We bought this car from John Welsh last November to get my cousin through college, and she paid us back over that time. Fast forward, she graduated and moved to Chicago and left the car with her mom who had hopes of getting a popup camper from my dad and towing it with the legacy. Either of their other cars is better suited for that, and she rents a house from me and is behind a tad. Carli says “she wants to know if you want the subaru, it would be good because you want something big enough to pick up parts that isn’t your truck.” Enabling at it’s finest.
$700 off her rent tab and they’re bringing it over this weekend. The tires are the same size as his monte carlo, that needs tires, and they were going to switch them before selling it so I ordered 4 new tires for the subaru and told them to come over with both cars Saturday and I’ll do the tire work. It’s done nothing but drive reliably all year.
oh yeah, it’s hit a deer but supposedly the only damage is front bumper, she thinks it needs brakes(knowing her there is metal on metal, she may as well be my big sister and i know what she knows about cars), and thinks the muffler has a hole in it.
as picked up from John:
It has forester wheels, outback leather seats and door cards, and was clean inside. No idea now, but i did peek at it last month and don’t recall the front bumper damage jumping out at me.
The plan? Parts chaser, keep road salt off the WRX, keep miles off the truck, when i have tiny jobs to do drive legacy instead of truck.
have so far: roof basket, sturdy rack cross bars, new tires coming Thursday. Can’t order brakes until it is here, but rock auto has pad/rotor kit for $35ish for each axle or if just pads will get from advance to be done quickly.
I think the forester wheels look pretty sweet on this gen Scoobie.
I always liked that green color.
it needs the forester suspension added to match the wheels, then you can post it in the "lifted cars" thread
Since you see even more salt there then we do in this part of Ohio I can understand a winter beater.
This brings back memories for me, my first legacy was a 96 brighton wagon in the same colour (lovingly known to all as "Hot Carl"). Just like all of the others here of that generation it rusted into the ground 5 years ago. Great car and the EJ22 in it seemed indestructible.
Adam
Im curious to see updated pictures and a report on it's condition. It was in surprisingly good shape when I bought it site unseen from the IAA auction. In general, I could tell that someone cared and took care of the car. I checked but I never made a copy of the original title that would have had the previous owner's name on it.
In other news, your Mom's former '00 Impala is still roaming the streets of Columbus in the hands of my neice's boyfriend. I heard it recently needed a battery. It is still missing much of the front bumper and passenger fender since he ran it off the road in the winter. Probably still looks much the same.
From the way it sits and posts on the subie forum, it appears it’s lifted already with outback strut assemblies. Comparing pictures of stock legacy versus guys that used outback bits, it’s on par with the latter. It would make sense since maybe the seats and struts came from the same car.
This upcoming week, I have my eye on this auction. 2004 Outback wagon w/68k miles and a light rear bumper hit.
Edit: yeah, if I get this I would flip it. I have no real personal need for it.
I've seen similar damage before.
In reply to John Welsh :
If you end up with that and don't plan on keeping it let me know. My brother is looking for something exactly like that to replace his Element that got totalled.
Home. 20 miles with no brakes. She let the back go so far that the right outboard pad is GONE and 1/4” of the caliper is ground away. Needless to say the piston popped out.
Runs awesome, trans great, heat hot, radio works, it’s nowhere near as clean as it was when we got it from John. 2 rust spots need addressed. Rear hatch handle dead
Do all legacy wagons have the “bigger” front brakes? This has rear disc and rock auto is showing 2 different fronts.
Engine light on, exhaust leak, but her plates are good until August so i’m not switching it to my name until I get the engine light solved for emissions test.
Orders of business:
brakes
tires(paint wheels while dismounted)
exhaust leak
engine light
scrub inside
cosmetic/utility work(roof basket, touch up rust, rock guard from moulding down, lighting, hitch, big mudflaps)
Lindbergh is famous for thinking that if you bought a good enough engine, you only needed the one to cross the atlantic.
then again, afaik, the Spirit never saw 20 years of snow and salt
for your sake, I'm glad you had three extra brakes today
Three extra brakes would be ok if there wasn’t air in the whole system. I’m undecided whether I should keep this one or fix it safe and move it along. There was barely enough brakes to hold it from rolling on level ground, i downshifted to stop
I was reading you list of tasks and came across "paint wheels" and first thought, "those steel wheels were in great shape...I'm not sure I would bother with painting them." Then in you next posting you give a close-up of the brake/wheel and BOY have they rusted in just one year. Then, I also remembered, this car went to Euclid/Lake County for a years. I once bought an Impala that was from Lake County (major snow belt) and I hated that car so much because it had SOOO much rust.
As for the rear hatch handle being dead. I had these 2 green Subarus at the same time so I don't remember which one had the hatch handle issue but here's what's up. There is a return spring at the handle that gets rusty and combined with the hinge gets road-grimmy. Due to this the spring no longer is strong enough to return the handle making the handle seem dead.
From outside, try to clean and lubricate the handle but the real answer is take off the hatch interior trim. With that trim removed you can completely access the inside of the handle for more cleaning/spraying/lubricating.
Looks like you got the crappy, wrinkled, purpled tint off the windows. Nice.
Brakes should be easy and that 2.2L will run for a long time. Not quick, mated to an auto but pretty darn reliable. The 2.2L was the main reason I bought the car site-unseen. They're a pretty good bet, unlike the 2.4L which is prone to HG issues.
Don’t feel bad, I did a brake job on a 2010 WRX for a friend and one of his rear calipers was berkeleyed in exactly the same way.
New tires, rotors and pads are all here. Going to order the caliper off rock auto then shoot to do the brakes and tires after Christmas. Doubtful that i will try and do any exhaust work and will deal with the CEL by reading the codes and if it’s simple i will fix and clear and drive to emissions test.
I’m going to sell it after this, and would take what i have in it (1100 with the new parts) from a grmer. I thought i was going to be all cool and put my roof basket on it and whatnot, but in reality the money from this will buy me some chevelle parts
