Thoughts on Subaru Foresters

And then some. Any doubts I ever had about capability were nullified once I started following him.

 

My wife's daily driver Volvo S80 has been a great car and all but I'm really worried that she'll get stuck somewhere between home and work. We both love the car but breaking up might be hard to do.

We dodged a bullet though. In 2001 Volvo unveild a new model and it was a nightmare. We didn't know it at the time. Luckily we bought a 2004 when it came out at the end of 2003 and had none of the problems the 2001 had.

It was the second car we bought brand new and it was when the economy was great and we were flush financially.

I told her today when the "urgent transmission check" message came on that we need to probably start looking for something else.

I'll end up taking it to the dealership to have them check it over. I anticipate bad news...like it will need a $7000 transmission. Hopefully it will be minor and we'll pass it on to another owner in descent working order. Or I'll turn it into a drift car.

The real problem with Volvo is that it is extremely difficult to find a mechanic outside of the dealerships.

Are Subaru's hard to find mechanics for?

 

Hmm, I was speaking of the Outback/Forester FB series 2.5 liter engine, not the FA Series WRX engines.

FB series suffered oil leaks at the head gasket and valve cover gasket, an inherent flaw being a flat engine as the oil settle on the gasket and deteriorates them more rapidly. After 2013, the added a lip on the lower half so the oil won't settle there and drips away. Gasket failures has greatly minimized.

 

I drove a forester for 5 years before my Tacoma and loved it. It was an older one and at the end the head gasket was having some issues. But they've corrected all of those issues with the newer ones. At least I believe! Great car though! Put a lot of miles on it, drove it terrible snow, through the mountains, loved it.

 

I had a 2007 XC90 V8 Sport. Beside the massive depreciation, there were things that broke on that car I couldn't fix without some very expensive tooling.

 

Ah, okay. I'm talking about the shared engine design of the FA20DIT between the XT and WRX. There are some differences in internals, but it's largely the same overall.

 

Is it easy to find mechanics to work on Subaru's?

 

Good question.
As I see it, that depends on what part of the country you are in?
There isn't a Subaru dealership on every corner.
That being said, there may be a mechanic somewhere that's fluent in them.

 

I never had an issue and we rarely took mine to a dealership

 

Where are you located? I have some die hard subaru fan boys i can reach out to. But over subarua are fairly nice when it comes to working on them. A lot of stuff within reason can be done with a YouTube video by someone who knows how to turn a wrench.

 

I could see that perhaps a generalist mechanic might not see too many of them. They tend to run the other direction with Volvo's because import European. That's been a problem, then again it hasn't needed much work.

 

I'm in VA 30 miles south of DC. We plan on bugging out in the next year or two to move to the Texas/Oklahoma area

 

My wife has a 2013 Forester and she absolutely loves it. When it's time to replace it, we'll get another one.

 

For slightly more could I suggest the new civic? Got one for my gf. EX-Turbo and it's fun to drive and a great car

 

It's hard to find a good mechanic period, I think. I just put 1300 in my wife's Nissan frontier v6 xe dcsb mt 2wd
Head gaskets leaking that got a new kit
Timing belt kit/with water pump
And the god dam knock sensor located deep in the bowels under the engine.
Been a good truck. Bought it used in 06, done nothing to it except oil, tires and brakes

 

No shit!? Used to live in mount vernon with my parents as a kid. Grandparents still live in alexandria. Hollin Hall is a great shop, my grandparents take their forrester there and my parents took their outback there before they moved to PA.

 

All Hondas I have known, at least 90 and above have all had transmisson issues at around 100,000 miles. I owned 2 crx'a and my brother ownedid a prelude. Sis owned a pilot, and a the minivan all had transmissiona go out. Mt and autos

 

So you can change your screen name to Tornado Tonka

 

Sister had a transmission burn up in her honda last year, purchased new, driven for 66,000 like a grandma and boom. Done

 

See, I wasn't making shit up. Lol