99 Forester "blown engine" Worth $$?

[Fairtax4me]

Might buy this car. Dunno if I want to keep it (black isn't my favored color), but it depends on what kind of shape it's in. I might drive it for a while and resell it, who knows.

99 Forester, MT, 200k. Black on black/dark grey.

It was apparently taken on a two and a half hour trip, and something happened to the engine. Owner had it towed all the way back to c'ville. (roughly 165 miles, talk about an expensive bill ) Have not seen the car in person but am told it is in decent shape body wise. Hoping to know more about what happened and get a location for the car to go look at it sometime this weekend or early next week.

 

I was wondering if any of you "flippers" here have an idea of what these are worth? And what you might offer for one depending on condition?

[idosubaru]

200,000 miles? i'd offer $500. i don't know if the foresters have a lower demand or what but getting basically zero interest on a 2000 forester with 150,000 miles. a legacy would be gone by now i'd think...sold two 98 legacy's this year no problem....both to the first test drivers.

[WRX2FFU]

Agree.

[davebugs]

I've redone and sold a decent amount of Subaru's mostly 95-99.

 

The only one that was very unpleasant was a 99 Forester - first year for the 2.5 SOHC. 2 replacement engines later (including a total of 4 engine pulls, several sets of head gaskets, seals, etc. Considering how many Outbacks and Legacy's I've done, less Imprezaa's and maybe a handful fof Foresters. The Foresters ave always turned out to be the biggest problems themselves, parts, etc. Their owners seem to be the most difficult to deal with for some reason as well.

 

Doesn't seem to be the market for the Foresters for me. And that's fine with me based on my experiences with them.

[Mike104]

I've owned both a '99 Forester and a '99 OBW. I have to say that I like the OBW much better than the Forester. The wagon has more inside room and is nicer to drive. It may have been that the Forester was a base model and the OBW is a Limited with heated leather seats, but I much prefer the OBW.

 

If I had the space, tools and time I would consider buying the Forester with the thought of keeping it as another car. Most of the other comments from those that are in the business seem to not have had much luck with the Forester. I was told that the Forester was based on the Impreza platform not the OBW.

 

Near me the 95-99 prices are nuts. Saw this '93 for $750 that was not a bad price but may need a transmision: http://columbus.craigslist.org/cto/2040134718.html

Edited November 11, 2010 by Mike104

[davebugs]

The Forester is basically an overgrowm Impreza rather than a Legacy. That said there are still a lot of common parts. Engines are interchangable, rear stubs, etc.

 

Biggest obvious thing under the hood is simple. It has an Impreza rediator (cap on passenger side).

[allwheeldad]

I bought a 99 Forester this summer with blown HG's for $900.00 CDN. It has just over 200K kms (130k miles?) and auto trans. The reason I bought this particular car was the owner produced the past five years of service history, all of it at the dealership, and she was anal about having EVERYTHING replaced that failed. Given the relatively low mileage and documented service history I felt 900 was reasonable. I like the car for its' shorter wheel base than the Outback, yet it is still more utilitarian than either of my Legacys. Driving them is a completely different story though. Come on to the gas in the forester and the rear end squats right down with a pretty wicked weight transfer and corners are a far slower affair as well. I'm not in the flipping game at all but in my area I see way more outbacks than anything else. But the ones I do see for sale in the same kind of shape as mine aren't really going for much more than what I paid for the car and parts to fix it, so either they haven't toasted their hg's yet or there isn't that great a market for them.

[Ricearu]

i like our 98 foz, ample head room and heated leather rocks your butt lol, I for one enjoy it.

[Fairtax4me]

I was told that the Forester was based on the Impreza platform not the OBW.

All of the documentation I can find says exactly this. But the differences between the three are still minimal. Lots of parts interchange, and the ones that don't directly swap generally will after very little modification.

 

I thought I had put in a snippet about the local market, guess I cut it out somehow. Anyway I did do some checking around for other Foresters in the area. Of the few there are, asking prices are all over the map, many of them insanely high. Blue book says it might be worth $900 or $2500 depending on trim and condition, and which site you look on.

 

I was thinking $500 myself, just wasn't sure if anyone else was paying less for these. For resale, the best I can come up with is between $1500 and $2000, again depending condition and trim. (Obviously an S model would have more "goodies" and might fetch a bit more.) That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for profit after the fact.

With 200k on a manual trans, pretty good bet the synchros are worn, will have some wonderful noises starting to come from the bearings and diff, and will probably need a clutch. Plus stuff like wheel bearings, struts, brakes? He did say it had "new" tires though.

 

Thanks, I really appreciate the input guys. Any other thoughts ( like some other major issue I might be forgetting), I'm all ears.