This year's purchase - 2000s crossover epidemic patient zero

[Mally]

I stay in Blackpool, but that's the smallest wardrobe and radiator, I've ever seen.

[bangernomics]

I stay in Blackpool, but that's the smallest wardrobe and radiator, I've ever seen.

I reckon someone will combine their functions soon enough.

[Tickman]

I do hope you wrote 

'This room isn't one of them'  underneath the sign.

 

[willswitchengage]

Four hours and 220 miles of somewhat blissful driving later we are HOME! Luckily Storm Amy seems to have dissuaded most motorway users away so I have just had potentially the most comfortable/relaxed/easy UK motorway journey of my life, in part thanks to the fact it was in this:

An ex-giffer Subaru Legacy Outback.

It's only got 50k miles on it so the interior and driving experience is like new, and these are both very delightful experiences.

The build quality of these is phenomenal - everything is well designed and a million miles ahead of equivalent European cars of the era.

The engine is almost silent and as the boxer is inherently balanced, you can barely tell it's switched on. It's almost boring, it barely even purrs!

Generally extremely happy. In the CRX I was struggling with the pothole and congestion epidemic that is only going to get worse in the country - those things don't seem to affect this at all. I have back pain and am susceptible to migraines, this's comfortable seats and effortless drive work wonders.

For disclosure it was two bags of sand from eBay.

Some minor downsides are that it very slightly pulls to the left, not annoying but slightly noticeable. Never really had this in a car before. Brakes feel a tad soft but hard to tell - they seem to vary massively between ever car I've ever driven, on the plus side they're not as crazily sharp as a moduhn. 'Full service history' seems to be a bit misleading - it has 20 odd stamps in the book but only up to about 40,000 miles / 14 years ago when the mileage dropped off looking at the MoT history. Still, someone's decided to take good care of it though as it has a brand new zorst and premium tyres fitted very recently. Technically I'm playing belt roulette on this - the visible fan belt doesn't look brand new, I'll take it apart at some point and look for date stamps. Haven't investigated how easy a replacement is on the SOHC EJ251 engine but access is surprisingly good at least.

It has a short MoT but hasn't had any significant advisories at all if ever really. Rust situation is ok, there is some, it's not dissolving, but I'd be lying if I said it was brand new underneath.

For the budding MoT testers though, being a bugger it has some BIG scratches on the bumper... any idea if this would fail the clean and smooth bumper clause? It's quite subjective.

That's why I got it quite cheap! I could in theory tape over it in the near term, potentially too complex to restore/repaint over a new bumper. We shall see, but generally I am extremely happy! 😁 

[Schaefft]

50k miles, wow! That should make sure that you won't encounter the usual Subaru problems anytime soon. Regarding the bumper, just get a replacement. There most be plenty of rotten/overheated ones around with good bumpers.

[Mally]

I'd just fill the bumper.  There are many fillers advertised as suitable, and it's better than tape.

[Noel Tidybeard]

On 22/11/2024 at 20:03, grogee said:

2.0 EFi, Turbo and dizzle got Honda PG gearboxes. The paupers had to make do with the VW box

nope!

from the 1989 roverisation the 1600 s-series got the honda box

the mrs bucket raver 216 always had s-series & honda box (prolly why the swapped the m cars)

[grogee]

31 minutes ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

nope!

from the 1989 roverisation the 1600 s-series got the honda box

the mrs bucket raver 216 always had s-series & honda box (prolly why the swapped the m cars)

Thank you for enlightening me. 

So rather than rationalise and fit one box to the whole range, they just buggered about with the allocation and continued to buy in two completely different boxes from their rivals (although Honda very much an ally at that point). 

[Noel Tidybeard]

6 minutes ago, grogee said:

Thank you for enlightening me. 

So rather than rationalise and fit one box to the whole range, they just buggered about with the allocation and continued to buy in two completely different boxes from their rivals (although Honda very much an ally at that point). 

i supose finding something that would fit an A series was the first concern, then at that time honda gearbags were mounted on the right not left like everyone else

[grogee]

32 minutes ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

i supose finding something that would fit an A series was the first concern, then at that time honda gearbags were mounted on the right not left like everyone else

Good point. 

My Acclaim must've been RH gearbox, and I do remember the engine ran anticlockwise / back to front which makes sense if you think about it... 

[willswitchengage]

£40 and a conveniently local breaker later...

...we have a fresh bumper and MOT prep is complete! One of the foglights points the wrong way, but isn't loose, according to AI the MOT man won't inspect these as it's a pre-2018 car. Fingers crossed! Generally all is well.

The bumper annoyingly is from the facelift model which had just enough geometry changes that this was a royal PITA to fit, literally had to cut a few mm of material back and now it's fine. Also, the wrong colour, but barely noticeable.

[willswitchengage]

Oh and in other news, sold the CRX. Received 1,000 silly offers on Gumtree, two visitors, one quickly said he'd pay asking, then mucked up his online payment a bit so I have made £1 profit on it. RESULT! (I am not very imaginative at car pricing... this and the Saab before it I advertised for what I bought them for)

Pretty much everyone I've sold a car to over the past few years has given off a very divorced Dad vibe... feels ominous.

[HMC]

Whats a divorced dad vibe? (asking for a friend) 😂