Hey Guys,
New to the forums, and have enjoyed having a good read of your posts. Hopefully I am not going to be repeating a really old post - I am interested in buying a 98 or 99 Forester here in Canberra, Australia. Here we have the 2.0 Litre engine and I woudl likely go for a manual transmisson. I am looking to pay up to about $15K, depending on the example.
I am interested to know what pitfals I should look out for. One example I looked at yesterday had 180000K on the clock and they were asking $13k (au$). It looked quite tidy and would have been the base model judging by the fitout.
I guess feedback from other australian owners would be most relevant but I am keen to hear from anyone with some info to share!
Specific questions I have at this (early) juncture are -
What are the major maintenance issues as the kilometres get higher (as a lot of the examples I have looked at are between 140000 and 180000 on the odometer)
Are there any faults that I can immediately check when looking at the vehicle?
How does the Forester handle towing? (I am interested in towing a motorbike on a light trailer.)
I guess one of my main concerns is whether the engine will have enough performance. IF I could afford it I would love to go for the GT version, but I doubt I could afford it, and getting it insured would be nigh on impossible for a guy under 25 like me!!
I look forward to hearing from you guys, thanks for reading my post.
Cheers
Jason
Canberra, AUS