I just bought a car
A few years ago my wife and I bought a 2000 Subaru Legacy GT. It’s been a great car until last month. It kept over-heating so we replaced the radiator, the thermostat, and various hoses. $1,000 later we thought we were in the clear.
The car ran smoothly for about a week and then it over-heated again. We took it back to the mechanic that made the repairs. He kept the vehicle for a week and ran a lot of tests (usually a bad sign that you’re going to get a really large bill in the future).
After a gazillion pressure tests the mechanic determined that the head gasket needed to be replaced. Cost: $2,000. Groan. Most people start looking for a new car when they received that kind of news but where can you get a decent car for $2,000 these days? And we just spent $1,000 on this dying Legacy. We caved and okayed the repairs.
The mecahnic also found a cracked timing belt, damaged water pump and another $700 in repairs that we didn’t count on. After hearing this news my stomach began to ache and I quickly developed a headache.
So in the month of February we spent around $4,000 on fixing our Subaru Legacy GT which to me, is like buying a new car. The kicker is that there still a lot of little things wrong with the car.
Most of the dashboard lights are out so we never know how much gas is in the tank or how fast we’re driving. The RPM gauge is lit up which is really helpful when you’re driving a vehicle with automatic transmisison. The engine light works and stays lit whenever you start the car — something about a vapour sensor that we can ignore. There are also 3 other LED lights that are burned out (heated seat indicator, side mirror defrost, side window defrost).
I used to think that Subaru made decent vehicles. Now I think that their vehicles are crap. I’ll never purchase another.
I’ve done fewer repairs to my 20-year-old Mustang GT Cobra (which is hard to believe) and it runs perfectly. After 20 years the dashboard lights always turn on and all of the LED indicators work perfectly. The original radiator lasted 15 years and I’ve only had to do minor repairs to the vehicle — headlight switch, power window switch, belts, etc.
I should have dumped the Subaru Legacy GT and put the $4,000 into my Mustang for some new performance parts.
In the next few years we’ll have to replace the Subaru and I’d love to hear what people recommend as their favourite vehicle.
Stumble It!Posted in Observations at 4:33 PM
Comments
We’ve been happy with our Hondas.
Posted by: Paul on March 3, 2008 6:11 PM
We bought a Honda CRV and we love it. Great customer service and performance.
You love spending money on old cars - so you should be overjoyed. Bad car investments are your trademark!
Yes Flippy – I’m that funny.
Posted by: Andrew on March 4, 2008 10:28 PM
bummer! that’s a lot to spend on a subaru. you would have been better off selling the legacy the first time it showed declining health. pretty soon, you might be changing its auto body parts.good luck on that.
Posted by: Neon on March 6, 2008 3:37 AM
Jay.
I eat Dodges and #$%t Fords! Have you not learned anything yet! Be a Bow Tie fan and you’ll have no problems.
Did you not know that Subaru’s use left over Kia parts they find to build their cars. The only “legacy” you’ll have is the amount of money you’ll be spending on your Legacy. Buy a new Malibu it just won car of the year!
JB
Posted by: JB on March 7, 2008 9:09 AM
Step 1. Go to the library.
Step 2. Pickup a copy of Phil Edmonston’s Lemonaid book (for either New or Used cars)
Step 3. Read thru the book(s) and narrow down your search. Decide on what is important - price, safety, durability etc.
After exhaustive review we narrowed down to Hyundai Santa Fe, Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4 and then the Honda/Toyota minivans.
The minivans were too much; Honda was a giant nickel and dimer. In the end the RAV4 V6 would have been $4K more than the Santa Fe V6 and we chose that Santa Fe 7 seater AWD. So far we had one factory defect and one small switch failure since picking it up in July. A 5 year warranty; top awards in safety and many other awards (CSR ranked it again in the top 10) plus it was highly recommended in the Lemonaid book, are reasons we chose the CUV. The base of it is the Sonata.
I thought the AWD would have been useless but it has been a pleasure to drive in the snow with no fishtailing. We didn’t want leather and wife wanted 7 seater (the seats are down at the back until required) so to get the 7 seater it came with AWD. Though the 18” wheels are a tad expensive - this fall I will get 16” snow tires to keep the alloys in great condition.
The biggest negative has been from day - no MP3 input. Hyundai is SLOW in adopting any MP3 audio inputs. This year the bottom end Elantra finally got an input. A lot of other cars have it already. But with all the other pluses, I had to ignore this omission.
Been a great car so far. One thing that the Lemonaid book pointed out was rear view visibility. I can see perfectly through any window including a nice sized back window without any obstructions. Pay attention to that.
As far as YOUR woes my friend - you spent $XXX to get the POS going again. Don’t wait for the next day. Start reviewing/researching/test driving today - you can then decide on getting a used car, 2008 or a brand new 2009. (We would have looked at used except all these cars we wanted had a low depreciation decline - hence there was no value to buy used, to us).
Good luck Jay!
jeff
Posted by: bellyman 
on March 13, 2008 8:11 PM
