New old car musings.

[thewalrus]

Pulled the trigger on the 07 Impreza Wagon. Picking it up Monday. It was cheap and just had the timing belt/water pump done.

Awesome. Good choice. We're thinking we might need a second all season car, now, too. So I've been browsing a bit. I think if we buy something else, it'll have to be a wagon. And I'm pretty sure it'll either be a VW or a Subaru. Maybe a Volvo if I can find a decent one. I've poked around some BMW and Audi wagons too, but maintenance costs and initial purchase price scare me off a bit.

[Swerve]

Congrats Ry. Is that the Hawkeye model? If so it is prpbably the nicest Impreza to look at overall, taking into account the interior and exterior.

[ryguy79]

Congrats Ry. Is that the Hawkeye model? If so it is prpbably the nicest Impreza to look at overall, taking into account the interior and exterior.

Yep. My favorite as well. Red Pearl, which is not my favorite, but its what I could find.

[ryguy79]

Pulled the trigger on the 07 Impreza Wagon. Picking it up Monday. It was cheap and just had the timing belt/water pump done.

Awesome. Good choice. We're thinking we might need a second all season car, now, too. So I've been browsing a bit. I think if we buy something else, it'll have to be a wagon. And I'm pretty sure it'll either be a VW or a Subaru. Maybe a Volvo if I can find a decent one. I've poked around some BMW and Audi wagons too, but maintenance costs and initial purchase price scare me off a bit.

I didn't drive any, but read a lot about Audi A4 wagons. Potential maintenance costs were what steered me away. Too bad, because there was an S4 wagon, the 340hp V8 years, for sale that would have been sweet, until I read stuff about $8grand timing chain services and the like.

Wife and I decided once the kids are in both in school it'll be much easier for me to have an additional 'fun' car, since what we pay for child care could probably buy a Porsche.

[ryguy79]

And I'm just glad we didn't have to dump money into the forester, because it was going to need head gaskets, timing belt, and water pump very soon. And this one doesn't have leaky gaskets and the timing belt/water pump was just done.

[ryguy79]

Fun enough, and will probably be much less likely to get me pulled over. Happy with my decision.

[Arthur Dent]

Looks quite nice. Not a colour often seen on a Subaru. Most seem to be silver here.

[thewalrus]

Fun enough, and will probably be much less likely to get me pulled over. Happy with my decision.

Nice. Great looking car. About as close to a modern Wally-Wagon as you can get now, I think. AWD, stick shift, red, Japanese.

[ryguy79]

Yeah. I like it. I'm going to do some small things to it right off the bat. Have a used WRX rear sway bar and a set of cross bars for kayaks in transit. Going to install a hitch for my bike rack next weekend. After that some better pads and maybe rotors. What's on there is perfectly serviceable, but good pads make such a difference. After that maybe a slightly louder exhaust. Nothing ricer/fartcan, but just to make it a bit more audible. I don't ever expect power gains from what I've read and that's fine, would have ponied up the $ for a WRX if that was as important to me as I thought it was earlier, but a little noise is fun, as is better handling and braking.

[ryguy79]

Also, after the FJ and two weeks driving Ginger's Forester, this thing feels low!

[Arthur Dent]

Also, after the FJ and two weeks driving Ginger's Forester, this thing feels low!

For a while we owned a lifted Ford Expedition and a Triumph Spitfire. The different in height was ... dramatic.

[thewalrus]

Also, after the FJ and two weeks driving Ginger's Forester, this thing feels low!

For a while we owned a lifted Ford Expedition and a Triumph Spitfire. The different in height was ... dramatic.

I assume you just parked the Triumph under the Ford?

[Talon]

How many miles?

I just did the front rotors and pads on mine a few weeks ago and am going to do the rears tomorrow. This is the second set of rear pads it's gone through (figured I'd just do new rotors while I'm at it) and mine's only at ~51k. Odd...

[ryguy79]

Just over 100k. Wasn't too worried with the service history and it was cheap. I rarely seem to keep cars very long so why worry about mileage unless its ridiculous?

Definitely need to do some brake upgrades. The roads to where I went mountain biking this morning are awesome and I cooked them pretty good coming down one of the mountains. But I was getting up to 70+mph in a twisty 30mph zone and working the brakes pretty hard.

[ryguy79]

WRX rear sway bar showed up today, hope to make some time to install it this weekend.

[ryguy79]

I stuck the gopro chest mount over the seat just to get it out of the way and not scratched when I was tossing helmet/shoes/camelback etc in the car and realized 'hey, this might work!'

Close but not quite. The elastic straps let it jiggle enough that all the audio is it jiggling against the seat and its too low to see the road. But might have to make something that attaches to the headrest bars and moves it between the front seats a bit.

https://youtu.be/4NlZQti3N3k

[ryguy79]

Painted the WRX bar with some rustoleum that was already in the garage. RICE! Of course it the got scratched up wiggling it into place. The difference was very noticeable during hard cornering. Overall grip seems improved, less roll, less tendency to understeer.

[ryguy79]

Next up brakes, then finding a used STi axle back exhaust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJBtVFYI76U

[Talon]

The guys at Pure Tuning (they've done the tunings on my Eclipse, Evo, and RSX), who have extensive time with Subarus told me an STi exhaust and a tune will net very nice gains out of the n/a 2.5. You can probably find used STi exhausts for next to nothing.

I did the rear rotors and pads on mine on Saturday. Was surprised how easy it went. I hit the bolts holding the caliper brackets with Liquid Wrench and let it sit for a little bit. Everything came out easy... was done in less than 90 mins including clean up and bedding. Much easier than the fronts.

Is yours like mine where the 2.5 shakes the whole car at 4.5k+?

[ryguy79]

I wouldn't say it shakes, but there's a fair bit of vibration above 4k.