We’re going a little bit out of order with this week’s COAL, but it seems appropriate, given the circumstances. There was a death in the fleet and it seems fitting that we take a moment to remember our friend.
In preparing for today’s memorial, I went back to Paul Niedermeyer’s reflections from 2014 on his goodbye to their 2000 Forester for some my of inspiration.
Before we get into the details, let’s reflect on a life well lived. We acquired our 2003 Subaru Forester 2.5X with 4 speed automatic in the fall of 2015 for $4,200. This was to be a commuter car for our son who was scheduled to work a practicum at a social service agency in Northfield, MN as part of his social work major. At the time of purchase, the Forester had around 128,000 miles or so on the odometer, but it was pretty clean inside with no body rust. We bought it from a private party, a one owner car with complete maintenance records, so we felt confident that this would be a good car for the kids as they cycled through college.
From the previous owner’s files:
40,411 – SRS light on, replace failing wiring connector under seat. $198.00
45,990 – Engine noise when cold lasting about 15-20 min. Replaced #2 and #4 pistons. N/C
76,060 – Front crank seal and oil pump gasket are leaking. $616.19
80,197 – Replace right rear wheel bearing. Replace front brakes. $1023.20
84,209 – Check engine light on. Replace catalytic converter. $902.26
85,091 – Replace rear brakes. $289.54
103,745 – Replace head gasket. $1,838.98
124,184 – Replace drivers side rear wheel bearing. $408.38
126,200 – Reline front brakes, repair leaking fuel lines. $752.07
I did note the presence of rust on the undercarriage, but everything seemed solid. So much for visual inspections, eh? And anyway, they had already addressed the head gasket issue and replaced the rear bearings and front brakes (twice). What else could possibly go wrong?
128,661 – Check engine light, diagnosis was a “stuck check valve, needs to be replaced”. $458.24
130,708 – Leaking fuel filler, replace rusty fuel filler pipe. $381.44
After graduating from St Olaf, the Forester made it’s way to Olympia, WA and Evergreen State College. One of our daughters found Evergreen quite to her liking after sampling a couple of Minnesota colleges. The Forester loved Olympia, lots of other Foresters to play with.
145,813 – Check engine light, “miss fire code on #3 cyl”, replace plugs, ignition wires, air filter, fuel filter. $410.16
Leaving Olympia after graduation. The very generous rear cargo area was stuffed full along with the soft car top carrier. Front seats pushed forward to fit everything it back. Lucky we’re from short stock. We made the drive back to St Paul, about 1,700 miles, in three days with no issues.
The Forester wasn’t a horrible place to spend time. The 2.5 made about 165 hp with a top speed of 107 as reported by car mags at the time. We certainly had no problem keeping up with traffic heading across Big Sky country despite the load. With plenty of tunes on tap and beautiful scenery, the miles went by pretty quickly. Our only complaint at 80 mph was the roar of the wind as it sucked the frameless glass away from the doors. Apparently there is a hack for this but we never bothered to deal with it, the car spent most of its days with us at much lower speeds.
After graduation, troubles continued. Death by a thousand cuts style. We live in a condo with a shared parking garage, so working on the car wasn’t really an option even if it had been available to work on. But more often than not, the Forester would break down far from home. I told my daughter that if things were repairable within reason, I would continue to pay to have it fixed. I warned her though that there would come a time when we would just have to say no more repairs, we’ve reached the end.
157,365 – Squealing noise, replace A/C idler pulley and belt. $398.93
158,200 – Replace broken sway bar link. $110.07
161,060 – Car died, tow to garage. Replace alternator. $585.03
165,463 – Replace front brake pads, rotors, calipers. $413.28
My daughter texted me late last week. She was backing up in her mother’s driveway when there was a sudden noise. “So something rusted and broke on the forester and the front passenger wheel is not at the correct angle.”
Something broke? I’ll say. From the NHTSA in September 2011:
Summary:
SUBARU IS RECALLING CERTAIN MODEL YEAR 2002-2007 IMPREZA, MODEL YEAR 2003-2008 FORESTER, AND MODEL YEAR 2005-2006 SAAB 9-2X VEHICLES MANUFACTURED FROM SEPTEMBER 5, 2000 THROUGH NOVEMBER 26, 2007 ORIGINALLY SOLD, OR CURRENTLY REGISTERED IN, MASSACHUSETTS, MARYLAND, MICHIGAN, NEW HAMPSHIRE, NEW YORK, PENNSYLVANIA, VERMONT, WISCONSIN, CONNECTICUT, DELAWARE, IOWA, ILLINOIS, INDIANA, MAINE, MINNESOTA, MISSOURI, NEW JERSEY, OHIO, RHODE ISLAND, WEST VIRGINIA AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. THE FRONT LOWER CONTROL ARMS MAY BREAK AT THE HANGER BRACKETS DUE TO CORROSION IF THE HANGER BRACKET IS EXPOSED TO SALTY AND HUMID ENVIRONMENTS SUCH AS ROADS CONTAINING SNOW MELTING AGENT.
Consequence:
A BROKEN CONTROL ARM CAN RESULT IN THE LOSS OF CONTROL OF THE VEHICLE, INCREASING THE RISK OF A CRASH.
Apparently the diligent previous owners weren’t as diligent as I thought. Oh well, this was the final blow. I know, what took us so long, right? It’s the classic problem facing owners of older cars, do you walk away from all of those repairs or do you hope that last repair finally fixed everything, at least for now. In summing up the numbers, I feel a little stupid. We liked the Forester, but based on what we learned from our experience, I would be very leery of repeating the experiment again with another high mileage Subaru.
I’m not going to tote up all the charges like Paul did, too depressing. When it was running, the car was fun to drive and a great hauler of stuff. My daughter was the primary driver the last four years and I think she really like the car, despite all of the issues. Ultimately though, I wish I had found a similar mileage Scion Xb or Xd for the kids. In fact, the kids have one of each courtesy of their mother, my ex-wife. While lacking AWD and giving up a bit of cargo capacity, both have turned out to be pretty much trouble free.
I ended up getting $310 for the Forester through an app called Peddle out of Austin, TX. They work with local salvage yards to handle the towing. The app is pretty slick, you enter the details and they spit out a guaranteed price right there on line or you can counter offer and start negotiations. My wife and I are about to head off to Sumas, WA to pick up a new camper from Escape Trailers our of Chilliwack, BC and I didn’t have time to deal with this on top of everything else. Plus the car was sitting right in the middle of the driveway, blocking the garage. The tow truck driver took the title and handed me a check and then got the car loaded, pretty painless.
Hm, I mean, I’d have just replaced the control arm(s) – I wouldn’t blame the previous owners for not preventing them from rusting out on you… they obviously took care of problems as they showed up, if anything I’m surprised you or at least your mechanics didn’t point this out to you earlier
Ditto. All of the other repairs documented are not out of the question for a car of that age, either. They could have been done cheaper, perhaps, but we understand that when it comes to a college kid’s car, the onus is frequently on the parent to just pay the piper to get it running again.
I owned three Outbacks of similar vintage to this Forester. Two were great cars, but for me, what turned me off to the brand was the dreaded and inevitable head gasket failure and the expensive replacement of the multiple catalytic converters.
Dreadful cars..
I remember Jeremy Clarkson laughing in disbelief at a customer survey that listed Subaru as the least reliable car.
My wrx I kept for 5 years from new then sold just as multiple bits started to fail..
Subarus consume more parts per 1000km than any other Japanese brand, thats just how it is, good cars but you will always be reaching for your wallet.
I don’t mean to be rude but you might want to think about finding a new mechanic. Unless the sway bar link was replaced several years ago it the fact that the control arm was near the end of its life should have been apparent.
My Renault just ticked over almost exactly the same number of miles, and I will no doubt have to face the same question soon – at what point do you stop putting money into the thing? To be fair, the Renault has not been costing me money, but it has given me some scares. More than once when filling it up I’ve wondered whether this would be the last fill it would ever get, and whether it was wise to fill to the top.
When I lived in the UK, the annual MOT inspection was what usually led to the death of the car. From what I understand, regular inspections are not required in some US states?
Correct.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/is-safety-subjective-a-sampling-of-vehicle-safety-inspection-requirements/
!!!!!!!!
wow, oh WOW !!!
I am crawling under mine tomorrow morning to look at those control arms. (Also an ’03 in silver with 144,000 miles on it.) It needs a rusted tailpipe fixed and if it has terminal rusting issues elsewhere, the exhaust will not get done. So glad for you the control arm didn’t break at speed and hurt you or your loved ones, OR someone else.
It seems as tho the tin worms always have their final say…….
PSA galvanise lower control arms they are also made of much heavier material than those, one of the reasons I dont buy Japanese cars to keep.
Is rust a concern in NZ?
Wow.
This all sounds like an old Top Gear bit, with a Lancia rapidly shedding all kinds of parts on the road while the hosts discuss how great it is.
I giggle every time the local Subaru dealer’s radio ads tout some nameless survey claiming Subarus have the lowest cost of ownership. We fail 3-4 2014+ Crosstreks (but not Imprezas, oddly) per month for rotted through exhausts, the most recent a 2017 with 61k miles. It also had 2 bad wheel bearings and is using oil at about a quart every thousand miles. And the airbag light was on, but that isn’t an issue for PA inspection.
The original owner of the rotbox Forester could have paid to drive a used 5-Series or E-Class with those kind of early failures and repair bills.
But, yeah, the control arm isn’t the prior owner’s fault. Or even Subaru’s, really. Metal has a finite lifespan… and yours broke in the middle, not due to trapped salt water causing corrosion at the hanger bracket as per the recall notice. Control arms, and their attached bushings and ball joints are normal wear items. For them to be original, and not noticed due to their abysmal condition prior to breaking at this age and mileage is kind of just poor maintenance.
A new control arm from Rockauto goes for $60 – $120 depending on brand. Do both sides, throw in some new ball joints and good to go. Due to the rusted fasteners, this would be a medium – hard task for a DIY without a lift. Sometimes you can get more for these selling them as mechanic’s specials than to the great parking lot in the sky…
That’ what I would have done, too, but I’m guessing that the original owner just decided enough was enough and that rather than hassling with fixing it just to sell it, that he it was in his better interest (and his kid’s) to just cut bait.
Good luck getting the ball joint studs out of the attachment points at the spindles. Piss poor design. Put a motor in a Baja for a coworker. I wouldn’t
take a Subie of that vintage if it were free.
My ’03 Legacy wagon had a similar litany of costs in recession, except I sold it at 14 years and 130,000 miles. Shortly after I replaced the exhaust system for the second time (under lifetime warranty), it would misfire after sitting for several days, and the error codes included the downstream oxygen sensor and a possible wiring harness.
That head gasket at ninety thousand, three months after I had replaced the timing belt – that was infuriating.
My appetite for keeping the car vanished under the gun of yet another $1000 buck repair.
But apparently it is tooling around San Diego with the second owner, liberated from the snow belt.
Knowing when to throw in the towel is a dilemma and finding that point can be tough. Many of us have faced this decision at some point in time. Perhaps you could have fixed your Subaru again this time as others have said, but what would have been next? There would have undoubtedly been something sooner or later and we all have our limits of tolerating chronic repairs. You picked a good time to cut your losses.
My wife and I recently had the conversation on when to say when regarding our Ford E-150. It is a 2000 model, thus pushing 22 years of age, but it has had little go wrong; a fuel pump two or three years ago has been the only real hiccup in 11 years of ownership. The conversation sprang from a zero oil pressure reading upon startup back in the spring, but a $15 switch/sensor corrected that.
We had a 2002 Forester and your list of repairs sounds very familiar. Oil leaks, brakes, wheel bearings, amd the check engine light was always on for one reason or another. We did not have the head gasket problem, but we got rid of it as it approaches 160,00 miles because we knew that was coming…not if….but when. It had the cold weather package and was an awesome winter car. But 23 MPG highway and loud above 70 MPH.
“The check engine light was always on for some reason or another”
That was a constant symptom with the three Outbacks I owned, too. Usually it was a catalytic converter warning, which I just learned to ignore until it was time to get it to go away to pass smog.
Yup. Catalytic converter, oxygen sensor, defective fuel cap, misfire, etc.. We fixed one code and then another would replace it a few months later.
I found the mpg of my GL Wagon FWD and the subsequent Loyale to be disappointing. 29-30 mpg back in the 65 mph speed limit days. The 3 cyl FWD Justy I bought last got 37. I expected motors that small to get better mpg than they did.
I noticed the head gasket repair at ~104k. Then you had the misfire issue at ~n’t 146k. Wondering why plugs and wires wouldn’t have been done with the head gaskets. At least plugs anyway. I’d also bet that when the cat was done at 84k, the head gaskets were the culprit.
Good grief, looking at that list of repairs makes me realize what I have (not) missed in my high mile Hondas. 145K (or is it 155) on my Honda Fit, and no problems with engine internals, leaks, bearings, exhaust or suspension, since new. My daughter (at 25) is still driving her Grandma’s 98 Civic from college that just keeps running and needing periodic oil changes. It is a real shame she had to scrape the right side of the car with a big tree. (she ignored my previous advice that when you see an animal in the road, hit the brakes (if you safely can), hold tight, grit your teeth, but don’t swerve.)
For a long time I have loved the idea of Subarus. But then I keep reading/hearing stories about the reality of Subarus that keeps me from attempting to experience the love firsthand.
I had an 02 Outback with the 3.0 6 that I bought at 110k and sold at about 175k. Replaced the front CV joints when I bought it — the passenger side one is really close to the catalytic converter so the boots fail from being cooked. I bought a 6 because they didn’t have the head gasket reputation. It was actually a pretty good cheap used car.
It did strand me once, when the alternator failed about 90 miles north of Victorville CA in the middle of the desert. (My bad for not replacing it when it had hiccoughed once several months before.)
And it did tend to overheat occasionally, usually going uphill in the summer. My understanding is that this was due to an undersized radiator (designed for the 4) and a cooling system design that tended to trap air as it was hard to ‘burp’. However, when I sold it I do think the head gasket was going.
Regarding the cost-of-ownership studies: what made Subarus come out high is the very low depreciation. Lowest-cash flow-of-ownership would no doubt return a different result.
FWIW Hondas aren’t all perfect anymore. Our 10 CRV with 110k probably needs rings. It’s a known problem but we just missed on the Honda warranty extension for it.
What can I say, since I said it all in that final post on our Outback that was linked in the second paragraph. Ours was a 2000, and we kept it for 15 years and 170k miles, and was reliable, if not quite up to Toyota levels. Three rear wheel bearings and a set of front axle shafts were the only significant “repairs”. The brakes I did myself. And yes, it had annoying piston slap which we just lived with and at the end the head gaskets were starting to leak (to the outside).
Overall total costs were 24 cents/mile, which was quite cheap.
But then we weren’t dealing with rust, as well as the other issues that came up with the author’s car.
You have to be rich to own a cheap car…Or at least if you pay others to maintain it. 🙂
In the end you got six years and about 40k miles out of it and let it go due to a repair that perhaps should have been noted by the numerous times people were under that area of the car and may or may not have ultimately been fixable. About $7000 for the car and repairs overall during your ownership period if I do the math right. If you’d bought a brand new car at the time it’d probably have depreciated similarly over that time (yes, the current year is a weird anomaly for used car values, likely that’ll even back out over time). In total under $100 a month not counting taxes, reg, and insurance which any car would have. And the car always lived in a high corrosion state before you got it and Subarus by their nature tend to see more bad weather than other cars (If the weather is crappy and you have a Subaru in the garage amongst various other cars you’re likely going to take the Subaru). There’s no guarantee that any other car wouldn’t have similar damage underneath by now.
Man, North American rust is properly frightening. That sort of decay just can’t happen here, unless one insists upon parking axle-deep in a salt lake each night, and given it’ll be a good 100 miles to the nearest place to live, the inconvenience makes that a bit unlikely.
When these Forester’s first emerged from the automotive woods, I liked the idea. It seemed the old L-series, but higher up. Styled in the spare time of a bottle-top glassed cardigan-wearing local county planning guy, sure, but not expensive, and surely unkillable.
But later, I drove one. What on earth? I didn’t sit up high, like the set-square styling implied, I just had an Abe Lincoln’s worth of head room. How bloody pointless! Then the steering was Valiant light, the (manual) driveline snatch-prone, the interior bits a bit bitty, the performance merely mere, the suspension too waterbed-ish and the seats quite without useful comfort. Apart from a sweet 2-litre VW van burble, it was not likeable.
And now to hear that they break quite a bit as age descends makes me glad that a car I never wanted once I’d driven one was one not worth wanting anyway.
State inspections are a pain in the butt, but they do keep junk like this off the road before they get this bad. Be grateful, your daughter dodged a bullet.
Wow, due to The Magic of Leasing® I haven’t had a car crack 10,000 miles since, like, 2007. Now that we own again, it’ll be interesting to see how things break down/rust/etc. even with relatively low miles. At our current rate we should hit 165,000 miles in *checks math* 2092 or so…
I always wanted to like Subaru as I felt it was sort of the heir to the VW beetle (flat 4) and the symmetrical AWD appealed. So I bought one (a ’96 Outback) that was 13 years old at the time and presented itself nicely even with 180K kms.
I owned it for one year and in that time spent $5000 on repairs before deciding that in spite of wanting to like it, I just couldn’t. Traded it in on a Jeep and got $5K for it just as the A/T was starting to go. I should have had a manual tranny, but I’ve never again wanted a Subaru of any description.
Living in the SF Bay Area our vehicles do not have to deal with that much possible corrosion and rust. Cars are always going to cost money, either up front, or over the longer haul. You can save money with older used cars, especially if you have the capability to do your own repairs. It just requires keeping an eye out for impending problems. This is what I try to do. Quickie oil change places will do just that, but they don’t usually monitor the condition of the rest of the mechanical condition of your car, Though they are quick to offer a power steering system flush! Since these places don’t put your car on a lift to do the oil change, they can’t see the rest of your car’s chassis while it’s up in the air. Even though I do a lot of my own work I value knowing a good, competent, honest, mechanic. Now my mechanic has retired, and it’s not easy to find another one.
Those control arms and other suspension parts could be replaced, but of course every car is in a state of entropy, every system is deteriorating and breaking down with the passage of time. The challenge is to keep ahead of it, and knowing when to call it quits.
I know that a lot of us buy cars for our kids to use. We pay for the car, the repairs, even the insurance. They are often busy, away from home, with little interest in learning to monitor the condition or maintain those cars. They will often run tires down to the cords, brake pads down to the steel, and let the oil levels run down to dangerous levels. “Why does that red light keep coming on?” I’ve had more success with my Son than with my Daughters, who couldn’t care less about a car. I wish that I knew the answer to that problem.
45,990 – Engine noise when cold lasting about 15-20 min. Replaced #2 and #4 pistons. N/C
76,060 – Front crank seal and oil pump gasket are leaking. $616.19
84,209 – Check engine light on. Replace catalytic converter. $902.26
103,745 – Replace head gasket. $1,838.98
My Aunt bought an 87 Loyale new. The thing barely made it to 100K, with vital humor, both brown and green, dribbling from the right head gasket by 98. In 2008 she wanted another Sube, I don’t understand why. She bought an 09 Forester. Health issues a year later forced her to retire from driving. Looking at 09 Foresters in Consumer Reports a few years later: big black spot for engine trouble.
Consumer reports is giving Sube engines a “much better than average” rating since 2014.
Feeling lucky?
Subaru, the VW of Japan
I had a Subaru – that’s why I won’t buy another.
What you find so quirky and cute, grows tiresome – like a roommate.
Also too expensive.
I want to like them, but after having one – nevermind.
Very relevant to see this as I fix up my newly acquired $300 Forester, that the PO likewise gave up on once issues stacked up. He went to bleed the brakes after a brake job and the rear lines started to leak. Car sat for a bit and when he went to start it it was a crank no start. He decided it was the fuel pump and started to change that, broke the plastic bit on the nylon fuel line and threw his hands up. The no-start condition was actually due to rodent damage (chewed the crank position sensor harness clean off). Car as typical externally oil leaking headgaskets, I’ve put in some high mileage 10W-40 and some Lucas Oil Stop Leak, we’ll see how that bandaid fix holds. Originally bought the car to strip down and race at our local paved oval, but it’s turned out to be (IMO) a bit too nice and complete (and with a clean title) to sacrifice in such a fashion. My biggest weakness with old cars is mechanical sympathy.
Really surprised to read this! Our ’01 Forester, previous body to this but same engine/transmission, had about 86K on the clock when we bought it in ’05. We’ve had only a few problems, most quickly resolved by our Subaru-only shop over in Monrovia, the others (most notably overheating if climbing long hills in hot weather with the A/C on!) are easy to avoid. We are now coming up on 215K, with no signs of decrepitude. It remains our daily driver, and now we’re (I hope) out of COVID restrictions I can again use it on twice-yearly camping trips, where I can fit a mattress and bag to sleep in it. Bonus points: It’s also almost as much fun on a twisty road as my Alfa Milano!
Original headgasket at 215k miles, very impressive! Not leaking externally?
I gotta ask, what sort of COVID restrictions kept you from enjoying the great outdoors?
I feel I must comment further upon my experience with several Subarus.
The first I ordered out new in the summer of ’97 as one of the fleet ( a very small group I must add ) of Rural Mail Carrier right hand drive units. They only came as one model: a wagon in the base Legacy ‘L’ configuration. One had a choice of metallic red, white, or light blue; later a metallic green was offered. The original Rural Carrier / Postal Service RHD units on the previous body style, were all white.
My car did see very hard service life (134 miles daily on the route, 95% on gravel ) and went thru 3 new transmissions under warranty before it reached 12,000 miles. ( a known flaw in design according to the service mgr. ). The final replacement lasted until 60,000 and was then rebuilt and put into service till it began to skip shifts at nearly 300,000 miles. Transmission oil was changed every 40,000 during this last rebuild.
Other than a battery and an alternator failure, the 2.2 liter engine was remarkable. It never consumed nor leaked oil, but I serviced it every 3,000 miles with Mobil 1 Synthetic.
I retired with the car still in my possession. It has no body panel rust and the interior fabric was some of the most remarkable wearing product I have been around. No holes or fraying and no sun-load deterioration. It held up as well as the rest of it has structurally. If it had not been for those transmission fails, I would say my every expectation was met. Safety value alone outweighed the downtime those caused.
Reasons why I bought the ’03 Forester at 130,000 miles after the previous owner had replaced most of the issues which concerned the 2.5 liter. If I can make it to 200,000 in the winter slop and skirt those corrosion issues as well as my ’98 Legacy ‘L’ survived, it will have done it’s job.
I owned three Foresters of this vintage – ’99, ’00 and ’01. Every one of them had the same issues – wheel bearings, catalytic converters, leaky gaskets, CEL always on for whatever reason, wheel alignment issues, the digital clock that NEVER worked, etc. No matter how well-maintained when I bought them, they all had these issues. But I did not care. I loved these cars and I accepted their faults and budgeted for them. I got up to 211K miles on them, and they were still sellable at that point with some residual value. Then I’d take that $1500 and buy a nicer, newer Forester for like $3500. After three of them, I moved on to something else, but sometimes I still miss them. The old Foresters were the perfect size, new ones are too big and too expensive.
I would blame your mechanic for failing to notice the rust issue and warn you in advance as he overcharged you for the repairs. My guy always makes a point of looking over the car and pointing out potential future issues besides whatever I brought it in for.