Subaru Forester Owners Forum banner

New to forester forums and looking for advice already !

377 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  Pbjpajaro
Hey all I’m new to forester forums and just wanted to give a intro into my intentions here :grin2::grin2: I have a 05X got for a good price and from an actual honest dude on Craigslist. He was trying to get rid of the forester because his wife could drive it (standard) and was given permission to buy something new. So 4 years later here i am 200000 miles on the OD and i completely fell in love with this little forester! But now problems starting to rear its ugly head and now the wife is telling me to just get something new . I want to keep it but don’t have time to wrench on it like i thought i would so i wanted to read up here on the forums and get some advice without asking too much. My wife was thinking just take it to carmax or something . So if i were to trade it in or sell it off market i wanted to see what a fair price would be . KBB says 1500-3500 in private is best but the car has a leaking head gasket and probably on the lower end. But to someone who would like to get into a Subaru for cheap is it worth it asking for more ? Part of me just wants to be done with it but the tires are worth half of the value of the car ? Seems off to me , yes i am very conflicted lol because i love my car , some one talk some sense into me aaahhh
1 - 4 of 4 Posts
What problems are you having? Lots of minor stuff or a few big bugs? Oh - wait - I see - HG and some other leaks... Besides that, what else is wrong? Or is everything else perfectly peachy?

Also a lot depends on what you want to do... Do you want a dependable daily driver with no issues or do you want a more fun-to-drive beast that can go anywhere.... Do you want something that can go just about anywhere and can be modded to a road racer or a dirt demon? Or just basic transpo...?

Know that with age and mileage(on top of repairs), you will get just about zip as a trade in.

Look around your local area and see if you can find a Subaru shop that can do the engine work for a decent deal. Or swap out a "new" motor - either from a donor (i.e. wrecking yard) or re-manufactured from the dealer or a shop. For the cost of buying something else, you could easily make this Subie new again. And have tens of thousands of miles for the future...

You can see dozens and dozens of Subie stories where somebody has 100K, 200K or even 300K miles (and more!) on an older Subie. By first was a 1987 Subaru DL 4WD wagon (before they had names like Loyale)... at 320K miles, the head-gasket popped. I had bought the car a year + earlier for 700 and the engine work from a local Subie specialist would have been 1200 - which I could not afford.

It comes down to dollars and cents (and sense) and seeing what you want to do. You can surf the forums and see tons of awesome modded and serious stock Foresters with tons of happy owners.

So it comes down to what YOU want to do.
See less See more
@Pbjpajaro welcome to the forum from Oregon! :biggrin:

The Google custom forum search is pretty good. :wink:

You can ask your technical questions here: Technical Forums and Vehicle Assistance

Also...
For the best forum experience, we recommend completing your "Public Profile". Specifically, the "About Me" section (Edit Your Details). This displays every time you make a post on the forum. This will provide information members may need to reply to your forum posts. You can edit this field via the "User Control Panel", aka, "User CP.

If you're using a mobile device, you may need to use a laptop or desktop computer to see all the user tools.
Bobby...

['07 FSXT MODding Journal] ['03 X MODding Journal]
Yeah keeping it would be best for me because i love that little car. Just more of getting to reliability for me its my DD i have maintained the car pretty well and the motor seems to be still in good shape i still get 30 mpg on this car . I think its going to be a how much is this going to cost kinda thing . I probably have to do the timing belt, water pump, clutch , and other little maintenance things , i was thinking hopefully under 3 . I had a Impreza 2000 RS that i put a lot of money into but it just never got me the reliability i wanted after i started getting into the 300000. So I know that this motor has at least that in it and I don’t drive this forester half as hard as the RS but , its just into the reliability.
1 - 4 of 4 Posts
Top