marcon

Thank you for your help. I'll do the searches you suggest and learn as much as I can! FWIW, I took out a 4 cyl for a drive today and wasn't as impressed. Maybe I should have taken it out before the six. Still a nice solid car, but needed a little more torque to move the OB around IMHO. I noticed the 4 seemed to have a little stiffer ride than the 6, but also seemed to handle a little better. I guess that's the trade-off for the increased weight over the front wheels. I did notice the 4 had a bit of a rough idle - almost felt a little imbalanced. Is that common for the flat 4s or just a symptom of this particular vehicle? The battery needed a boost to start it, so maybe it had to relearn its idle. (?) Anyways... the search and the education continues. Thanks again.

Hi folks, I'm a newbie here from eastern Canada with a few questions for all the Subaru owners of this forum: My wife and I have just started looking for a used car, and happened to drive a 03 Outback H6. This was the first Subaru I have ever driven and I was impressed by its smoothness and ride, as well as its overall solid feel. Because of that test drive, I'm now wanting to learn a little more about these cars, to help me decide if there will be a Subaru in our driveway in the future. I just found this forum, and have been reading some of the posts. It appears, from what I've read, that they are generally good reliable cars, but not without their quirks. The head gasket issue scares me a little bit, and I'm curious about the reliability of the all wheel drive system. Can anybody offer me some advice? I'm basically looking at 02 - 07 Legacy-based Outback, but a Legacy sedan in that year range wouldn't be out of the question either. How is the reliability of the 6 cyl vs the 4 cyl engines? Any problems with the auto trans? How about rust issues in the salty northeast... will I expect to see rust after a few years... or are they well protected? I'm impressed with the feeling and the utility of the Outback, as well as the possible offroad capabilities (although truthfully I probably wouldn't use that much) which translates hopefully into good performance in deep snow, which we can get a lot of up here in Canada. However, I've noticed that they can be quite expensive, like 20 grand for an 03 with 80,000 kms and lots of dings and scrapes and interior damage. I can get a very nice low mileage Accord for that money (currently driving a 98 Accord, which we've had virtually no problems with - it's been a great car and the only reason we're thinking of trading is its age). Are Subarus priced like that everywhere, or is it just in my small part of the world? Any advice or comments are welcome, and thank you in advance!