Looking for a new (to me) car. Asking about personal experiances

[mmc45414]

Yes that's what I have now. 4th Gen. Clean too. Runs great, no leaks, no rattling, no nothing 165k. Unfortunately rear left strut mount is seriously rusty and that's not fixable.

Given the chassis and frame repairs I've seen, I absolutely promise your strut mount is fixable.

SafeTcap it]

Several of these jobs have involved welding the SafeTCap or custom repair panels on Toyotas...they're all still going strong.

Honestly wish you luck, but I had to really readjust my thinking about cars and prices. It's still hard to get my head around the change.

Just another piece of unsolicited thread drift commentary from the peanut gallery:
As others mentioned, probably can be fixed, and IMO the financial scope of what is reasonable to pull off a repair to a vehicle that you are otherwise quite happy with is probably higher than we are accustomed to thinking. Spending thousands of dollars on an old car seems unnatural, but the reality is the replacements all cost tens of thousands of dollars.
I am contemplating this with my F-150. It will be ten years old later this year, but still only has ~125k on it. It still looks great, and it is set up exactly how we want one, and we need a tow vehicle for the boat that weighs ~7k. But it is doing the startup phaser rattle and at some point the turbos will start leaking coolant, but I am conditioning my brain to accept that I can spend thousands on refreshing things if I need to. Hell, sales tax alone on a new one would be almost $5k.
We recently faced the same thing with my mother's 18yo Mini that needed an expensive repair (transmission valve body, ~$3500), but is otherwise in perfect shape and she loves it. The shop doing the work even suggested it was not worth fixing and my quick response was just WTF am I going to be able to buy her for $3500?!?!? If we get a new car it would depreciate more than that in the timespan she has left to use it, in reality it needs to last another 5-10k miles.

And, especially if you live in a larger urban, affluent, area you might need to go out of town to find the right shop to deal with it. Dunno where you live, but that Safe-T-Cap place is in RI, might be worth a round trip ticket back home, and go retrieve it in a few weeks.

Anyway, just sharing some of my own brainstorming, since my thinking has shifted since replacement costs are so high, there are no good deals it seems.

[Borderland]

Just another piece of unsolicited thread drift commentary from the peanut gallery:
As others mentioned, probably can be fixed, and IMO the financial scope of what is reasonable to pull off a repair to a vehicle that you are otherwise quite happy with is probably higher than we are accustomed to thinking. Spending thousands of dollars on an old car seems unnatural, but the reality is the replacements all cost tens of thousands of dollars.
I am contemplating this with my F-150. It will be ten years old later this year, but still only has ~125k on it. It still looks great, and it is set up exactly how we want one, and we need a tow vehicle for the boat that weighs ~7k. But it is doing the startup phaser rattle and at some point the turbos will start leaking coolant, but I am conditioning my brain to accept that I can spend thousands on refreshing things if I need to. Hell, sales tax alone on a new one would be almost $5k.
We recently faced the same thing with my mother's 18yo Mini that needed an expensive repair (transmission valve body, ~$3500), but is otherwise in perfect shape and she loves it. The shop doing the work even suggested it was not worth fixing and my quick response was just WTF am I going to be able to buy her for $3500?!?!? If we get a new car it would depreciate more than that in the timespan she has left to use it, in reality it needs to last another 5-10k miles.

And, especially if you live in a larger urban, affluent, area you might need to go out of town to find the right shop to deal with it. Dunno where you live, but that Safe-T-Cap place is in RI, might be worth a round trip ticket back home, and go retrieve it in a few weeks.

Anyway, just sharing some of my own brainstorming, since my thinking has shifted since replacement costs are so high, there are no good deals it seems.

Hell, sales tax alone on a new one would be almost $5k.

WA has 8% sales tax. I had a verbal deal going on a new Tundra with a trade. Dealer backed out on the trade so I backed out on buying it. The difference was paying the state $800 in tax or $4K in tax without a trade. WA law is tax is only paid on the difference with a trade. I'm sure the legislature is considering changing that law. They would have more revenue if they taxed the new vehicle for the full amount. New car dealers don't seem to want the trades anyway.

[LittleLebowski]

The 3.8 GM v6 has had some issues. Pass.

[4RNR]

I'm a big subaru fanboi. Between my SO and I, I've owned a 2005 WRX STi, 2002 Outback H6, 2009 Outback H4, 2013 Outback H4, and a 2019 Outback H4. The legendary performance of their AWD is legit; I'll leave it up to @JRB to explain the mechanical differences, but in my experience they simply work better than other AWD systems which are kinda sorta AWD, but really just FWD. With that said, it definitely comes at a cost. Like @Welder, my Subies ate wheel bearings. They would usually get noisy at 80k miles, and start breaking at 120-150k miles. I also totally beat the shit out of that 2002 Outback H6, which is the car I had the most repairs with. I drove it around overloaded on numerous 2,500-3,000 mile road trips with lots of dirt road use. When I got rid of it for the 2013 Outback, it had somewhere well north of 200k miles with 5 wheel bearing replacements, 1 alternator and alternator mount replacement, and a broken wheel.

Unless you, 1) Simply just like their cars, 2) have an actual need for good AWD systems with mud or snow performance, then I would recommend skipping the Subaru when looking at a new vehicle simply due to the increased cost of ownership. It used to be that if you wanted a safe car, your options were Volvo and Subaru, so it made more sense 15-20+ years ago even if #1 and #2 didn't apply. But, that's no longer a good reason to buy a Subaru either, since almost everyone is making very safe cars these days.

My ex still has her 2019 Outback H4, I haven't kept up on it since we split. My current SO and I share a 2021 Toyota Venza, which is the Glock 19 of middle-class suburban white-peepo vehicles. It's simply fantastic for suburbanite use, but I would never dream of taking it through anything I did with the Subies.

Ideally, I'd like one of the old wagons from the 90s to just smash into shopping carts in vacant parking lots during snowstorms; that's a happy Subaru of their best generation in its natural environment. Otherwise I probably won't get another Subaru given the competition.

Note about CVTs: The Subaru CVT does not have any outstanding problems; the Subaru CVT is actually the most mature system around. They're not new, rather the American market is new to CVTs. Subaru has been building CVTs longer than the average age of this forum's members. The issue is that when the CVT goes bad, you typically have to replace the entire CVT which is a big expense if the vehicle isn't warrantied. They're not problematic, though. Lastly, if you're looking to use any of the offroad driving techniques such as brake-throttle modulation or pre-loading torque....then yeah, you'll absolutely trash a CVT. They'll be very unhappy and simply aren't built for it.

Thanks

I was looking at the Crosstrek, even before this. Not actively, but keeping an eye out if something were to suddenly pop up that was too good to pass up. This is how I wound up with my 4Runner. I know the basic difference between the Subies AWD and other AWD, which is why I was keeping an eye out for one.

Did they stop using the boxer engine? Never heard about the wheel bearrings but did about the valve gasket? I think thats what it was. Needed to be changed out every 100k miles. At least the bearings dont seem expensive and 80 - 150k miles is quite a while

[TGS]

Did they stop using the boxer engine? Never heard about the wheel bearrings but did about the valve gasket? I think thats what it was. Needed to be changed out every 100k miles.

If you want to change it, that is. There's really no reason you have to. You could just be like a ton of other Subaru owners who just add oil throughout the year instead of paying a shyster hackjob mechanic/technician to replace the gasket. They'll almost never do it correctly, which requires removing the engine from the car to resurface the metal in order to get a good seal. That's a shit-ton more work than leaving the engine in the car and getting paid the same regardless. So, it'll just start consuming oil again in short order. That's exactly what happened with our 2009, which my ex didn't want to deal with adding oil.

Boxers will naturally consume oil, even if incidentally. When I had a new Porsche, I was doing something inside my garage and had the car parked in my driveway spot which is inclined. In that spot, it would sit at just the right angle that it would collect a small amount of oil in the cylinders and shoot out a quick ploom of smoke on startup. First time was concerning, but reading the Porsche forums revealed it's just something they do sometimes when parked at just the right angle/orientation....whereas with another engine type like a V or inline, that'd obviously be a major cause for concern.

AFAIK Subaru is still using boxer engines. H=Horizontally Opposed=Boxer. So a 4 cylinder boxer is generally referred to as an H4, instead of a V4 or I4.

[Navin Johnson]

Hell, sales tax alone on a new one would be almost $5k.

WA has 8% sales tax. I had a verbal deal going on a new Tundra with a trade. Dealer backed out on the trade so I backed out on buying it. The difference was paying the state $800 in tax or $4K in tax without a trade. WA law is tax is only paid on the difference with a trade. I'm sure the legislature is considering changing that law. They would have more revenue if they taxed the new vehicle for the full amount. New car dealers don't seem to want the trades anyway.

I work in the car business in Western Washington

There is an extreme shortage of trade-ins, especially with the high interest rates right now. No one is buying new.

There was something about your car that made it undesirable, any vehicle that can be resold is highly sought after, unless you wanted more than they were willing to pay. If that was the case you should’ve shopped around, it’s the nature of the beast.

[Dov]

4RNR,

This is in no way answering your question, but if you post some pictures of the rust on your current 4R, I or others can tell you if it's actually repairable or not. I am an auto mechanic, and before that I was an industrial welder/fabricator. I have had many new customers come in my shop with stories of "my old mechanic said this can't be fixed" when in reality, their old mechanic did not have the skills, tools, or desire to get the job done. Several of these jobs have involved welding the SafeTCap or custom repair panels on Toyotas...they're all still going strong.

Please feel free to start a new thread about that general type of repair, I for one would be very interested.

[UNK]

I'm perfectly happy with the car, just not the frame rot where the strut is.

Never bought a new car and have never spent more than $12k. Also, have never been disappointed. Typically drove them till it was cheaper to get a new one or till something awesome came along suddenly.

I'm looking mostly at older cars that have been taken care of. Not one with aftermarket upgrades. Most of the stuff I'm looking at is say 1995 - 2010 +/- a few years

Can a body shop box that section in? Plate steel welded around the frame.

[Borderland]

I work in the car business in Western Washington

There is an extreme shortage of trade-ins, especially with the high interest rates right now. No one is buying new.

There was something about your car that made it undesirable, any vehicle that can be resold is highly sought after, unless you wanted more than they were willing to pay. If that was the case you should’ve shopped around, it’s the nature of the beast.

Hmmm. 3 yo low mileage 4Runner for a trade. Asking low blue book. They offered 4K below book. Shopping around wasn't an option. There were no more being built. Last of the old Tundras before the radical redesign. I waited 2 months for the truck with a 1K deposit. They even jacked the price 2K on me which was OK with me.

Not sure why the dealer didn't want the trade. I guess he sold his new truck without a trade. This particular dealer has very few used vehicles. The market around here seems to be used car dealers getting top dollar for clean low mileage vehicles. I guess everyone knows the new car dealer is going to jack you on a used vehicle. Overhead or something.

[JRB]

If you want to change it, that is. There's really no reason you have to. You could just be like a ton of other Subaru owners who just add oil throughout the year instead of paying a shyster hackjob mechanic/technician to replace the gasket. They'll almost never do it correctly, which requires removing the engine from the car to resurface the metal in order to get a good seal. That's a shit-ton more work than leaving the engine in the car and getting paid the same regardless. So, it'll just start consuming oil again in short order. That's exactly what happened with our 2009, which my ex didn't want to deal with adding oil.

Boxers will naturally consume oil, even if incidentally. When I had a new Porsche, I was doing something inside my garage and had the car parked in my driveway spot which is inclined. In that spot, it would sit at just the right angle that it would collect a small amount of oil in the cylinders and shoot out a quick ploom of smoke on startup. First time was concerning, but reading the Porsche forums revealed it's just something they do sometimes when parked at just the right angle/orientation....whereas with another engine type like a V or inline, that'd obviously be a major cause for concern.

AFAIK Subaru is still using boxer engines. H=Horizontally Opposed=Boxer. So a 4 cylinder boxer is generally referred to as an H4, instead of a V4 or I4.

You're talking about the headgaskets - on most vehicles, but especially Subarus, that's an engine-out job to do correctly.

The valve cover gaskets are very simple and do not need to be engine-out to get it done right, it's just a bit tricky. Downside is that oil leakage can occur from either the headgaskets or valve cover gaskets, so it's quite common for valve cover gaskets to start seeping, get repaired, only to have oil leaking out of the headgaskets next.
If left unchecked, the oil leak from the headgaskets will eventually include coolant and compression loss from headgasket failure, and if that's pushed at all, there's a good chance the water contamination in the oil will take out rod bearings... or you'll get the 'subie triple play' and after paying for an expensive engine-out headgasket job, you'll change the oil once or twice and a rod bearing will spin while you're merging onto the freeway. With any of the turbocharged EJ Subaru engines I've long espoused 'if it needs headgaskets, just rebuild the whole longblock' as a buy-once-cry-once sort of solution.
Then again, back in my speed shop days, we kept a shelf-stock built 2.5L STi longblock with Manley rods and pistons so we could have a 'fixed in three days' option for all the various WRX's and STi's that came in needing a fresh engine. I've done a LOT of Subarus. Which is bad because things like rod-knocking STi's show up on FB marketplace and I think about fixing & flipping it, and I do NOT need any more car projects!



Rudely getting back on-topic - the car market is in a weird space right now where spending a few grand fixing an otherwise known solid vehicle is a better choice than it ever has been.

I agree with @SS90 in that too many shops that say 'it cant be fixed' really should be honest and say 'we can't fix it at all' or 'we can't fix it and make any money'.

I'm pretty convinced that you can find a decent off-road 4x4 shop that does suspension lifts and chassis fabrication, and they can install whatever frame reinforcements etc you need or re-fabricate whatever part of your truck is failing. It'll probably be a four-digit bill, but it'll never fail again. Might be cost effective to drop some fresh Bilsteins in there while you're at it, too.