Subaru Outback does Swan River Middle Fork

[roverhi]

You may be surprised how far back into forest service roads / moderate trails you will see Subarus in Colorado. Don't underestimate them, especially the old ones like the GL wagon.

There was a long trail to the beach in South Kona/Kau that was mostly very rough lava. Some Wag posted a sign "4wd only, NO Subaru's" possibly because they were tired of rescuing them. My Sister in Law was talked out of buying a Subaru by her Mechanic. He said he'd rebuilt too many of them when the head gaskets failed prematurely.

If you need a four wheel drive vehicle with some ground clearance they are about the only car to fit the bill. Think they've got enough off road ability to get people feeling like they are really capable and getting themselves way over their heads in trouble when things get moderately challenging.

 

[tnjeepguy]

"feeling like they are really capable and getting themselves way over their heads in trouble when things get moderately challenging."

One of the best reasons to have a winch on your TJ, especially if you four wheel at all alone. Ask me how I learned that lesson many years ago.

 

[sab]

Reading this thread, I think you were right, @BlueC - you just listed the wrong two types. The two types of Subaru owners are:

1. People who know what a Subaru can't do, and
2. The other 99.9% of Subaru owners.



Edited to add: I've owned the Subaru that I daily drive for 20 years next April (just turned 390k). I've never been stuck. Guess what group I'm in?

Ain't she a beaut, Clark?

 

[sab]

As a near-20 year Subaru owner, I've learned they are capable, but they are not wonder-vehicles, and they are prone to head gasket failures, but they can run for thousands of miles after a head gasket fails. Consumer Reports is full of crap - they are no more reliable than any other modern vehicle. What I like about them is, until recently, they used the same parts year after year (like our TJs!), so parts are plentiful and cheap when you do need to fix them. Except pistons for my 98 2.2L, for some reason. Impossible to get new, either OEM or aftermarket...

Driven wisely, they are pretty capable cars that rarely leave you stranded.

 

[AzJeff]

There's a saying in the overlanding world that no matter where you go someone has already been there in an old Corolla. Maybe Subie offroaders have heard it.

 

[BlueC]

I've owned the Subaru that I daily drive for 20 years next April (just turned 390k). I've never been stuck. Guess what group I'm in?

Ain't she a beaut, Clark?

390K miles is impressive. I'd keep driving it, maybe give her a little spit-shine. Can I assume that's with no major work? That model Subaru looks like the one that I mentioned the owner couldn't keep a manual transmission in.

 

[B1Toad]

Reading this thread, I think you were right, @BlueC - you just listed the wrong two types. The two types of Subaru owners are:

1. People who know what a Subaru can't do, and
2. The other 99.9% of Subaru owners.



Edited to add: I've owned the Subaru that I daily drive for 20 years next April (just turned 390k). I've never been stuck. Guess what group I'm in?

Ain't she a beaut, Clark?
View attachment 439790

Those are the kind of cars you can snuggle right up close to the $90K BMW that parks on the white line.

 

[BlueC]

There's a saying in the overlanding world that no matter where you go someone has already been there in an old Corolla. Maybe Subie offroaders have heard it.

I've done more time/miles off-road in Civics and Integras than many of these fancy "over-lander" rigs. Maybe we should all get old beater cars and see how far they can go with decent tires?

 

[B1Toad]

I've done more time/miles off-road in Civics and Integras than many of these fancy "over-lander" rigs. Maybe we should all get old beater cars and see how far they can go with decent tires?

My first off road vehicle was a Datsun pickup with boards and a shovel in the back.

 

[sab]

390K miles is impressive. I'd keep driving it, maybe give her a little spit-shine. Can I assume that's with no major work? That model Subaru looks like the one that I mentioned the owner couldn't keep a manual transmission in.

Yes, it feels impressive to me. No, not without major work. It does have a manual transmission, and they are fragile. I'm on #3, and I'm gonna have to pull it again because it's popping out of fifth when the load changes directions (accelerating and let off mainly) currently. I'm on the third transmission and fourth clutch. I completely rebuilt the engine (down to split cases) back in fall of 2021 at 363k. Everything looked beautiful inside, but the head gasket had failed. Failure mode was external oil leaks initially (just kept adding oil and drove it for thousands of miles because I had too many other projects at the time).

Finally, it started pressurizing the cooling system. I drive about 30 miles one way to work and then back every day. For a few months, I just kept adding coolant, and then finally decided to rebuild it when I was adding coolant twice a day. There was one bad deal with driving it with the bad head gasket so long. One of the heads was "welded" to the block via corrosion around the head bolts. I ended up getting a little western pulling it off, cracking the block in the process. I ended up having my rural neighbor, who builds hopped-up V8s in his home shop full-time, weld-repair and deck the block, as well as do a valve job on the heads. I replaced all the bearings in the engine. I replaced wrist pins and bearings, but I couldn't find new OEM or aftermarket pistons anywhere, so I cleaned them up and they are still in there! I have 27k on it since the rebuild now.

The engine seems very well-designed, and durable, sans the head gasket issue. That's a tough one to solve because it's due to the vertical head gaskets. Oil, slightly acidic from combustion by-products, sits in the head and slowly eats away at the gaskets and the block and head surfaces. The pooling of the oil in that area drives it in between. Subaru has tried at least three different head gaskets over the years. One of them (I think the 2nd one they tried) was horrible. The other two are about the same. They work, but only for so long.

The manual transmission in mine has definitely been fragile. Clutches aren't weak. The reason I've had four of them is I put new clutches in every time I change transmissions, even though they didn't need to be replaced, with one exception. I had one aftermarket clutch fail, but it may have been my fault. Assembly didn't go well...

Other than the manual transmission problems, and the head gasket problem, I've had no major issues. Everything else is pretty bomber on the thing.

 

[Westtown Willy]

Well, I’m neither a lesbian nor middle-aged, and I live a mile off public roads, so definitely not a suburbanite. We currently own two Subarus, so there are definitely more than just two types

ha yup, I'm in whatever that third group is. Currently on my third subie which hits 10 years old this coming spring with a skosh north of 100k which is normally when I'd offload it for a new ride but given all the upheaval in the automotive world I think I'm just gonna lay low & ride this thing off into the sunset. It's just old enough that it has no 'monitors', just an analog dial radio, no 'sensors' to tell me what I'm doing wrong & so forth, pretty much one of the last of its breed. I want an EV about as much as I want a new ICE car with an 18 inch computer monitor welded to the dashboard, & they're about your only two choices now for new cars. Other option is to buy a used car, but I already own one of them & I know the owner, he's an asshole but takes pretty good care of his cars

Sub's are great cars, certainly not TJ capable but far more capable than any other 'car', so they occupy some kind of middle ground between the two. I love the Crosstrek's stock ground clearance, something like 8 inches-ish, I can drive over curbs & other shit that would do some damage to most cars, & as hard as I've intentionally tried to get it stuck in snow/ice I've not been successful, fun as hell to drive through twisty country back roads too. I've never had a real urge to take it 'off-road', pretty sure that would end poorly. I suppose I could doll it up with a lift, some skids & ATs, but what would be the point, it still wouldn't approach the capability of the other thing I drive

 

[sab]

Those are the kind of cars you can snuggle right up close to the $90K BMW that parks on the white line.

That advantage works on the road, too. I've used it when merging many times. I know how to properly merge onto an interstate highway, unlike most of the drivers in my area. I find a gap, match speeds, and slip in without causing other drivers to accelerate or decelerate. Unfortunately, I occasionally get drivers who, when I speed up to get into the gap ahead of them, decide to speed up and close that gap. They're expectation is that I slam on my brakes and get behind them, but that proves more disruptive to the flow of traffic, so I continue unabated, in a game of "chicken." Those drivers look at my car and realize that I really don't care if I add another ding or too, and they always stop accelerating! Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

 

[OldBuzzard]

That advantage works on the road, too. I've used it when merging many times. I know how to properly merge onto an interstate highway, unlike most of the drivers in my area. I find a gap, match speeds, and slip in without causing other drivers to accelerate or decelerate. Unfortunately, I occasionally get drivers who, when I speed up to get into the gap ahead of them, decide to speed up and close that gap. They're expectation is that I slam on my brakes and get behind them, but that proves more disruptive to the flow of traffic, so I continue unabated, in a game of "chicken." Those drivers look at my car and realize that I really don't care if I add another ding or too, and they always stop accelerating! Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

Yep, there are certain advantages to an old rust bucket without a straight section of sheet metal anywhere. I always wanted to weld up some ugly rusty I-beam bumpers, just to add to the effect. With maybe some railroad spikes welded on, just for fun.

 

[Westtown Willy]

That advantage works on the road, too. I've used it when merging many times. I know how to properly merge onto an interstate highway, unlike most of the drivers in my area. I find a gap, match speeds, and slip in without causing other drivers to accelerate or decelerate. Unfortunately, I occasionally get drivers who, when I speed up to get into the gap ahead of them, decide to speed up and close that gap. They're expectation is that I slam on my brakes and get behind them, but that proves more disruptive to the flow of traffic, so I continue unabated, in a game of "chicken." Those drivers look at my car and realize that I really don't care if I add another ding or too, and they always stop accelerating! Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

dude that shit works in reverse too, you've seen the phenomenon where you're the one on the highway & there's a car flying up the on-ramp matching your speed but a few feet ahead so in your mind they're gonna tuck in right in front of you which is where you want them, but then suddenly when it's time for them to make their move their balls shrivel up & they don't, so you slow a bit to make it clearer they oughta tuck in but they then slow even more, fucks up the flow of everything - idiots

then sometimes you get the next level dopes that do the above routine to the point where you say fuck it & re-accelerate followed by them all of a sudden accelerating & you end up in a horse race, with them in the shoulder

Jesus Christ some people can't drive worth a shit

 

[Bobohunter1776]

dude that shit works in reverse too, you've seen the phenomenon where you're the one on the highway & there's a car flying up the on-ramp matching your speed but a few feet ahead so in your mind they're gonna tuck in right in front of you which is where you want them, but then suddenly when it's time for them to make their move their balls shrivel up & they don't, so you slow a bit to make it clearer they oughta tuck in but they then slow even more, fucks up the flow of everything - idiots

then sometimes you get the next level dopes that do the above routine to the point where you say fuck it & re-accelerate followed by them all of a sudden accelerating & you end up in a horse race, with them in the shoulder

Jesus Christ some people can't drive worth a shit

It works until you have the shortest and steepest ramp ever merging into the fast lane on I-70 in a brick on wheels. I would love to have a chat with the fucktard who designed that whole section of I-70.

 

[sab]

dude that shit works in reverse too, you've seen the phenomenon where you're the one on the highway & there's a car flying up the on-ramp matching your speed but a few feet ahead so in your mind they're gonna tuck in right in front of you which is where you want them, but then suddenly when it's time for them to make their move their balls shrivel up & they don't, so you slow a bit to make it clearer they oughta tuck in but they then slow even more, fucks up the flow of everything - idiots

then sometimes you get the next level dopes that do the above routine to the point where you say fuck it & re-accelerate followed by them all of a sudden accelerating & you end up in a horse race, with them in the shoulder

Jesus Christ some people can't drive worth a shit

Yes, I've experienced both scenarios - too many times to count! The worst is when said idiot lays on the horn and then flips you off! In my younger years, I'd take offense to that and possibly reciprocate with the "you're number one" sign, but that can get you shot nowdays. I just shake my head and ignore them. You can't fix stupid, as they say, and our society seems hell-bent on producing more and more stupid adults.

 

[sab]

It works until you have the shortest and steepest ramp ever merging into the fast lane on I-70 in a brick on wheels. I would love to have a chat with the fucktard who designed that whole section of I-70.

Well, as a mechanical-turned-civil engineer who now designs infrastructure for a living, I can say that sometimes we fucktards have to work within a budget. I don't work in the mountains, but anytime we have challenging topography to deal with, costs go up very quickly. For instance, an on-ramp for the situation you describe could quite literally cost a billion dollars to build (moving rock mountains is very costly), as opposed to the 10 million or so that it did cost.

 

[Bobohunter1776]

Well, as a mechanical-turned-civil engineer who now designs infrastructure for a living, I can say that sometimes we fucktards have to work within a budget. I don't work in the mountains, but anytime we have challenging topography to deal with, costs go up very quickly. For instance, an on-ramp for the situation you describe could quite literally cost a billion dollars to build (moving rock mountains is very costly), as opposed to the 10 million or so that it did cost.

That's a fair point. But it's a 20 mile stretch of highway that was designed like that. Bottlenecks to 2 lanes right before the speed limit drops from 55 to 65 into a bunch of curves. They're just now redoing that section after decades. It is one of the biggest issues with traffic on the entire front range.

 

[zebra12]

In the fall of 2017, I needed a basic/cheap/efficient car. I was commuting from Oregon to Seattle and back every week. I started out looking at Fits and Corollas. Then, I stumbled onto a Subaru dealership lot and figured out for $3k more I could buy a 2018 Crosstrek, so I bought one.

The Crosstrek is still in my vehicle stable, and it has 130k on it now. I put some mountain/snowflake rated all season Goodyear tires on it, and I'm amazed at how well it does in the snow and rain. I would never admit this to my tree hugging, hippie Oregonian neighbors, but I really like the Crosstrek. It gets 30-32 mpg in mixed driving and has been problem free so far (knock on wood).

 

[BlueC]

Yes, it feels impressive to me. No, not without major work. It does have a manual transmission, and they are fragile. I'm on #3, and I'm gonna have to pull it again because it's popping out of fifth when the load changes directions (accelerating and let off mainly) currently. I'm on the third transmission and fourth clutch. I completely rebuilt the engine (down to split cases) back in fall of 2021 at 363k. Everything looked beautiful inside, but the head gasket had failed. Failure mode was external oil leaks initially (just kept adding oil and drove it for thousands of miles because I had too many other projects at the time).

Finally, it started pressurizing the cooling system. I drive about 30 miles one way to work and then back every day. For a few months, I just kept adding coolant, and then finally decided to rebuild it when I was adding coolant twice a day. There was one bad deal with driving it with the bad head gasket so long. One of the heads was "welded" to the block via corrosion around the head bolts. I ended up getting a little western pulling it off, cracking the block in the process. I ended up having my rural neighbor, who builds hopped-up V8s in his home shop full-time, weld-repair and deck the block, as well as do a valve job on the heads. I replaced all the bearings in the engine. I replaced wrist pins and bearings, but I couldn't find new OEM or aftermarket pistons anywhere, so I cleaned them up and they are still in there! I have 27k on it since the rebuild now.

The engine seems very well-designed, and durable, sans the head gasket issue. That's a tough one to solve because it's due to the vertical head gaskets. Oil, slightly acidic from combustion by-products, sits in the head and slowly eats away at the gaskets and the block and head surfaces. The pooling of the oil in that area drives it in between. Subaru has tried at least three different head gaskets over the years. One of them (I think the 2nd one they tried) was horrible. The other two are about the same. They work, but only for so long.

The manual transmission in mine has definitely been fragile. Clutches aren't weak. The reason I've had four of them is I put new clutches in every time I change transmissions, even though they didn't need to be replaced, with one exception. I had one aftermarket clutch fail, but it may have been my fault. Assembly didn't go well...

Other than the manual transmission problems, and the head gasket problem, I've had no major issues. Everything else is pretty bomber on the thing.

Well, she's still going, but it's taken a lot more work/maintenance than I’d be willing to put into it. I had heard that Subarus were rather expensive and high maintenance. Your experience seems to fall in line with what I've been told. Either way you've come this far so keep going.