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old subaru market has collapsed


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Has anyone else noticed this? You cannot buy an old running subaru any more for under about $1200 to $1500 and even at that price range it's hard. It used to be that craigslist, local classifieds, etc, had dozens of EA81's and EA82's for sale, for under $1000, in fairly good running condition. This winter, it's been only broken ones for sale, even expanding the search to first gen legacies. I've only seen four EA81's for sale all winter in the denver area, and three of them weren't really for sale (a friend showed up with cash for two of them and the owners backed out and decided to keep them after all). Seems like almost everyone with a running old suby is keeping it instead of upgrading like they used to do. Stupid economy :rolleyes:

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I would assume it's also affected by simple supply and demand. As time goes on, more get parted out or scrapped. With fewer of them around, it drives prices up. In Southern California, an older Subaru is a very rare find, running or not. Didn't used to be that way.

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The price of scrap (and it usually gets worse when gov't gets involved with "credits") has taken a toll on all older car hobbies.

 

Folks have been crushing repairable cars for 20 years. Back then for "credits" so they didn't need to clean up their smoke stacks. Lately due to the price of scrap.

 

And the tree huggers love it since they had higher emissions. Gov't loves it because you gotta buy new cars and pay more taxes, insurance, and they are more and more dictating what the new cars will be. Forcing CORN BASED ETHANOL down out throats that older fuel storage (metal tanks) and delivery systems(carbs, throttle body injection, real injection) all have troubles with.

 

So the only folks that loose are folks trying to keep economical transportation running and those of us with a love of older cars. And we're definately outnumbered.

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Here in this part of Oregon, you see tons of 1985 to 1993 on the road.

Just driving to old I'll 4 or 5 of those years, most of them are wagons.

I see a few for sale, going for $1200 to $1500.

The P&P yard has 3 of these, but there pretty pick over.

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tell everyone to quit parting off repairable cars. this makes ebay sellers hungry, selling parts to people that dont have cars left to put them on!

 

i have been seeing a lot of original rnning ea82t's being chucked out for ej22's

 

what ever happened to the days when you had gl wagon, that you had to invent your lifts, bellhousings, and swaps. nowadays you can go but grandma's car and order sjr's online.

 

pretty soon we will have this problem with 1st and 2nd gen legacy and impreza. As the new market is buying up new soobs as a sales trend, there will be a few people scouring the earth for the last non-interference motors and cars.

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The older Subaru's aren't very expensive around here, but they are hard to find. While priced reasonably, the ones for sale always need some work, they just don't sell a nice running Subaru. The big reason they are hard to find is that Subaru didn't start selling many cars here until the EJ's; I've only seen 5 EA series Subaru's in Oklahoma in the last 10 years. But only one had rust, and it was just a little on the rockers.

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I know that the EA's are getting older... but you'd think that the early EJ's would be taking their place as the $600 running beater car... but they don't seem to be here in Colorado.

 

As for emissions.... I have had more problems trying to get 90's cars to pass emissions than I ever had with 80's cars, and that was why I got rid of my '97 impreza -- the only subaru I've had that refused to pass emissions, as well as the newest subaru I've owned. I'm going back to pre 1975 ones that don't have to.

 

Z

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I think it has something to do with the season too. When I was looking for mine last year, I didn't really start finding any till april. Even then, if you weren't right on them, they'd be gone. Most of the time, if there was not an email, you couldn't get there fast enough. I got lucky on mine. I went to see one that this guy was selling for a friend. It could have been fixed, but I was looking for a first car... that I could drive. This one, not very road safe. The one I got was his wife's car that he hadn't put up yet. He had got an outback for $1000 from bent valves.

 

But they have been a LOT harder to find. And the few left aren't exactly daily drivers.

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There are simply less 80's cars around PERIOD...lots of reasons usually a $500-$800 repair isn't worth it to the typical beater driver so they bail. where as we as enthustists are interested in a Subuaru for what they are..I'd love to find a EA82 wagon with low miles but they just aren't around like they used to be only a couple of years ago, unless you want a automatic and the hassle of changing that...Jeff

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