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Subaru Impreza Outback Sport & TS
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First time driving my OBS on snow today. Not much fell but it drifted to cover the road in a few spots. No one was around so I tried out the AWD in the loose snow by using way more throttle than I normally would, from a standing start as well as when already moving. No problem at all. The rear end moved out a little bit when I accelerated hard from a stop but that was it. Very secure on the slushy roads today.
Nice to have the heated seats on a cold morning, and the defroster squiggle under the rear wiper works great. No more having to knock ice out of the wiper blade, although you still have to do it for the fronts. Great winter car.
-Dennis
-juice
-Dan-
-juice
-juice
-mike
-juice
Found a 1999 Impreza TS to look at with 108,000km,2.2litre engine,5spd,black,maitenance records and original owner from a Subaru dealer priced at $12,990 Canadian.
What do you think,would this be a good solid reliable car?Is the 2.2litre engine much different or more reliable than the boxer engine?Is it SOHC of DOHC?Rear brakes are drum correct?
Just need some info and tips gentleman(ladies too of course)!
Cheers!!!
DD
So what happened to the Probe? The beast die on you or something?
I have no idea if the price for the 1999 TS is good as figuring exchange rate differences gives me a headache. That said, if it were me, I wouldn't go for one that old. Lots of improvements have been made to the Impreza line that are important to me, such as full disc brakes, better engine, etc. Of course, YMMV. Since you wanted to wait till spring, I'm assuming you have no choice now. If you're just itching for a different car, I'd still wait till spring. Hey, you asked, right? Good luck.
-Dan-
lotboy - all the engines are boxers, including the former 2.2. Yes, the rear brakes are drums.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
My only concern would be the clutch. Try it out on a cold, damp day, see if it chatters. Even then, a new ACT clutch is $400 or less.
-juice
Just have to cross my fingers I guess and use my good judgement.
Buying cars is not easy sometimes is it guys?
DD
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
The 2.2l, I'm not sure.
-juice
The '96 Impreza's 2.2L SOHC engine has 156K miles on it, and I've had it for about the last 1500 miles. Of those last 1500 miles, it has been tracked for all of them. That little 2.2L with 155K miles doesn't burn any oil even doing 1hr sessions on track at nearly redline the whole time! My dad's '97 Legacy L has 95 K miles and the 2.2L motor is still going strong.
-mike
I just love this car I tell you.I have 1500km on it now and it is almost broken in.The finance rate was good so I went for it,a little earlier than I wanted but the Probe would have costed me a fair amount till spring to keep up until when I originally planned to buy new.Plus I got deferred payments for 3 months interest covered by Subaru and $500.00 of accesories for free.This was a 3 day incentive here in Ontario Canada.
I am happy and can't wait to go outside and look at my car!!!
Have a good weekend gentleman and thankyou very much for your ongoing advice and comments.I have learned tons since I signed up on this site in September 2003.
Cheers...
DD
PS-damish003,did you get my email I sent you last week?
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
DD
PS-Hope your cars are doing well!
I'm at about 2800 km on my 2004. On the fuel economy front my last two tanks have been 22 mpg (US) which I consider decent considering my frequent short trips, and that the car's still pretty new, all using winter gas.
-juice
On a sad note, my 04 OBS was rear-ended about a week and a half ago. 11k in damage, with parts and labor combined. Look under "Members II" if interested in the details. I should get it back mid-January.
The strength of the car is fantastic. They figure I got rear-ended at 40+ mhp, by a big Dodge Ram pick-up. I walked away just fine, no whiplash or anything. The active headrest does its job, no doubt.
I hope everyone feels confident in the safety of their Impreza's, as they really do the job.
-Dan-
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Just bought a used 02 OBS two weeks ago. Really like the car so far. Has a couple problems, but I knew they were there when I bought it & expect them to be corrected under warranty soon. But to my question. having just bought the car, I was looking on E-Bay to see if there might be any aftermarket goodies I might want to buy for it. There seems to be an awful lot of replacement headlight bulbs ( listed as xenon ) that claim to really improve the vision at night. A couple things here. I live in an area with no street lights & a lot of trees. So it's very dark. The stock lights are pretty good, but compared with our other car ( 02 Mazda millenia S ), they are lacking. But I do think the Subaru guys know what they're doing & gave the car the correct lights for the design. Buttttt has anybody installed these aftermarket xenon bulbs? If so, how well did they work? I'm also suspicious because I think that xenon option on cars that it can be ordered with is over $1,000. These replacement bulbs are about $10.
Thanks
Fred
There are a lot of opinions on this subject... here's mine:
IMO: Avoid any blue tinted bulbs, and in general anything that claims, "HID look" or "Xenon look".
I have used Sylvania Xtravisions in my OB. They did seem to be better than the stock ones, not a huge difference, but maybe 10-20% better. Very similar color temperature to OEM, but brighter. However, they lasted only 10 months or so. Yes, I installed correctly, didn't touch the bulb, etc.
So, carry a spare if you go aftermarket.
utahsteve
I stay away from those. They are likely to be the "Xenon" wannabe as utahsteve had described.
They only look brighter when you're looking at the headlights. Their illumination... worse than OEM.
Your $ would be better spent, in your case would be, investing in a set of auxilary lights. Would cost more than the $10 bulbs, but it does help in very dark places and a good insurance for spare bulb on the fly should the headlights go out in the middle of driving.
-Dave
Thanks for the advice. My gut feeling was to steer clear. I'll do that for sure now.
Fred
I'm using Philips' +50% VisionPlus in my 2004 low beams. The light colour is slightly whiter than stock, and they put out noticeably more light.
But...the catch? They lasted about a year, no longer than that. I had 2 pairs, in my Miata and in my Forester, not one of the 4 bulbs lasted longer than 14 months. And at $28 or so per pair, delivered, it didn't seem worth it. Stock bulbs usually last 5 years or longer.
So, just budget for that, or maybe get 2 pairs, one a spare set. Or even just carry the stock bulbs in the glove box if the new ones, which burn hotter, fail early.
I've heard more positive reviews of the Phillips bulbs mentioned above, but soured on the idea of having to swap them out every year, not knowing where I'd be when they blew out.
-juice
A while back I bought some Sylvania Silverstars, I just had to try them out. Here's two links that show them vs. OEM:
http://users.sisna.com/ignatius/subaru/mods/bulbs.jpg
http://users.sisna.com/ignatius/subaru/mods/compare.jpg
They do have a very subtle blue tint that couldn't really be seen in the package, so I got suckered in by the marketing. I wish I would've stuck with the Xtravisions at half the price and better performance IMO.
The problem: The whiter light is a *little* brighter, at least it looks like it is because it's more like daylight, but causes more glare in heavy snow. Haven't tried them in rain but I've heard the problem is the same. A yellower light tends to be better in inclement weather, IMO.
utahsteve
There's been a lot of debate about the Sylvania Silverstars (different than the Osrams) on other Subaru boards I follow. A lot of people who use the Silverstars like them, but the main selling point seems to be the colour, and they're advertised by Sylvania as having 'the look of HID'. Ultimately the blue tint reduces the light output so I know they're not for me.
The VisionPlus bulbs have a blue-tinted end to whiten the light slightly, I assume, but most of the bulb is clear so they're still almost identical to the stock colour. I read a lot of positive comments about them before I got them, and I've found they give me a bright, even beam pattern.
I wonder if the same principle could be extrapolated to the Subaru 2.5L engine. It too has a high compression ratio of 10:1 and the official power output of 165HP/166lbs/ft of Torque, is measured with regular fuel (for marketing reasons ??). Companies rate such high compression engines as able to run with regular fuel, mainly by using sophisticated knock sensors and retarding the timing (to prevent knocking), thus holding back the true output of the engine. If this is true, then the 2.5L engine may really be capable of generating more with premium. If so, then the 2.5L engine could theoretically generate 175+HP and 180lbs/ft of torque, if filled with premium fuel, with absolutely no other changes ! Just a thought.
Later...AH
Also, the difference from 9.7:1 and 10:1 isn't low to high compression. If you went from say 8.5:1 to 10:1 then you'd have a significant compression increase. Use the lowest grade that doesn't detonate or ping that is still at least the grade recommended by the manufacturer.
Keep the other money in your pocket. Or figure out the difference, say 15 gallons at 20 cents is $3. Put three dollars in a cookie jar. Every fill up put the difference in the jar. Once a year go out and eat steak and spend a night in a nice hotel with your significant other.
The gain from using premium with such adaptive engines was only a few horsepower.
My 2001 VW knocked on regular, ran fine on midgrade (manual called for premium even though it was normally aspirated). My V6 Mustang knocked on regular, runs fine on midgrade. My 2.3 PZEV Focus halls monkey butt on just plain regular. I haven't tried upgrading the fuel, it's too costly.
It takes a tank or two to learn, so don't judge the change on one tank of gas.
In think the rated horsepower was based on regular. At least they haven't been sued yet for overstating horsepower, like Ford, Mazda, and Hyundai (anyone else?).
As an aside, I was driving a Lincoln Mk VII at the time. It would knock under heavy throttle. I couldn't run anything but premium even though it was supposed to run on regular. He told me to fill it with Texaco premium and put a silver bottle of STP in. He said run a total of 5 tanks of Texaco premium through it and then switch to Texaco regular. I did that and for the remainder of the time I owned it I never had a problem again while running Texaco regular. It was a few cents higher than other stations regular but much less than the premium I'd been buying.
Texaco and Chevron, at that time which was 1993-4, both put the amount of cleaner and other additives in all their grades that were mandated for premium. That made the lower grades run cleaner. That's what kept me running ok on the Texaco regular.
Maybe all coincidence but it worked then and I believe he told me the truth on it all. Since then I don't go any higher than the manufacturer calls for and I'll run a silver bottle of STP through if I need to.
YMMV
Experts swear up and down that advancing the timing to 14 degrees before (4 degrees earlier) increase HP by 3-5 or so. The risk? It might start to ping. But dyno charts prove the timing advance gives you more torque.
I did just that. With the same 87 octane, I don't get pining, so I still gained the same HP anyone else would, even if they used 93 octane and I didn't. So premium fuel did not result in HP, timing advance did.
Some go as far as 18 degrees before top dead center. The interesting thing here is that you MUST use premium fuel at that timing, but at that point you get diminishing returns, i.e. no noticeable increase in power beyond 14 degrees.
OK, follow me for just a minute here.
Now let's apply this to Subaru's ECU. A fresh ECU with no memory will run rich and start the timing probably conservatively. They don't want it to ping off the bat.
Timing is advanced until the knock sensor says "that's enough" and the ECU learns how far to advance the timing. Note that this is ever-changing, due to altitude and conditions. My Miata does ping under a strong load, but only a little.
So the Subie can potentially make more and more power if conditions are right, even with 87 octane. I guess it depends on when pinging would begin to occur.
But...Subaru tunes the ECU of the 2.5l to run on 87 octane, so I doubt it would benefit from any more than that. In other words, it's probably not pinging at the ideal setting for spark timing with regular fuel.
The H6 is tuned for premium, the ECU and cams (and who knows what else) can take better advantage of even more timing advance, so it makes more power with 93 octane. Supposedly 212hp with 93 octane, 208hp with 87 octane.
-juice
In fact quite a few companies freely advertise that their cars "can run" with regular fuel with a slight degradation in performance and power, over the recommended Premium. What this means is that with the lower octane fuel, the EMS retards timing below the knock threshold, allowing the car to run with regular fuel but at a power level below the advertised one. This generally happens with premium priced vehicles like Luxury branded nameplates like Acura, Lexus, Infiniti, BMW, Mercedes etc.
Interestingly, the 2.4L DOHC i-VTEC 4-cylinder engine in the Honda Accord generates 161 HP (with regular fuel) while the similar 2.4L DOHC i-VTEC 4-cylinder engine in the Acura TSX (European Honda Accord) generates 200HP with "mandatory" Premium fuel. Of course the compression ratio of the TSX engine is higher at 10.5 while the Accord version is lower at 9.7.
I was just speculating whether the Subaru engines also gain from a higher octane fuel, specifically due to their relatively higher compression ratio. A compression ratio of 10.0:1 for the 2.5L Subaru engine is fairly high, and is definitely something that can take advantage of premium fuel, even though you do find engines nowadays with 10.5 and 11.0 compression ratios.
Later...AH
In fact I know so - Honda also has a variant of this engine tuned to run on regular fuel that makes exactly 190hp! CR-V owners are asking for this engine to make it into that car.
-juice
Thanks,
Tuckerdog
-juice