Latest Fleet addition - the Fuji Heavy Industries Estate

[scooters]

Well, eventually got round to snapping some shots of the latest addition in the Scooters catalogue of motoring mayhem.

The biggest challenge about the last 12 months or so poverty has been keeping the family car on the road. Those of us who has can live outside London wiv young families, a car is pretty much essential cos not only is the public transport of dubious quality but you miss out on many of the deals you can get at supermarkets etc rather than at corner shops.

 

Anyway, this year we have had the following family cars - 1991 Volvo 240 Torslanda - sold to Mr Glover's Dad, 1996 Volvo 850 AWD, sold to a mate of a mate; The Megance Scenic - scrapped and a 2nd Gen Scooby Legacy Quadcam auto.

 

Recently, as described on another thread, the quad cam has been playing up a bit and is no longer suitable as a family daily. Thanks to the eagle eyes of cort16 who spotted this baby on Gumtree in Stirling.

 

 

It is a 2000 Scoob Legacy QuadCam Auto GT Lux Manual Wagon (BH Bodied)

 

What that means in English is that it is a 3rd Generation Scooby Legacy with the 2.5 engine and the Luxury spec pack. Although this one has a 2.0lt engine fitted rather than the more complex quad cam effort that it used to have.

 

The car has the following:

Full leather

Climate Control

Double Sunroof

Premium sound system

cruise control

trip computer

air bags everywhere

 

 

Condition wise it has:

a dent in the near side rear door

 

an excellent scrape down the orf side wheel arch, wing and doors

 

flooded wheel well, tailgate, rear lights and jack wells

 

 

pics

knackered tailgate catch

screaming fan belt and power steering belt

heat shield rattle

needs an air filter

needs a good valet

needs door seals greased

 

 

So following a trip with the kids to the Scottish Mining Museum near Dalkeith (superb BTW)

 

I eventually was able to dump the kids on Mrs S and start sorting the car.

 

The major issue was that the tailgate wasn't working and the can also had bad condensation. The immediate suspect for this was the door seals – Scoobs have frameless windows and this puts a freat deal of importance on the door seals – more so than usual. The door seals needed silicon grease but didn't explain the amount of moisture so I decided to explore further.

 

Now 3rd Generation Legacy Estates are notorious for letting water in two areas – firstly, what the septic tanks call the 'garnish' – to you and me it's the plastic lighting strip that runs across the boot door -

 

 

what happens is that water seeps into the garnish and then drips out of the bulb sockets when you open the boot – channeling water into the latch area and rusting vital mechanism components. The reason for this is that the garnish is essentially two halves – the back which goes against the car and the front which is the lighting plastic..amazingly there is no water seal - rather it relies on some pisspoor spongey caulking which fails after about 5 years. The fix is to take the garnish off the car and to run silicon sealant along the join line as if you were waterproofing a sink – this is hidden from view when the garish is refitted – whilst it was off the door drying I made a start on the door latch.

 

The Gen 3 Scoob tailgate latch rivals Puegeot for the most idiotically designed feature that most manufacturers got right several decades ago. The handle is linked to the latch by means of a bicycle brake cable style affair – what happens is the mild steel tip rusts through and the cable completely fails. Subaru charge an eye watering £180 for a replacement. So I decided to bodge one using an old bike brake cable. After an hour of swearing I eventually fabricated the cable and fitted it – it was at that point that I discovered that there was another problem – the catch itself was sticking badly and proved to be jammed full of dog hairs, grease, gravel, straw etc. At this point I decided to replacer the whole mechanism with the more robust rod system found on our Gen 2 Wagon – which took me five minutes.

 

Next I thought I had better check the boot for water ingress – and found this:

 

 

I removed the trim and the space saver which had gone mouldy!

 

 

 

The jack wells were even worse

 

The sunroof drain pipes had been happily emptying into both sides leaving a good 4 inches of water on the port side and 3 inches (to the vent strip) on the starboard side. N both instances they had popped out of the drain receptacles which channel the water by means of a crude rubber valve to the underside of the car – now obviously, being essentially agricultural vehicles, these get badly blocked with mud etc. So I cleaned them out and refitted the pipes – pints of water came out of the roof channels. I had to sook up the water though as there is no drain hole in either side.

 

So I let everything dry out and hey presto, the condensation is now minimal.

 

I will have to do grease the door seals though.

 

Next job is the engine bits – I need to get some belt slip on the fan belt and PS belt and will order replacements for both and the heat shield will need securing.

 

So there you have it.

 

My impressions of the Subaru having owned 2 for about six months:

-well they are Spartan affairs compared to most Jap basic spec ones are truly toyless

-you get the impression of an agricultural vehicle – the finish inside is robust in the way a tractor interior is robust. Not luxurious but hard wearing.

The engines are very clever, pretty tough and give excellent road holding due to the low centre of gravity and no strange forces

the 4x4 system is very effective and robust

but the car is also a load of paradoxes – there are a myriad of bits of steel that seem to rust in isolation suggesting poor attention to detail and finishing. Plastic body kit has been bolted on with little regard to the gunk and rust traps it causes. Screws are fixed to galvanised steel and happily dissolve.

All parts of the bodywork that are not on display are pretty crudely finished and designed to lacerate the hands of anyone foolhardy enough to grope around in them.

 

The cars lack the cleverness of design that you get from other car makers – I'm not talking about engines or cubby holes etc but the example of rust traps is apt. For example, other than the well documented boot seam, the underside of PSA's BX is almost completely flat – therefore there is nowhere for water or mud to sit. You don't find the afterthought screws etc in the French car.

 

I suppose a lot of this is because the pedigree of Subaru, despite being over 50 years old is one of a Heavy Industry company dabbling in car production and aiming at a market of farmers and utilitarian users. Our car was owned by a farmer and it shows – In removing the back bumper I released about 15 kilograms of mud and dirt – the front one was the same...I suspect that the designers had at the time not considered that now they were selling these cars to normal punters as well as farmers that they had to start to think about bodywork wear and tear.

 

Anyway, the doris is happy with it and it is the newest car I have ever owned and considerably more modern and, except for the tailgate latch, a much better designed car than it's predecessor. I suspect that the recent Legacy is a considerable improvement over the Gen 3

[cort16]

It looks alright that does. The interior looks tidier than the exterior anyway although it looks like you drained the flooded areas in the nick of time given the surface rust showing in the jack storage bit. I always wanted a B4 GT in this shape

[trigger]

 

I think these are a good looking car, I used to drive them when new from a dealer in Colchester and was always impressed by the way they went' especially the 3.0 versions, I'd be getting some kind of rust aid on that above though or this time next year (if it last that long) you be having to pay someone to weld it up.

[Skizzer]

Looks like a pretty decent chariot for the money, especially inside . Get yersels down here to Wales next half term and I dare say my brother-in-law will sort out the bodywork wounds for mates' rates, if you can be arsed. (Or just nail on a couple of doors off a scrapper of course, clashing colours FTW.)

[scooters]

 

I think these are a good looking car, I used to drive them when new from a dealer in Colchester and was always impressed by the way they went' especially the 3.0 versions, I'd be getting some kind of rust aid on that above though or this time next year (if it last that long) you be having to pay someone to weld it up.

 

this looks a lot worse than it actually is. Most of what looks like rust is actually red/brown earth and grit from the farmer. After I had cleaned it all and dried it out the only actual rust is a very thin very slight bit in the jack well itself.

 

Needless to say I Vactan -ed the lot and then slapped in another coat of galvanising Zinc Primer on with a brush then clear waxolyd the lot which seems to have done the trick for the time being

 

The biggest hassle I have had is trying to swap the insurance policy from the Gen2 to the Gen3 - the bastard AA were meant to do this on Friday - I called to check on Saturday and they had been unable to do it because the engine swap needed to be approved by an nderwriter and they would not be ack at work unitl Monday - I asked them what the feck I was supposed to do as I have no off st parking - I made the point that if they are going to benefit from a starutory requirement that is now checked in real time, 24/7 then they had to have work cover 24/7. Had to shell out £40 on a 3 day emergency policy with one of the 1 day companies.

[jonathan_dyane]

I like that a lot. What are they like for economy?

[scooters]

I like that a lot. What are they like for economy?

 

well i hope it is better than the auto 2.5 quadcam its replacing! subaru and fuel economy dont really rhyme!