About to trade for a 2001 H6 Outback, what should I look for?

[Arvex]

Good to know. That alone tells me I should avoid '01 models unless I'm buying them with the intent to fix/replace the transmission at some point.

[Subaru Scott]

What a bunch of candy rump roast crybabies 

 

"Oh, Bluto, I don't know, we might get in trouble or something!"

 

Here's how you tow an SVX:

 

 

That rig just has an EJ22 with almost 500k miles on it and I tow trailers weekly. Sure with a load like that it's 50 mph in 4th at max, but that's once in a blue moon. OK, realistically, that was WAY too much to try and tow safely, especially for a four hour trip. But the point is you don't need big hp to pull a trailer, especially on flat ground. Stopping is what you need to be concerned with! As was said before, take your time, be careful, and use common sense. Keep your eyes focused as far down the road as you can. If you even think you might have to slow down ahead, slow down now!! If you just need to pull an SVX on a dolly a couple of times a year on flat ground, there is no reason you can't do it with even a 4 cylinder Outback or Baja. Get the car you want. Use it! It's a Subaru 

 

[Bushwick]

ANY towing with an auto SHOULD have an external (aftermarket is fine) trans cooler preferably with a small fan, and try and avoid letting it go into overdrive (either button lock out or move shifter into "3" when cruising; no idea what those have). The higher the mileage, the more important the cooler is, unless you want early slippage and eventual failure. 

 

The 2nd important area needing addressed is the rear suspension, as the more weight, the more it'll droop. Air bag rears are ideal as they'll auto-level.

 

As long as the hitch assembly is rated to the weight, and the rear can handle the extra weight (usually 75-100 pounds for assembly, + trailer weight) and the trans can remain cool and your brakes are EXCELLENT i.e. fresh pads and rotors, you should be able to pull anything.

 

If I were you though, I'd either buy a cheap truck with a tow package, or find something to run as a dedicated tow vehicle.

 

EDIT: I'd also carfax anything I plan on towing with

Edited April 22, 2017 by Bushwick

[Subaru Scott]

Yes, thanks, I forgot to mention having a good cooler for an automatic. What I've read on this forum and others is the 4EAT can be extremely durable even for off road/canyon crawling if you keep them cool. They got a bad reputation when first introduced because the factory cooling tube in the radiator would clog with band material and cause overheating. They installed filters in 91, I believe, to fix that. But a good aftermarket cooler installed in front of the radiator/condenser is cheap and will definitely keep that auto under the car and off the bench! Have one on my 94 SVX with almost 200k, and the tranny shows no signs of slipping.

 

And yes, if I had my dithers, I'd have a different vehicle for every day of the week! But, unfortunately, like most of us, I don't have the option of keeping multiple cars at my house. And even if I did, I wouldn't want to shell out the money to plate, and more importantly, redundantly insure every single vehicle,,, even though I can only drive ONE CAR AT A TIME!!!!

    ...don't get me started.

 

The other point I forgot to make is that tongue weight is normally completely adjustable, and up to your discretion. If you load your trailer right, where you can just pick up the tongue with one arm, till it clicks up against the ball, you got about 100-150 lbs tongue weight. If you have a car or boat on the trailer, move them accordingly. Easy. Too much, and your tow vehicle sags like a dog. Not enough, and it will wag like a water snake. 

Edited April 22, 2017 by Subaru Scott

[Arvex]

I'm not really worried about towing, anymore.

 

I've pretty much decided I'm going to buy a Baja after I sell the Passat. The problem is that I can't find anyone who wants it.

[matt167]

To clear it up for future readers... Tongue weight should be 10% of your total trailer mass to keep it from swaying. Run it too light, and you probably can't catch it once it starts wagging, and that can even flip a vehicle over.. To put a 3,500 lb car on a trailer, you would need 400 lbs on the tongue. With a hitch rated for 200 lbs... Don't do it. Pulling a little weight off the tongue would be ok, to move trailers or loads around a property, or very slowly. Emergency situation only, and then just call AAA

[Subaru Scott]

Well Matt, not sure who fed you that 10% rule, and not trying to start an argument, BUT ; I can speak from nearly 40 years of trailering experience that a fixed percentage of towing mass per tongue weight is completely invalid. I have personally experienced the "woo-woos" only twice in all the years I've towed. The first was when I had no idea what I was doing, and had zero or negative tongue weight, and the second was when I was in a hurry, letting others hitch up and tell me "Good to go!" As long as you have positive tongue weight, you shouldn't get the woo-woos. There are other factors involved, but in general I feel that tongue weight must be tailored to the tow vehicles capacity. Yes, more is better with a heavy trailer, but never overload the tow vehicle or hitch. In just the example of the picture I previously posted, I had every bit of 8000 pounds behind me, and damn sure had nowhere near 800 pounds of tongue weight! That tow vehicle has stock Outback struts. I pulled many, many trailers full of limestone with that much weight or more with the same vehicle for years when I was building stone walls. 

Here's another pic, same vehicle, different body. Pulled from Ft. Lauderdale to Charleston, SC. Had to pile as much weight as I could in the back of the boat just to get the tongue weight UNDER 200 pounds. Found out when I got there that all the foam under the floor was completely saturated with water. Was probably pushing 10,000...

[matt167]

Not to get into an argument either, but the 10% rule is widely accepted. It's in owners manuals, it's recommend by trailer manufactures, it's just pretty common knowladge. some people will even recommend more than 10%, but 10% is common math. Hitches rated for say 5,000 lbs will have a 500 lbs tongue weight rating.. Once you start pulling weight off the hitch to make your tow vehicle tow it, is when you CAN start to get into trouble. If your experienced and can make it work, have the flat terrain to tow on, then yea go for it if you feel comfortable.. But to suggest that to someone who may not be experienced is liable to get someone in a wreck or hurt. it's just bad advice.. I've SEEN the aftermath around here in the hills, too small a tow vehicle, no tongue weight and an inexperienced driver. The trailer will toss the smaller vehicle on it's side before you can think about catching it

 

 

This was at top of Google, just for example http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-parts/towing/towing-capacity/information/tongue-weight.htm

[CNY_Dave]

Swaying is also influenced by CG on the trailer relative to its wheels (which of course affects tongue weight).

 

Complicated issue, many 'sweet spots' where things work out, more where they don't and there's only one way to find out.

And, things may work really great until that one tire gets a bit soft...

 

It's like everything else out there where things can get complicated, general rules keep everything safe with huge margins for other parts of the causality chain to fail and it's still safe, cut those margins down a bit and it's still safe but much less robust when one or two things go wrong.

Cut margins a bit further and it seems just as fine until a weird quartering wind hits you and then a semi goes by.

 

So use your judgement but remember, you can do everything right, a truck could sideswipe you and cause a crash with tongue weight having nothing to do with it, but every insurance company out there is looking for the excuse to not pay up.

 

 

[Olnick]

Wow!  Powerful videos.

[pontoontodd]

I lot of H6 hating in here....

 

 

They're fantastic engines. I MUCH prefer the H6 to the 4-cyl. The AWD in the VDC models is fantastic, not the front-biased garbage in all the other automatic Subarus. I honestly think I'll own at least one '01-'04 Outback VDC for a long time to come, I love ours.

 

Yes, the headgasket job sucks. But getting decent low-mileage engines is not difficult or expensive. I ordered one for a customer at work from a junkyard, with a warranty and about 100k miles, for about $800. And you can find stupid low mileage ones from Japan without the warranty for that or less...

 

 

Like Gary said, towing capacity is a gray area. IMO the weak link (from a reliability standpoint) when you're towing is the transmission, and the clutches and such didn't change between the 4-cyl and H6 cars. Neither did the brakes. But the H6 cars are heavier and more powerful....that's not great.

 

BUT, with FreeSSM and a $15 cable, you can bump up the line pressure to prevent slippage. Then add a transmission temperature gauge and aux cooler, and it'll do much better. I tow a thousand pound trailers all the time, with bikes on the roof and a decent load in the car....

  

(3rd picture isn't towing, but on the bump stops with boxes of books, plus the set of wheels/tires on the roof)

 

Here's my transmission cooler, ATF goes from the transmission, through the filter, than the aux cooler, than the stock cooler (to prevent overcooling), and back to the trans:

 

 

According to Cars101.com (fantastic Subaru information source, btw!), the 4-cyl wagons and all sedans have a towing capacity of 2000 lbs, and H6 wagons 2400. I put a Reese trailer hitch on mine which is rated for 3500 lbs.

 

 

All that said, you say you'd be towing an SVX....Curb weight of an AWD SVX is a hair over 3500, which is pushing it unless going very gingerly. But the SVX was only an automatic, and an AT Subaru cannot be safely flat-towed. So now you've got at least the weight of a dolly....A real short, easy tow might be fine, but even that is pushing it.

 

I'd tow my Celica on a dolly behind our Outback a fair distance, but it's a thousand pounds lighter than an SVX...

 

 

H6 are great. Im probably reading the situation differently and less about the engine.

 

I realize that trades are common and I've done it some but in my experience top notch products, situations, and sellers aren't the norm when it comes to trading with unknown parties (not counting friends, acquaintenances). All for a vehicle that has a significant weak spot for getting dumped with an expensive issue, is likely to have other maintenance needs, and he's "tried to get a car for two years via trade" and with a heavy desire for towing...sounds like a lot of room for falling short of expectations.

 

So yes - H6's are great. I'd just walk carefully and investigate the seller and car very thoroughly.

 

How important is towing. arw inspections and issue. Has this car driven much in the last year. Why are they selling. Why are they wanting to trade. What about maintenance and expenses - oil leaks struts brakes cv axles tires rusty exhaust are all extremely common to need attention. Is that same or not as current car and are you ready to spring for those if needed?

 

And yes those are ambiguous assumptions but im seeing other factors more than engine choice.

 

Let's talk EZ30 H6 headgaskets and other common problems.  I bought an H6 Outback from California and drove it across the country at 230k.  Slight head gasket leak, seems like you have to stop every 500 miles or so to let it cool off a bit and add a quart or two of coolant.  Normal city driving it's not a problem, add a little coolant every couple weeks.

A few months ago a friend and I swapped an EZ30 into my 99 Outback.  The first one was from a donor car I bought at an auction with about 190k, that engine was horrible, pumped coolant out like crazy.  Bought an engine with 80k on it and swapped that in.  Similar to the other H6 Outback, uses a quart or less of coolant every 500 miles of highway driving.  We run this car in some desert races though, and under those conditions it will go for about an hour before it's pumped out a quart or two of coolant and the temp needle starts climbing.  It also lets out a puff of oil smoke when you start it up after sitting for a while.  I plan on replacing that engine now.  What else should be replaced on the engine while it's out?  I'll definitely do the spark plugs.  One of the idlers for the belt was frozen up on one of the engines, should I just replace those with new?  What else?  Is there any way to check these things for head gasket problems without driving them for a while in a car?