, they scrape on everything) Scrapes on the control arm in several places, scrapes on the sway bar, a nice huge flat spot on the passenger side exhaust Y pipe heat shield, and about 2 oz of asphalt jammed into the sway bar end link bracket.

The only thing noticeably out of whack is the rear control arm bushing got shoved back about 1/8th inch, apparent from the nice shiny rings around the bolt heads. Loosen the bolts and the bushing pops right back into place all on its own. As far as I can tell it still drives just exactly the same as it did before.

So great job to Subaru. For as flimsy as the body of this car feels, they sure built the chassis right. It held up great to a good lick, that for sure would have taken the control arm clean off any other "cheap" car.

wow ive never dragged the underside of my car across gravel? before xD thats one for the book

 

BUT i have straight up DESTROYED a possem with the center of my bumper! i felt a moment of silence for what i thought was the end of my bumper, so i pulled over and checked.... NOTHING! Now i said a quick prayer for the poor possum and headed on my way

 

This was a pretty cool thread maybe you should start one like "What has your subbie survied?"

 

This was a pretty cool thread maybe you should start one like "What has your subbie survied?"

 

 

Airtime

There is the one in the offroad section I think?

 

But yea thatd be awesome.

 

Probably pretty hairy stuff there Fairtax! I have done some stupid stuff offroad, glad Ned takes the abuse cuz I need to be more careful.

Holy Thread Resurrection Batman!!

2 years, 5 months, and 20 days later...

Soob seems to be holding up ok, even after planting the right side in a ditch AGAIN! Driving too fast on a gravel back road (because the Soob is awesome on gravel!) crest a hill and there's a car! Going 50 downhill on gravel you dont stop very quick. Bounced the right wheels off a drain culvert on the side of the road because the ditch was a better option than a head-on (apply directly to the forehead). It did actually knock it out of alignment that time though. One day I'll invent brakes that still slow the car even when the wheels are locked.

I hit a curb/median dead on at 45mph in my 92 legacy when I fell asleep at the wheel (trying to work full time and do newspaper delivery is tough). went up and over the median, hit the back wheel, and over. Ripped the front tire, snapped the front alloy, bent the control arm and strut, broke sway bar mounts, dented the exhaust, dented/scraped the underside of the unibody and bent the rear alloy.

 

It even hit so hard that the paint at the top of the strut tower flaked a little from the impact.

 

After replacing the strut and control arm and throwing my spare wheels on it, I was back on the road with about $80 in junkyard parts, and the alignment was able to be set accurately still

But, isn't that what you meant to do?