I bought a new winter beater to tool around in while the miata stays away from the snow. Did I make a good choice?

 

I don't know. Did you in any way finance the purchase?

 

Yes but it was at 3%

 

calling that a beater is a stretch.

I loved my subbie winter beater. (98 obs) . We also have a 02 wrx and my little brother have an 03. Great cars IMO

 

Have to agree. When I think "winter beater" I think a 92 ford explorer with 4 wheel drive and 250K on the odo, purchased for under 1000. Or something along those lines anyway..

 

That's the joke. I call it my beater, but an Outback XT Limited in awesome condition is hardly a beater.

Here is the real beater the Outback is replacing. '93 Cherokee Sport 4x4 with 226k on the odo, purchased for $550 a year ago.

 

Hmmm... I wonder what goodies are available for it... maybe an intake, catback and flash-tuner.

I wonder what other Subie models have OEM upgrades... maybe some STi takeoff parts.

 

There are good upgrades, and STi parts fit. But this car is staying stock under the hood for a while. I'll probably debadge it, and paint the headlights. And maybe the grill. That's about it.

 

Then no.

Beaters are things you buy with the automotive equivalent of the loose change rolling around behind the sofa cushion.

Sorry.

Here is a funny cat picture to ease your sorrow:

 

Thats a nice car. Why are you retiring the Cherokee?

I will own a white 01+ one of these days.

 

I retired the cherokee because the rust issues are getting so bad that it won't pass the state inspection again. It's got a sticker for one year, but after that I don't want it to be my problem. It's also loud, and sucks gas like crazy. The XT is quiet, comfortable, and gets much better gas mileage (though still not what anybody would call "great").

 

AAHHHHH damn very sweet! I looked for a while for a white/grey OBXT and was even about to drive up to Maine to look at one before finding my current light grey/dark grey car in Richmond. Auto or 5 speed? If you say 5 speed, I will be quite jealous.

IMHO, the stock suspension and alignment specs are quite dangerous when it gets slick out. The rear end likes to do scary things.
Bad:


Good:


17x9 +48 6ULR's fit fine.


There's a few subaru experts here like 18psi. It's quite simple and inexpensive to really wake them up reliability.

 

I miss my old outback. I'd like to get another and wap and SBC...that would be awesome.

 

It is a 5-speed... be jealous.

So for you experts... is there a good reason not to put 16" wheels on for winter? It's $300 cheaper for the wheel/tire kit from tire rack for the 16s.

I have heard of this rear-end thing, but I want to keep the ground clearance. What can I do to fix it?

 

I'll probably get rid of my '05OBXT soon. It's just getting such shitty mileage (15-17mpg) it's not worth having anymore. Plus the wife has an '05LegGT which looks much better, is mildly modded and has a good audio setup, and does everything the OBXT does.

Maybe minivan time for my 4th car. Bring out the soccer mom in me.

 

How the crap do you drive? I've only had mine for a week, but I have done all kinds of mixed driving and I'm getting about 22mpg. I don't see it dropping much below that aside from rare occasions, and hopefully I can get 24 on the highway.

 

That's the problem. This is regular city/hwy, but skewed a bit more towards city because I only commute a short way to the train station for work. My LegGT which is mildly modded with a tune and driven the same way gets about 17-19.

There's a 40 page thread at LegGT about shitty mileage in these. It's all over the board. Routine maintenance on both of mine. I might tune the OBXT but I'm sick of modding my cars.

I'm sure a lot has to do with making many short trips which means more starting and stopping but even on a recent 100 mile each way trip in the OBXT I only got about 17 and that was mostly hwy at 75mph or so.

 

Arg, congrats then. I see no reason to not run 16" if they are cheaper. I could fit the 15" off my old '97 outback sport but the tires were way too small in diameter.

I don't know exactly what you can do to fix the traction issues, probably a different alignment? i didn't research it much before changing out the suspension.

That's odd. I get:
12-14 when I tow my boat in the summer with Legacy sized tires, back roads or highway (65mph 4th gear)
25 in the summer, mostly highway, 75mph
23 in the winter with stock tires, mostly highway
25 in the winter with stock tires, taking back roads
And this is driving it "spirited", not always at WOT, but almost always under some amount of boost when accelerating.

My brothers '05 LGT gets similar mileage with a similar commute. Both cars have manual transmissions BTW.

I have a wide band and the thing is still pig rich even though it's leaned out a lot from stock. OEM map has it idling at 14.4:1. I leaned it to 14.7 but it shakes more so I went back.

Romraider is free and the cable to connect to your laptop cost me $20 for a USA sourced cable ($10 if you want to wait for it to be shipped from china).

 

I am reading about the traction issue right now, but the thread on subaruoutback.org is more than 100 pages long with a LOT of repeat info. I'm on page 4.

 

Both mine are in the 5% shitty mileage I guess. Winter MD fuel now isn't helping either.

I've got the 'merican VAG cable from ebay (like a year ago). I just haven't gotten around to tuning it with two swaps and regular maintenance on my other cars. Even if I can lean it out and clean up the tune, I bet it's not far enough off to get 10 mpg gain.

Oh well, still like the car, just don't need two with two other cars also since my wife and I are the only drivers.