Eight-year Subaru owner, first time Subaru board poster

[prwood]

Hello all!

 

My family purchased a 2002 Subaru Legacy L Wagon (2.5L engine) on July 3, 2007. This has been our primary "family" car for the past eight years, the one that my wife uses to drive around with the kids during the week and the one we take on trips. As of right now it has around 150,000 miles on it.

 

For a while we took it to dealers or local mechanics for any maintenance, but this started getting too expensive. For the past several years, my father-in-law and I have taken responsibility for most of the maintenance in order to save money. He has more experience with auto repair than I do, so I've been learning a lot. I still have plenty to learn, though.

 

This car, which my wife has nicknamed "Penelope," has been through a lot in the past eight years, including:

- having a blown head gasket due to an apparent manufacturing defect, replaced at half-price by Subaru dealer

- being hit in the left rear quarter panel by a semi at highway speeds

- being hit in the left front wheel by a charter tour bus at slow speeds

- forcefully ejecting a sparkplug from a cylinder a short while after I did my first sparkplug change (I undertightened it - I now have a torque wrench!)

 

For the past year or so it's been having a persistent issue with engine stuttering, which I'll probably post about soon. Overall, we love it for its cargo space, versatility, and AWD, but wish we could get the engine to behave better.

 

My main goal in joining this forum is to get the advice I need to help keep our car running smoothly (or as close to smooth as it gets), and perhaps share what I've learned along the way.

 

Looking forward to interacting with the community!

 

Peter

 

Photo from when we first bought her in 2007:

 

 

Photo from just last month on a ferry ride, loaded up with bikes and luggage: