Not road racing or autocross but I thought some of you could provide some Subaru AWD input on a potential project.

My wife the new real estate agent has listed a farm that has an ugly 1998 Subaru Outback 2.5 automatic sitting in front of it. The car has has a rough life and they want to find it a new home quickly. I have offered $500 to take it away and I think there is a pretty good chance that I will get it.

Kelly Blue Book says the Retail value is $9,850, the Private Party value in good and fair condition is $7,000 and $6,200 respectively. This car is a pig sty of interior filth, a missing front bumper cover and fog lights, a flattened driver's front fender (no other real front damage that I see suggesting any frame damage), a light dent in a rear side door and a smal tear in the rear bumper cover. This thing is in poor condition but Kelly does not rate them. My guess is that it slid off the road into a muddy ditch on the driver's front corner mushing the fender (lots of mud up inside) and wasting the bumper cover and fogs.

It has massive engine oil leaks that look to be a very drippy oil filter but also a leaking front crank shaft seal. A little bit of searching finds that this is a common leakage point plus there are a number of other potential ones as well as they seem to be challenged to keep oil inside. My plan would be to just buy every freakin' engine oil seal I can find and do a massive reseal and timing belt job over a long weekend. A bumper cover (haven't found an Outback one available aftermarket) and aftermarket fender wont' be too bad. and the rest I can deal with. The interior is so filthy and nasty that only a full removal of the seats and big steam cleaning will do the job. Although not appearing ripped or really work out, I have never seen a six year old interior look this filthy with layers of yuck, hay, garbage, etc. It was parked about six months ago and will need a thorough brake job no doubt but it starts and runs just fine although I have not driven it (no plates).

I have always thought they were rather interesting vehicles and figure that I can make a pretty decent AWD winter beater out of it for another $750-$1250 and some elbow grease then next Spring see if I can sell it for a tidy profit.

Any thoughts? The plates are expired and removed so I will need to tow it home if I get it. I took my trailer back to storage many miles away but I have access to a tow dolly. Is it safe to tow an AWD Subaru about 30 miles with the rear wheels on the ground? Is this thing more trouble than it is worth or at $500 is it a project that needs to be jumped on? I would think that if worse comes to worse, I could part it out and turn a decent profit on it or just do a basic cleaning and flip it on eBay for a small profit.

Can anyone suggest good web sites for Outbacks?

If the GRM $2005 Challenge only had a Rallycross competition...

 

I have never heard of oil leak problems on the dual-cam 2.5s, but they do have a nasty nack for blowing headgaskets.

Dont tow the car with the wheels on the ground. Your repair bill will get a lot bigger if you do.

there is an outback forum on nasioc
http://forums.nasioc.com/forum...?f=85
and a legacy forum too
http://forums.nasioc.com/forum...?f=13
for engine talk, the 98 2.5RS /early 99 2.5RS along with 97-99 Legacy GT and Forrester shared the same DOHC EJ25 engine.
http://forums.nasioc.com/forum...?f=31

 

Memory says that Subies with manual trans use a viscus center diff and the ones with auto trans use an electric clutch type. The viscus one will definitely be wrecked by dolly towing, I don't know for sure about the one on the auto but would not want to try it if I was planning on actually using the car later. If you can't get your own trailer out or borrow one, pony up the bucks for a flatbed.

Have you been able to look underneath? The axles, driveshaft, and assorted joints can add up to a lot and could have been damaged when it went ditch diving. If it's doing a major Exon Valdeze, I would wonder about damage to the engine case or some of the other castings up front. Remember that the motor runs low and way up front in the Subies and could easily have taken damage. I'd look over the trans case for any damage too, any trans work on those cars can be major $$$.

 

My wife's car is a 1998 Outback 2.5L auto. Yep, crankshaft seals are a problem on this car. No other real issues other than a recall on the master cylinder - something about sub-zero operation problems. You can tow the auto with wheels on the ground if you have to. Under the hood there is a 'port' for a fuse. the fuse disables the awd.

Other than the fact that we have developed the leak/seepage behind the timing belt cover, the car has been good to us.

 

Thanks for the input. Sounds like if I get it, I'll tow it home on a trailer or have it flatbed wrecker delivered just to be safe and keep the rear wheels off the ground. We'll probably know if I get it or not in the next few days.

Talk about mixed emotions. I think it is a good opportunity to get something cheap and make some money but on the otherhand the last thing I need is another project car to bring the family car count to seven.

 

Lee. Keep a watchful eye on rear wheel bearings. Over the years we've had to replace about seven of them, mainly right rears. I think alldata calls for 3ish hours. Front crank seal and some valve cover gaskets tend to leak. The damn things seem to get close to Honda/Toyota reliable IF taken care of

 

Lee-sorry I missed you at SEMA. Every time I walked by you were engaged in a 20 minute conversation. Popular guy!

Ryan

Oh, and the Subaru-go for it!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by vtecvoodoo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Lee-sorry I missed you at SEMA. Every time I walked by you were engaged in a 20 minute conversation.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Sorry about that, I know that I missed a lot of people I wanted to see but I never knew who or how many were around. Man, SEMA was crazy and this was the second year like that. In the first three days, I did not step off our square of carpet for lunch, to pee or do anything. Just crazy busy and sometimes people were lined up three deep waiting to talk to me since I do automotive and motorsports now. It is really weird how this happens. Only on Friday did the furror settle to a dull roar. I walked one loop of our room at SEMA for about 20 minutes only because I was awaiting a phone call about booth freight. I did nothing but talk in the booth the entire show.

 

Agreed on the wheel bearings, they tend to go frequently. Apparently they're particularly sensitive to road/ditch damage the right rear incurs often. There may be a more durable bearing from the SVX that can be substituted, I'm sure the info is available on NASIOC.com with a bit of searching. My sister has a '96 Outback, it hasn't been abused like this one, but other than a very slight front seal leak, the car has been bullet-proof. Darn good snow car.