I think I've fallen in love with another car, lmao.
08-09 Subaru Legacy GT. Good reviews, decent power (around 250hp 2.5L turbo), AWD, fairly sporty but still roomy. Being that it is a similar engine to the STI I believe (smaller turbo), it sounds SICK with an exhaust. So I may try to find a white or silver GT, manual. I think it would be a great car with tinted windows, catback and a louder blow off valve, muhaha.

There are 08s and 09s out there with 5-15k miles, asking $20-24k with leather, dual zone auto climate control, etc.

 

those cars are amazing if i do say so myself.

 

I went to the Subaru dealer up the road, and they had a black 2006 Legacy GT M/T Limited with 42k miles.
Standard stuff...
2.5L turbo, black leather interior, moonroof, dual zone climate control, dual power/heated seats, heated mirrors and windshield wipers, 6CD.
I would like lower miles but it is a sweet driving car, listed at $16k. We could finance shorter term, be out of warranty soon and start the modding. There are a few small dents/dings, but probably easily repairable. The right wheels have a lot of curb rash, tires are new. Honestly I would probably sell those new tires and put good all-weather traction tires on the wheels for winter, and buy a new set of 18s in the spring. So the scuffed wheels aren't a huge issue I guess, but a good negotiating item.

So what did I like about the car?
Comfortable interior. The seats do cradle you a bit, almost as well as the GLI did. Leg room and shoulder/hip room is a little better than the Jetta, and a rear seat passenger will fit much better without the driver eating the dash. The dash controls feel nice, easily within reach and they make sense. Good visibility in all directions. The instrument cluster is nice and sporty looking. Safety ratings are all 5 star (like most if not all subarus), side curtain airbags and side seat airbags. No squeaks or rattles to speak of. I only turned on the stereo for a minute but I wasn't real impressed with the speakers. Easy enough to fix though.

The engine makes pretty good power. Not "knock your socks off" power, but good. Turbo lag isn't as bad as I expected, I guess since the n/a 2.5L makes 170HP. The clutch and shifter have pretty good feel, although it could use a short through linkage. Steering is quick and precise, the car is very well balanced. I drove a few 15mph corners at 40-45mph with ease. Just point and shoot, it hugs the road without under-steer or over-steer. I think I would run a bigger rear sway bar though, what fun is AWD without a little bit of over-steer? muhaha. Anyway I found it was generally fun to drive without standing out. Perfect for us I think!

Plus the sales guy actually knew about his product, which is SO rare. I guess a Subaru guy would have to though. I sold cars for over a year and Subaru drivers were the most difficult customers to please, and often came in with several printed reviews, pricing papers, maintenance schedules and spreadsheets for cost of ownership, etc.

 

The Legacy's are nice cars. For a few hundred you can get a Cobb tune and push close to 300HP. A guy I work with is a big Subaru fan and its saving for a Legacy.

 

I think if we pick one up the first mod will be a catback, maybe borla.
Later on, a catless up pipe (nothing to break off into the turbo), and a catted downpipe. Those will likely require a tune, so maybe an AEM intake with it too?

Really though after the catback, it would probably be wheels and/or tires, bigger rear sway bar, and either lowering springs/struts or coilovers.

I have been reading about some turbo failures, but I think after researching I have identified the primary causes.
#1 - an oil screen inside a bolt for the turbo becomes clogged and causes oil starvation to the turbo. This is not listed as a maintenance item therefore never inspected/cleaned/replaced, but MANY with bad turbos have found this to be the problem.
#2 - often this screen becomes clogged due to insufficient oil changes (doh). Sludge and coke build-up and likely contributors. Frequent synthetic changes make this much like likely. Factory calls for conventional oil at 7k miles or something crazy, but a TSB recommends 3,750 miles.
#3 - low oil do to blow-by or some other sort of oil loss (again oil starvation).
#4 - also very rare, the cat on the up-pipe breaks up and gets sucked into the turbo.

Sounds like I would replace the bolt/screen filter asap, and change the oil with synthetic every 3k miles or so. After warranty would be the catless up-pipe.

 

Any news on the 4whl steer Vdub and insurance?

 

Apparently the car is not at the new lot yet. Allstate (my ins) decided to move it to a yard for free storage. The Geico appraiser (their ins) called this morning and said it is not at the new yard yet and hopes to look at it tomorrow.

IF they were to claim it is fixable, I would demand a good amount of money to DV or "diminished value". Which would either than total the car, or we could put a chunk down on the loan. At this point, I think I would be okay with either as long as I got a fair amount for DV and comparable (priced) wheels, the paint was well matched, etc etc. Tye REALLY likes her Jetta.
I on the other hand would rather get her into something newer, and I think she will love the LGT when she looks at it tomorrow.

We both went for follow up doctor visits today to satisfy documentation for insurance. I feel about the same or maybe slightly worse. Her neck is killing her. We both got loaded up with pain killers and muscle relaxers, so hopefully I will sleep more than 2-4 hours tonight. If not there is always a bottle of JD to help me out. Obviously this means I am not flying all week atleast. I needed a doctors note to get lost wages more than 3 days so I have that now.

 

Flexeril FTW!

lol. sucks that they are taking so long to look at the car though. Did they give you a rental at least?

 

That is one serious accident. Good to hear no one was seriously injured.

 

sorry to hear man its never a good feeling

 

With Subarus, you can get a sweet sounding exhaust due to the boxer engine. But you can only get that with unequal length header, and I believe that you have equal lengths. Not sure though. With the equal length headers, you put free-flowing muffler on it and it will sound like a Honda. But you would probably lose a little bit of hp with the unequals, but personally I would rather have it sound better for 3-4 hp.

 

Yes we have a rental. Our insurance policy does not cover rentals, but since they are 100% at fault, their insurance covered it. I am SO glad we didn't get hit by one of the MANY people here without insurance.

 

I have heard several Legacy GT's on youtube with only a catback and they sound great, imo.

 

If your 100% sold on the Legacy ignore this then. The MazdaSpeed 3's are nice.

 

Based off of nothing besides looks, I don't like it. lol
After quick look at a few reviews, it sounds like a fun to drive car. But I just don't like the way it looks, and the interior looks a little tight. I don't know it just doesn't do it for me..?

 

damn not much damage on yer car for it to flip a civic haha. glad all is well!

 

lol.
Well the civic swerved at the last second so we didn't get 100% of his momentum, although we got enough to be shoved forward 60-70 feet. The good thing is when it stopped it was still pointed right down the road, straight as an arrow. Could have been pushed out to the side and flung around.
When he bounced off of the Jetta it threw him to the ditch and the right side climbed up the bank forcing the rollover.
I still don't understand how/why his airbags didn't deploy though.

 

that sucks about the accident, good to see you are alright

 

glad you two are doin ok, and that all injuries are minor

I as well love the Legacy GT's.....

l8r, John

 

I finally got a call from allstate (our insurance company).
They say it is a total loss.
Repairs would be $8,384.45
ACV is $10,850 (should be more if you ask me of course)
So with tax/title they would pay out $11,518, leaving us about $3,500 for a down payment (after paying off the lienholder), plus the money I have saved up.

Not horrible, it is pretty close to what I was expecting. However as I mentioned we are using Geico since the person who hit us was at fault, and we needed them to rent us a car. The allstate appraiser said that when the guy from Geico was there yesterday, he hadn't found enough to total it yet. The Allstate guy went back this morning and took some interior pieces out to look for more damage, and found more in the wheel-well that pushed it over the line for a total.

Now I am just waiting to hear back from Geico. If they insist on repairing it, I guess I will try to find a car to borrow and return the rental (pay out of pocket for it), and use Allstate to total it out.
Then hopefully we can find a car this weekend.

 

Glad to hear your at least getting close to what you wanted for the car.

 

Me too. All in all, it still sucks.
Geico is giving us $500 less than allstate quoted. But if we used allstate, we would have to foot the bill for the rental car, and pay a $500 deductible which would be paid back to us at a later time.
The crappy thing is that nothing around here compares to it for that price. 51k on a 2003, no rust, dents, scratches, leaks. Heated leather, moonroof, etc, brand new tires, never smoked in. Unfortunately most people here don't take care of their cars. They are full of cigarette butts and mcdonalds garbage, rust everywhere, worn out seats from the hefty people that drove them, lol.
So payments for the car we want are probably going to be $100/mo higher than she has now, and for a longer term. But it would be a 2008 model, fully loaded with 5k miles and factory warranty.

The title is being shipped overnight to Geico so we can get our check, hopefully by Friday. If all goes well with the credit union and dealer we'll have her in another car by Saturday.

Bye bye Jetta... We had some good times, haha. I really wish I had money to buy it back and part it out. I'm sure a lot of people would love to get ahold of a clean 51k mile VR6 and six-speed manual tranny, plus black leather interior, etc. Not to mention the front airbags, and drivers side seat and side curtain airbags.

 

Glad they totaled it. I'd hate making sure everything is fixed right and always wondering what kind of hack job they did.