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MM Retro-Write-Up: 2000 Subaru Impreza
IN A NUTSHELL: A long-running winter staple.
One of the longest-running vehicles my brother ever owned was his 2000 Subaru Impreza 5-door hatchback. He kept it a good 10 years, and put around 100,000 miles on it, for good reason. It got him through the snow (and other kinds of bad weather) day in and day out, and did it reliably, with a minimum of repairs outside of normal maintenance and tire/brake-lining replacements. Although he converted to Kia afterwards (with a new 2010 Kia Soul), he maintained a healthy respect (as I did, with my 2006 Outback) for the well-designed Subaru Symmetrical AWD systems.
At the time, my brother was driving his third Honda Civic, a green 1995 CX model (I've already done write-ups on the previous two Civics) which was a bare-bones and rather unimpressive car....clearly not the equal of the two-tone gray/silver 1985 Civic Si hatchback he had owned previously, The CX model, despite reliable mechanicals, was cheap inside and out, and had a very low-powered 70 HP base engine, that, together with very tall gearing in the 5-speed manual transmission and final-drive unit, required a lot of revs and clutch-slipping to get rolling from a stop, and you often had to downshift for almost any kind of significant acceleration. The flip side of that, of course, was fuel-economy, on regular gas, that was as good or better than that of some future hybrids...my brother once recorded almost 50 MPG on the Interstate, cruising at moderate speeds.
Nonetheless, my brother kept it a good 5 years, and it served him well, but then decided it was time to move on, and, since he needed to commute to work each day in all kinds of weather, decided to look at something with car-based AWD. Although many companies, today, make good car-based AWD systems, back then, if that's what you wanted, it was pretty much a no-brainer that Subaru did the best ones....particularly on lower-priced vehicles. So, we went to a few local Subaru shops and looked at some different models. My brother was not into the high-performance WRX/STI scene (leave that to the boy-racers), and I agreed....Consumer Reports, at the time, also rated WRX/STI reliability somewhat lower than for other more mundane Subarus....perhaps because they tended to be driven harder.
At Stohlman VW/Subaru in Tyson's Corner, VA (a major big-money buisness-suburb just outside Washington, D.C), they referred us to a very nice, no-pressure, no-hassle salesperson of German/American background.....he and I were to become friends for a number of years after that, and I eventually bought an Outback from him several years later. He was generally a VW salesperson, but also sold Subies out of the same dealership. He gave us the keys and dealer-plate to a new Outback Sport, which was the top-version of the Impreza lineup, and me and my brother took it out for a test-drive. We both felt, however, that the tires and suspension were simply too stiff, even at recommended tire pressure, and that the ride was uncomfortable, particularly over bumps.....although this was in the winter, when a lot of vehicles ride more stiffly because the tire-rubber and shock-fluid is stiffer when cold. So, we brought it back and, instead, asked the salesman for the keys to a regular, silverish-champaigne-colored Impreza GL 5-door hatchback with a grayish-black cloth interior. It was, mechanically, the same car as the Outback Sport, but less-expensive, with different tires/suspension, and lacking the two-tone paint and some of the trim/equipment. Out, again, for another test-drive/inspection. Bingo......this time, no noticeable problems with ride-comfort, and me and my brother took it back to the dealership and decided talk a deal.
We were both very pleased. The salesman met what my brother was willing to pay on the very first offer, didn't try to steer us to any dealer "packs"/accessories, didn't try to add on any hidden fees, and didn't constantly run back and forth to the sales-manager to get this or that "approved". He struck me as an honest guy (which, back then, was not terribly common among salespeople)...and, until he retired around ten years ago, I also got good feedback from other customers I later referred to him. We finished up the deal with the salesperson, and got another surprise/co-incidence when we went into the dealership's Business Office. There, sitting in his nice leather chair, behind the desk, was the same Business Manager who had finalized the deal before, on my brother's last Honda Civic, at Bill Page Honda, in Falls Church....about 6 or 7 miles away. We recognized him instantly. He did not totally remember us at first (people in his position deal wth a lot of customers)...but then remembered the car, and the deal, when we described it to him. He had (as we suspected) left the Honda dealership and moved to that VW/Subaru shop....I don't remember the reason he said he moved. Just chalk it up to another one of those co-indicences in life. He thanked us, of course, for (now) being a new customer at that new dealership, and that was it.....my brother took his new Subaru home.
And that was the beginning of a long and generally good ownership-experience, although my brother actually had some of the service done at a Subaru dealership, in Fairfax, a little closer to his job....or at independent service-shops after the 5/60 and 3/36 warranties expired. There was one fender-bender mishap in its life, not very serious......He had a Mazda 626 (which preceded the Mazda6) as a rental, which I also sampled. On another occasion, he got some scratches in the painted-vinyl part of the lower-rear-fender/bumper.. They were too deep to buff out (or for SCRATCH-OUT).....so I resorted to an old trick I had used before on other cars, and my brother liked the results. I took flat-black trim-tape (Trim-Brite makes a good one) and taped over the scratches on that part of the lower bumper, doing the exact same thing on the other side of the bumper to make it look more or less like flat-black factory trim pieces. It effectively hid the effects of the scratch, and it was a whole lot cheaper than a body shop panel-repainting...or a possible insurance-hike if they didn't do it under the comprehensive part of the policy.
As for daily-driving, one could not compare the fuel-efficiency of this Impreza with the Miser-like gas mileage of his earlier Civic CX and its Mickey-Mouse engine with ultra-tall gears, but, of course, the Impreza had a larger (2.2L) flat-four engine with 142 HP (twice that of the Civic CX's 1.5L and 70 HP), a 4-speed automatic instead of the CX's 5-speed ultra-tall manual, and of course, full-time AWD. And you didn't have to over-slip the clutch on this Impreza to get it rolling. Still, by the standards of its class, the fuel-economy was pretty good....partly because of the simplicity and efficiency of the Subaru Symmetrical AWD system. The normally-aspirated Subaru 2.2L four did not have the well-known head-gasket problems that the normally-aspirated 2.5L four did (that head-gasket problem lasted for years), although there was still a trace of the old tendency for the Subaru flat-fours to sound like a threshing-machine when giving it revs. Engineers worked on the noise-issue (with some success), over the years, but the Subaru flat-fours never had the silence or refinement that most Toyota or Honda fours did. As I stated earlier, it was generally reliable over the years (and got him through a lot of snowstorms), although, as it approached 100,000 miles, it did require one significant non-scheduled repair, shortly before he sold it to one of his co-workers....a new CV-joint/front-axle-shaft assembly. Unfortunately, with some vehicles, one cannot just buy a front CV joint if it fails....it comes as part of the integral half-shaft assembly, and the whole assembly is replaced at once. But, without question, my brother got his money's worth with this car....as I did with my later Outback, who I bought from the same salesperson.
And, as Always, Happy Car-Memories.
MM
__________________
DRIVING IS BELIEVING
IN A NUTSHELL: A long-running winter staple.
One of the longest-running vehicles my brother ever owned was his 2000 Subaru Impreza 5-door hatchback. He kept it a good 10 years, and put around 100,000 miles on it, for good reason. It got him through the snow (and other kinds of bad weather) day in and day out, and did it reliably, with a minimum of repairs outside of normal maintenance and tire/brake-lining replacements. Although he converted to Kia afterwards (with a new 2010 Kia Soul), he maintained a healthy respect (as I did, with my 2006 Outback) for the well-designed Subaru Symmetrical AWD systems.
At the time, my brother was driving his third Honda Civic, a green 1995 CX model (I've already done write-ups on the previous two Civics) which was a bare-bones and rather unimpressive car....clearly not the equal of the two-tone gray/silver 1985 Civic Si hatchback he had owned previously, The CX model, despite reliable mechanicals, was cheap inside and out, and had a very low-powered 70 HP base engine, that, together with very tall gearing in the 5-speed manual transmission and final-drive unit, required a lot of revs and clutch-slipping to get rolling from a stop, and you often had to downshift for almost any kind of significant acceleration. The flip side of that, of course, was fuel-economy, on regular gas, that was as good or better than that of some future hybrids...my brother once recorded almost 50 MPG on the Interstate, cruising at moderate speeds.
Nonetheless, my brother kept it a good 5 years, and it served him well, but then decided it was time to move on, and, since he needed to commute to work each day in all kinds of weather, decided to look at something with car-based AWD. Although many companies, today, make good car-based AWD systems, back then, if that's what you wanted, it was pretty much a no-brainer that Subaru did the best ones....particularly on lower-priced vehicles. So, we went to a few local Subaru shops and looked at some different models. My brother was not into the high-performance WRX/STI scene (leave that to the boy-racers), and I agreed....Consumer Reports, at the time, also rated WRX/STI reliability somewhat lower than for other more mundane Subarus....perhaps because they tended to be driven harder.
At Stohlman VW/Subaru in Tyson's Corner, VA (a major big-money buisness-suburb just outside Washington, D.C), they referred us to a very nice, no-pressure, no-hassle salesperson of German/American background.....he and I were to become friends for a number of years after that, and I eventually bought an Outback from him several years later. He was generally a VW salesperson, but also sold Subies out of the same dealership. He gave us the keys and dealer-plate to a new Outback Sport, which was the top-version of the Impreza lineup, and me and my brother took it out for a test-drive. We both felt, however, that the tires and suspension were simply too stiff, even at recommended tire pressure, and that the ride was uncomfortable, particularly over bumps.....although this was in the winter, when a lot of vehicles ride more stiffly because the tire-rubber and shock-fluid is stiffer when cold. So, we brought it back and, instead, asked the salesman for the keys to a regular, silverish-champaigne-colored Impreza GL 5-door hatchback with a grayish-black cloth interior. It was, mechanically, the same car as the Outback Sport, but less-expensive, with different tires/suspension, and lacking the two-tone paint and some of the trim/equipment. Out, again, for another test-drive/inspection. Bingo......this time, no noticeable problems with ride-comfort, and me and my brother took it back to the dealership and decided talk a deal.
We were both very pleased. The salesman met what my brother was willing to pay on the very first offer, didn't try to steer us to any dealer "packs"/accessories, didn't try to add on any hidden fees, and didn't constantly run back and forth to the sales-manager to get this or that "approved". He struck me as an honest guy (which, back then, was not terribly common among salespeople)...and, until he retired around ten years ago, I also got good feedback from other customers I later referred to him. We finished up the deal with the salesperson, and got another surprise/co-incidence when we went into the dealership's Business Office. There, sitting in his nice leather chair, behind the desk, was the same Business Manager who had finalized the deal before, on my brother's last Honda Civic, at Bill Page Honda, in Falls Church....about 6 or 7 miles away. We recognized him instantly. He did not totally remember us at first (people in his position deal wth a lot of customers)...but then remembered the car, and the deal, when we described it to him. He had (as we suspected) left the Honda dealership and moved to that VW/Subaru shop....I don't remember the reason he said he moved. Just chalk it up to another one of those co-indicences in life. He thanked us, of course, for (now) being a new customer at that new dealership, and that was it.....my brother took his new Subaru home.
And that was the beginning of a long and generally good ownership-experience, although my brother actually had some of the service done at a Subaru dealership, in Fairfax, a little closer to his job....or at independent service-shops after the 5/60 and 3/36 warranties expired. There was one fender-bender mishap in its life, not very serious......He had a Mazda 626 (which preceded the Mazda6) as a rental, which I also sampled. On another occasion, he got some scratches in the painted-vinyl part of the lower-rear-fender/bumper.. They were too deep to buff out (or for SCRATCH-OUT).....so I resorted to an old trick I had used before on other cars, and my brother liked the results. I took flat-black trim-tape (Trim-Brite makes a good one) and taped over the scratches on that part of the lower bumper, doing the exact same thing on the other side of the bumper to make it look more or less like flat-black factory trim pieces. It effectively hid the effects of the scratch, and it was a whole lot cheaper than a body shop panel-repainting...or a possible insurance-hike if they didn't do it under the comprehensive part of the policy.
As for daily-driving, one could not compare the fuel-efficiency of this Impreza with the Miser-like gas mileage of his earlier Civic CX and its Mickey-Mouse engine with ultra-tall gears, but, of course, the Impreza had a larger (2.2L) flat-four engine with 142 HP (twice that of the Civic CX's 1.5L and 70 HP), a 4-speed automatic instead of the CX's 5-speed ultra-tall manual, and of course, full-time AWD. And you didn't have to over-slip the clutch on this Impreza to get it rolling. Still, by the standards of its class, the fuel-economy was pretty good....partly because of the simplicity and efficiency of the Subaru Symmetrical AWD system. The normally-aspirated Subaru 2.2L four did not have the well-known head-gasket problems that the normally-aspirated 2.5L four did (that head-gasket problem lasted for years), although there was still a trace of the old tendency for the Subaru flat-fours to sound like a threshing-machine when giving it revs. Engineers worked on the noise-issue (with some success), over the years, but the Subaru flat-fours never had the silence or refinement that most Toyota or Honda fours did. As I stated earlier, it was generally reliable over the years (and got him through a lot of snowstorms), although, as it approached 100,000 miles, it did require one significant non-scheduled repair, shortly before he sold it to one of his co-workers....a new CV-joint/front-axle-shaft assembly. Unfortunately, with some vehicles, one cannot just buy a front CV joint if it fails....it comes as part of the integral half-shaft assembly, and the whole assembly is replaced at once. But, without question, my brother got his money's worth with this car....as I did with my later Outback, who I bought from the same salesperson.
And, as Always, Happy Car-Memories.
MM
__________________
DRIVING IS BELIEVING
