Legacy

Hello Everyone,

I've been a Honda enthusiast for the past 10 years. I haven't been happy that the Accord is now larger than some SUVs and the Civic which would be my ideal size is too ugly with the two tiered dash to try to like it. Yesterday I was at the autoshow and jumped into a Legacy. I was really impressed by the design inside and out. Since I've never owned a Subaru in the past, can anyone comment on how easy it is to work on? I have repaired everything on my Honda/Acuras with the exception of the timing belt so I need a car that I can easily work on. Anything to look out for long term, also any special tools? I drive my cars to the ground so any information would be appreciated. I'll be test driving one in the near future.

Thanks in advance Nick

Reply to
nick
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I've driven a Legacy for about twelve years now, and I do a lot of the maintenance myself. The parts run a little expensive, but the good news is that these cars are pretty much indestructable.

The one thing you might have to look out for -- and things may be different on more recent models -- is that the CV joints seem to wear out pretty fast. I found myself having to replace my driver's side ball joint about every two or three years. I've heard that it may have something to do with the position of the catalytic converter causing the rubber boot to get too hot and wear quickly, so if you can do the maintenance to just replace the boot when it wears out, you can probab ly just do that instead of replacing the whole joint (It's more work than I'm up to myself. The labor cost makes it about the same price to replace the boot as to replace the entire joint when you're having a mechanic do it), and, like I said, more recent models may not suffer from this problem.

Reply to
L. Ross Raszewski

Must be, or I'm lucky. My 2001 has over 100k mi on it, and I've nary had a single CV issue.

Sure my friggin heads have been rebuilt (including the dreaded headgasket of course) and my catalytic converter replaced, but CV [knocks on wood] no problem.

Can someone say whether the head gasket issue on the 2.5L engines has been "solved" in current models? Or is the root cause of the issue still that they bored a 2.2L block out to 2.5L and it hotspots between the now much thinner area between the cylinders, and there's no fixin until they redesign that block?

Best Regards,

-- Todd H.

2001 Legacy Outback Wagon, 2.5L H-4 Chicago, Illinois USA
Reply to
Todd H.

Actually Subaru is doing the same thing as Honda. My first Sub got almost 40 mpg (81 DL), my 95 got almost 30 (new, now mid 20's). There isn't a new model out there that gets over 30. They keep making them bigger and heavier, just like Honda

Reply to
Ralph E Lindberg

If you can work on a Honda, you won't have any troubles with a Subaru.

ByeBye! S. Steve Jernigan KG0MB Laboratory Manager Microelectronics Research University of Colorado (719) 262-3101

Reply to
S

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