Stoneman

107,000 miles, another set of head gaskets, another timing belt. Mostly covered by the manufacturer. Thanks again to Manchester Soob. And yes. Regular scheduled maintenance intervals, and the dealership has record of these. This is mostly why they stepped up to the plate and went to Soob corp to see if they'd cover it. Again, still very disappointed... Lost count of how many brake jobs it's been through. But brakes seem to be the week link on a ton of newer vehicles these days. Cheaper materials to keep everyone's costs down, I guess... Oh! It held up suprisingly well when I hit the deer just before Thanksgiving! Only $4000 worth of damage! Was still able to put a coupla hundred miles on it after 'the incident'. Still suprised at how well it kept it's own in THAT battle!

Wow Dave! The similarities with our vehicles is astounding! Must be all that damned commuting to Manch, eh? Man, I'd love to NOT hafta go to Manch every friggin' day... When they did the head gaskets, they thought it best at the time to also do the timing belt. Didn't say anything to me about the water pump though. Guess I'll start keeping an eye on that then too. Do the water pumps on these have those little 'fail holes' that I'm used to with my Chevy 350's? Or is this another wunna Soob's 'wait til it fails' sorta deals? I've said since I got this thing that it'd be my 'quarter million mile car'. Sad that it's failing at 60K. Would *I* recommend one? Never, not in a million years... Again though, Manchester Soob's service manager (Sal) did the upright thing by taking up my issues (and getting them mostly covered) by Soob... I won't even get into what a joke the salesman was when I bought it. I SWEAR it was his first CAR sales job. Didn't know squat about vehicles, and couldn't understand what I meant when I told him I didn't care what color I got. It's a longer story than that, and definitely funny... Best was when he was braggin' about the horsepower of that little 4 knocker. He thought I was some kinda daredevil when I told him that my streetbike has almost as much! Yeah, he was a tool...

Quick background: 2001 Outback wagon, 62,300 miles, 4 cyl... At 55,000 miles, the brakes disintegrated without warning. One day they were fine, no shaking, no fade, no degredation what so ever. Next day, gone. Toast... At 60,000 miles, blown head gasket. After some serious pissing and moaning, Subaru decided to cover the cost seeing as the car was only a bit over 2 years old. (I didn't get the extended warranty). Big kudos go to the service manager at the local stealership for stepping up for me like that.... At 62, 300 miles (now), the tranny pump goes on my way to work. Yip, tranny is now toast. Naturally, it's not covered at this point and Soob wants ungodly amounts of money to remove & replace. After some more serious bitching, Soob offers to pay 2/3 of the replacement costs. The 1/3 I hafta shell out is less than any local shop will charge me. Once again, big kudos to the service manager for taking this up with Soob... Now I didn't just go out one day and decide I wanted to get an Outback. I did my homework and researched this purchase. Commuting roughly 500 miles a week to & from work in New Hampshire, the Soob seemed like a no brainer. Safety, reliability, decent mileage, and longevity were all issues that the Soob seemed to handle well... Up until a few months ago, I woulda considered myself a Soob owner for life. THAT'S how happy I was with it. Even after the brake incident, I still felt confident in my decision to go with the Outback. The head gasket issue is when I started to get a bit concerned. I've put many miles on many vehicles and NEVER would I expect to run into an issue like this so early in a vehicle's life. The fact that Soob covered the repair eased my mind a bit. But it doesn't negate the fact that there's obviously a problem here... Then the tranny goes a mere 2000 miles later. Makes no sense to me to be having THESE kinds of problems this soon with a vehicle that's supposed to be so damned reliable. Typically, the stealership denies any inherent problems of these sorts and assures me these are isolated incidents... Still owing a few thousand $$ on this thing, I'm a bit concerned about what it'll cost me to keep this thing running now. Can any of you please shed some light here for me? What else can I expect to be failing next? Any common big ticket repairs I should be bracing myself for next? Needless to say, I can't be more disappointed with the Outback. I'm almost certain this'll be the last Subaru I'll ever own... Thanks for listening, thanks in advance for any info you can provide...