“Ruby Roo” -AR15xAR10’s Lady’s 2016 Subaru Crosstrek Premium -Build Thread

We sold ours for $1000 less than what be bought it for new in 2016, with 100k on the clock last May. We’re a single MT family now.

 

Ruby just got paid off! So she’ll likely be around a while yet

 

Alright, its been a while, this is going to be a long winded post/couple of posts. Here we go.


We have had an issue with the rear brakes on this car almost since we got it. I swapped out the original rusty brakes for centric coated rotors and ceramic pads around 24k i believe. One of the inboard rear pads jammed up in the slider and decinigrated itself against the back of the rotor. Replaced the pads with duralast gold pads. Same thing happened again, but i caught it before it ruined the pads. Lots of rust, holy fucking rust bucket, subaru PLEASE FUCKING COAT YOUR GODDAMN CARS WITH SOME KIND OF FUCKING ENAMEL PAINT YOU CHEAP FUCKS. UNCOATED MILD STEEL IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Anyway, Alec kept complaining of a brake “noise” that would come and go in the passenger side rear. It would rain or snow overnight and then the car would make the grinding noise for a couple days. This continued on inconsistently all year. UNTIL I FOUND THE PROBLEM just shy of 51,000 miles.

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2020/MC-10185064-0001.pdf

Subaru put out a TSB for all crosstrek/outback/foresters from 2013-2019 for the REAR brake dust shields rotting and warping to cause contact with the back of the rotor, which creates enough friction to overheat the knuckle and bearing/hub assembly. Should have been a recall, fuck you Subaru.

this is what that looks like:



Ruby did that on BOTH sides but it was WAAAAAAAAAAY worse on the passenger side. So I tore the car down and found that both rear wheel bearings were compromised. ZERO lateral play, but they both had clicking/dead spots in the rotation from the grease being superheated and cooked out of them, lovely. Ordered NTN/Timken hub assemblies from rock auto, new rotors/pads from autozone, and went to the subaru dealership to get the CORRECT UPDATED PART NUMBER dust shields. To which, the parts guy told me they do this TSB literally ALL THE TIME. Great.

So I thought I was good to go, got all my parts and i’m just gonna R&R, right? Wrong.

Tried for three hours to get the passenger side (the worst side) hub assembly out of the knuckle. Ended up removing the knuckle, putting it in a 20Ton press, when that failed, I laid the assembly on the blacktop, super heated it, flash cooled it, and beat it with a 5lb sledge for another ten to fifteen minutes. By the time i was done, the knuckle and hub union was broken and the pressed bushings in the knuckle had started to show signs of having been melted a little. Additionally, the mating surface for the bearings had so much rust/rot, that the new assemblies would not go in straight and true. So now that knuckle is fucked and the car was bricked. I’m about $640 in at this point.








Back to the dealership, tried to order knuckles, they didnt have them, so i got the part numbers and ordered them myself. A week later, which was last night, we tried again with all new everything (knuckle, hub, rotor, pads). With zero difficulty, the passenger side fell back together. Fortunately the ball joints, bushings and toe arms were all still in great shape everywhere and even the fuckin speed/abs sensors NEVER MELTED, which is insane to me still. The driver’s side fought when coming apart, the upper control arm ball joint froze inside the knuckle and took a lot of persuasion to unmarry itself from the old knuckle we were trying to eliminate. Finally got it all. From 4pm, to 9pm, we got it all done. Over $955 later, we have the car back. First and ONLY MAJOR failure we have had with this car and I almost just traded the fuckin thing in on a Rav4 adventure. I’m still pissed.

 

We were torn between a RAV4 and a Model Y. Came down to taking a test drive and it was over. No brainer.

Just crossed over 20k with the MY that replaced her Crosstrek.

 

Nooooooooo

 

We have too much in common, man

We were cross shopping 5th gen 4Runners and GX460s for the wife to replace her 2006 4Runner this upcoming year and she decided she missed two things: a real transmission and a smaller vehicle.

Whelp, test driving a 2018 Crosstrek Premium 6 speed this week haha. Not the color she wants, but perhaps just to see if she decides for sure it’ll be her next car so we can start our picky shopping process.

Don’t even want to know what else you’re into, I’m going to start thinking we’re twins!

 

Guns, motorcycles, cameras, import cars, rally racing, drifting, construction, home improvement, woodworking….am I striking any cords?

we test drove a 13 and i hated it, she loved it. So i did about 3-4 months worth of research to settle on the exact one i wanted (what we have but with the manual) and i absolutely could NOT talk her into the manual trans. Its the one thing i wish her car had. We wanted red, tan interior, premium, no sunroof and no eyesight. She got what she wanted

what happened to the 06?! 4th gen best gen!! I miss mine every day. I cant decide whether i miss the 4th gen or the 3rd gen more. They both had so much charm. Every time i see my old 3rd gen out somewhere I shed a small tear. The dude that bought it intends to literally let the body fall completely off of it and run it until it dies

 

3rd Gen had all the charm and off road chops. We lived in it for 10-30 days at a time many times! She still likes her 4th Gen it’s just starting to stack up and honestly 99% of the wanting to upgrade this year is we both really miss our little manual pickup a lot. We both enjoy a manual for a daily. Unfortunately Tundras don’t have that option or I’d have one. Hence her having a little rally car we can throw around. Absolutely love the V8/AWD combo of the 06 though. If it takes us 6 months or 6 years to find whatever is next we don’t really need to rush ha. I stopped looking at Subarus when all the eyesight and beeping came out. Same with newer 4Runners/etc. can’t do it, personally. No hate to anyone who can.

 

For me, its all the stupid shit like push button start that they force upon people that I cant stand. Let me have the vehicle the way i want to or dont call it a “special order” anymore.

I did not realize you had a full time 4wd v8 in the 4th gen. My mother had an 04, 4.0 sr5 4wd that i did all my driver’s ed driving in forever ago. I loved it, its part of why I love the truck i have. 4.0 has plenty of pep, i have a gear driven detroit trutrac limited slip rear, no traction control, no extra nannies and air bags or complicated electronics. Would I love to have a brand new tundra? Sure. But i dont want to pay a house payment for it or have to settle on features i dont want

 

2016-2017 was the last year year of the Tundra for me! About 2013-2019 for the 4Runner, and obviously 12-15 for the Taco. After that, as far as I’m interested in, I’ll have to keep buying older and older used Toyotas or walk. Haha

If the Taco had the manual in the DCLB variant and hadn’t skyrocketed in price I’d have never left but I got my first Tundra for 5 grand when Tacos were all 25-35+ so it was a no brainer for us. This 2016 was 20k but still better than anything else I could find and actually had a real long box like our silverados.

Anyway, hope to see y’all out on the trails someday. Don’t know if we’ll find one but perhaps in a white premium Crosstrek at that! We shall see!