2005 Legacy 3.0R VDC

Hi! Thanks for your response.

On the page you refer to, I see:

Is this what you were referring to? It looks to me like this is talking about the badging, though it could be saying there is no VDC on the car...

Reading on, I see that the page you gave does distinguish between the

3.0R and the 3.0R VDC, although apparently the badge doesn't indicate which model you have, that is, "VDC" does not appear on the badge of the model that has it, from what I can tell.

The price difference between the models seems to be about $2200.

Looks like only the top-of-the-line Limited Outback wagon could be had with VDC. See -

So, your car has no stability control. And unless you got it in writing that your salesman told you the car had VDC, I doubt you can get anything from them on that. And stability control is not one of those things you can add in the aftermarket. Because it uses a variety of sensors and electronic controls to manage the engine power, brakes, etc., it would be impossible to add-on effectively. And frankly, I am not sure that I would want to use it in heavy snow. I would rather be able to control the car in the traditional manner under those conditions (i.e., allowing some wheel slip to maintain momentum).

Dan D '99 Impreza 2.5 RS (son's) Central NJ USA

You are probably right. But, if I am correct that this was an honest mistake on his part, maybe he will help me out anyway.

What's nice about the Subaru VDC is that it has an off switch, so you could turn it off in the snow.

I paid a bit more than I wanted to, buying a top of the line 2005 model, in order to get the VDC, as this car is for a teenage driver. All of the kids that are dying around here are having trouble keeping their cars on the curvy mountain roads, even when there is no snow. I am disappointed, to say the least.

Thanks...

Maybe they're dying because parents buy them expensive late model cars and the kids never learned what it's like to sweat and bleed to earn something. That may be the real reason. Kids will do stupid things but less often if they've put their heart into something. If my parents bought me a newish carin high school I'd probably crash it too. Then expect parents to buy me another.

They're crashing old POS's too. I think it has more to do with (1) their failure to understand the laws of physics, and (2) their assumption that they are immortal.

One young lass here ran her car into a tree at 70 mph when she failed to negotiate a turn. I doubt she was thinking, Oh well, my folks will buy me a new one. VDC might have kept her alive. I spent more than I would have liked, but I wouldn't want something to happen to my child and think, if only I had gotten the VDC...

Usually I give my kids my hand-me-downs. But, somehow I didn't think the WRX would be appropriate for a 16 year old. :)

'Course, it's back to the drawing board now.

Probably what kept me alive in high school is the '62 Fairlane my folks gave me. 0-60 in maybe 20 seconds- as long as you were going downhill.

Regards, c..

Now THAT was a car! A highschool sweetheart drove one of those and let me try it. The steering column shift was interesting, and the thing had NO pickup, but I really liked it!

Heheh... You know, I did too. It was a nice looking car. Fins were starting to go out of style, so they were just barely there. I like boxy.

Mine had a 200 cubic inch engine, if I recall corrrectly, and according to my calculations, that works out to 3.277 liters, or more than half again the capacity of my WRX. How far we have come...