This is one of the first Subarus that I ever drove.  I was impressed at the time at how solid the thing felt.  As similar as all subarus are from the mid 90's to mid 2000's I don’t imagine it would be too hard to swap a wrx motor in.  In fact I believe it’s pretty easy.  In Seattle, these things are still everywhere.

I drove a friend’s briefly and it just felt clunky, esp. compared to my 2000 frontier which is much more nimble.

And a hood that you can’t see over, also a grill that keeps getting bigger.

Well now there are thousands of them as the Armada is the Patrol.  I’m guessing in a few years a used Armada will be quite a good deal.

Does anybody else find it interesting that in 1990 the Geo Metro/Suzuki Swift got 52mpg hwy and here we sit 28 yrs later and auto companies claim getting better fuel economy will be too expensive.  Sure a lot has changed since then (especially in car safety) but methinks they are just whiners. 

Yes.  the XV is just this with a lift kit, like exactly this.  Same exact car.  Not sure why it’s treated like an SUV as it isn’t one.

Do you mean Impreza, because the crosstrek is just an impreza.

Nothing wrong with z31, it’s what folks wanted at the time. That’s why they sold many of them. It’s funny how everybody loves to hate on certain Nissans. Oh well makes those ones cheaper for the rest of us. It’s funny how folks remember things also. The 240sx was hated by the press and prettymuch written off until the…

A simpler explanation that basically covers it:  AWD has a center differential, 4wd does not.  That’s it.  Your Subaru is AWD, it’s got 3 differentials.  Now whether those differentials are limited slip or not is a whole different matter.

Yeah tires make all the difference, well and good weight distribution.  I drove my 280zx all over the state of Washington in the 2nd half of the 90's with 4 studded tires on it and never had a problem.  Only time I ever had to chain up was just to get out of a steep driveway.  Nobody really needs AWD, but it doesn’t…

Agreed.  This thing is probably beyond fixing.  Not worth the time or effort.  Although that hasn’t stopped folks before.

Yeah CRV, my wife had one.  What has been done to the drivetrain, because if it’s nothing then that thing’s gears would be too high for much use with those big tires.

Yeah me too.  Poor horses. 

I don’t know much about the latest Inifinitis, but I have experience with a G35 and G37 and they seem pretty well put together and easy to work on, especially if you are familiar with Nissans like I am.  My mom had a G35 4dr stick shift.  Wishing I would have bought it from her. 

Ha ha, yes I understand.  Too bad you can’t get her to like Infiniti or Lexus.  Too bad they are more boring I guess, and uglier. 

How do you define “going to hell?”  How the car was driven, I think matters a great deal.  My dad has an 04 Sentra Spec V, which he has around 230k miles on.  Save normal maintenance like brakes, and a few issues like a bum crank angle sensor, he hasn’t had much problems.  I feel like most cars definitely have some…

Just curious, why do you keep buying them?

This thing basically has nothing on my 2000 frontier. :) I thought that was kind of std. issue for skid plates. These are gonna seem pretty large in person. I saw them down in chile 5 yrs ago and they are nearly as big as an F-150 if I remember correctly.

We have a ‘15 Impreza.  It gets about 30 mpg in mixed driving.  This is amazing compared to older subarus.  The only thing I really don’t like about it is the long pause switching from drive to reverse and vis-versa.  Folks that bitch about CVT’s probably like to bitch about many things in their lives.  If it’s not a…

Exactly.  You’d need to spend at least 7k just to get to this point any way you cut it, and that’s if you value your time at $0.