I am looking at buying an Outback. I found one with 130000 miles on it that is supposedly in mint condition. I haven't driven it yet but I am curious if it is worth it. The asking price is $5000. The seller says "it's loaded with every extra available". I would feel more comfortable with lower mileage, but, on the other hand, the timing belt, water pump, etc were probably replaced by now. What do you all think i should offer? What should I look for besides head gaskets, wheel bearings, ball joints, timing belts, water pump, etc?

What should I look for besides head gaskets, wheel bearings, ball joints, timing belts, water pump, etc?

If it's an auto, when the vehicle is cold sitting overnight, start it up and put it right into drive and make sure it engages within a say 2 seconds. Some AT's from this year and '00 had some slow to engage into drive issue.

 

Also check for torque bind.

 

Definitely check the overflow tank for oily milky nasty residue (though if the coolant was just changed to cover it up you won't know). Can check for those little nibs on the HG's to see if maybe they were already replaced with the new MLS style.

 

Of course if the timing belt hasn't been done it's overdue. It can be tough to tell by looking at the belt how old it is.

 

If everything checks out, the price doesn't seem too bad.

Yeah, if the seller (private?) has the maintainence records they are worth their weight in gold. You'd know all the things that were done to the car. Eliminates guesswork and services that you do because you didn't have proof it was done prior to purchase.

 

Check it for torque bind symptoms too (do a search on the board).

 

It it is in exceptional shape then that's not a bad price. Sometimes if you wave $4600 to $4750 under the sellers nose, they bite on it.

I am looking at buying an Outback. I found one with 130000 miles on it that is supposedly in mint condition. I haven't driven it yet but I am curious if it is worth it. The asking price is $5000. The seller says "it's loaded with every extra available". I would feel more comfortable with lower mileage, but, on the other hand, the timing belt, water pump, etc were probably replaced by now. What do you all think i should offer? What should I look for besides head gaskets, wheel bearings, ball joints, timing belts, water pump, etc?

 

"it's loaded with every extra available" is kind of hype, because the different editions had a stock set of features. Subes are not heavily optioned, but very wel featured.

True. http://www.cars101.com has the specs on all the trim levels and options available and what came standard that year. That was the 30th anniversary year IIRC.

I have a speedo head out in the garage I took off my '99 Outback.

It has 123k on it, but only recorded half (at best) of the miles I put on the car before I replaced it (the speedo head...car still going strong).

Flakey speedo heads were common on '99s.

Look it over really carefully for excessive wear...BBW.

STAY AWAY!!!

 

1) I have a 2000 OBW Limited. The moon roof leaks. I have had mine to the dealer - the first time this happened. It has re-occurred like clock work about every year. The last two times I took the headliner down myself and cleaned out the drain tubes. Two weeks ago when it rained I had another puddle in the back of my car. Yup - it's time to rip the headliner down again. I am thinking of cutting a access door in the headliner to use an access point to the drain tubes.

 

By the way my front moon roof has just quite working. (See my other recent post for information related to that problem.)

 

2) The AT transmission quit on my car with 53,000 miles on it. I was lucky that the drivetrain was still under warranty at that time. I was told that if the car had not been under warranty the price at the dealer would have been over $2000. And, the refurbished transmission exhibts all the typical symptons of automatics from these years: it takes too long to go into gear when the transmission is cold. The first couple of up shifts when cold is so sloppy that the transmission is "out of gear" momentarily. You will see this as the RPM's blip up when it shifts. The period of time that this occurs is exaggerated in the winter when it takes around three minutes for this symptom to disappear.

 

3) the automatic transmission in my car, and many others as well, are the worst pieces of crap ever bolted to an engine. It shifts at inappropriate times, stays in gear long after it should have upshifted, and generally speaking is a piece of junk. The general - GM - may not do very many things right but it knows how to make a smooth, durable transmission, as do many other car manufacturers. How this slush box ever got past quality control is beyond me.

 

In short, stay away from Limited editions. All of those models have moon roofs and they are simply not worth the aggrevation. Try and find a standard edition which was ordered with the cold weather package and came with a standard transmission. Or, try something before 1997 or after 2001, and test drive it carefully on hilly roads to see if it exhibits the issues I have described.

 

Steve

It's rare that i say this

 

But i would look for a 1998 or a 2001. That tranny issue is one reason. 99 has the bad spedo head, but that is easily correctable.

 

Be triple sure about the tranny. Do the driving in circle thing. Make sure there is no delay going into gear both hot and cold, even if that means the car has to idle for 20 minutes to wrm up the tranny. The tranny takes 3x's longer to heat up then the engine.

 

nipper

STAY AWAY!!![...]3) the automatic transmission in my car, and many others as well, are the worst pieces of crap ever bolted to an engine. It shifts at inappropriate times, stays in gear long after it should have upshifted, and generally speaking is a piece of junk.[...]

Agreed. My own '99 has one of the "pieces of crap" 4EAT transmissions. Fresh fluid and very careful checking of the ATF level help a bit, but it still isn't "right". The 4EAT can be decent, but apparently not the early phase-2 ones ('99-'00 MY).

 

Of course, the above won't help Sewoolf, who already bought the '99 and is having brake, not trans, issues at the moment.