god damn car

BimmsAndBices said:

I got a Subaru Loyale in may. Great car, loved it. Easy on gas, never gave me trouble. Heater worked. A nice change from Mer'cin made beaters. Now I'm mad. These Subaru engines are a mystery. They're flat, so not only are they way low in the engine bay and hard to get at, but the OHC ones have 2 timing belts, for twice the fun. All of the sudden my car won't start and there's tons of [censored] that could be wrong, most of which are beyond my abilities to diagnose/fix. I want a steering wheel, a tiny diesel engine, a frame, 4 wheels, seat, brakes and a plastic shell. Simplicity is beautiful.

Your Subaru has a flat 4 boxer style engine similar to what Porsche are building. Simple it aint, there are so many computer on board tellign your engine what to do. If it fails you'll have to go to some one who knows thier stuff. Dont take an Impreza to any old garage.

MountainPro said:

Your Subaru has a flat 4 boxer style engine similar to what Porsche are building. Simple it aint, there are so many computer on board tellign your engine what to do. If it fails you'll have to go to some one who knows thier stuff. Dont take an Impreza to any old garage.

I may be wrong,but I think the original subaru boxer engine was designed by Porsche.Whatever, they are well designed engines and usually very reliable and subaru's quality control and finish are usually pretty good.That said,parts are often expensive.
All modern cars seem to be built so that the owner can't fix them.That's the tradeoff for the reliability I suppose.
They can be a bit awkward to get at,but soobie owners tend to be lateral thinkers and after a short learning curve you will probably wonder why all the other car manufacturers got it wrong.
Except Porsche of course!

BimmsAndBices said:

I want a steering wheel, a tiny diesel engine, a frame, 4 wheels, seat, brakes and a plastic shell. Simplicity is beautiful.

Ever consider a FIAT?

Oh yes, the insanely large number of Fiats still on the road today make me want one every day, har har. VW fathered the modern boxer 4, Porsche used it in their first cars and Subaru I guess kinda "based" their engine on it. What makes me mad is that Subaru engines are known for lasting 300K+ miles and are supposedly "easy" to work on. I think I'll probably just sell it on the USMB and buy a $200 beater.

BimmsAndBices said:

Oh yes, the insanely large number of Fiats still on the road today make me want one every day, har har. VW fathered the modern boxer 4, Porsche used it in their first cars and Subaru I guess kinda "based" their engine on it. What makes me mad is that Subaru engines are known for lasting 300K+ miles and are supposedly "easy" to work on. I think I'll probably just sell it on the USMB and buy a $200 beater.

I owned a Fiat a few years back, got it from 0-100,000 miles and it never gave me a days trouble. Regular servicing is the key. I did crash it into a snow drift one winter and had to get it pulled out by a tractor, but if it has AWD like your Sub that wouldnt have been a prob. but what do you expect for 8 grand brand new.

i dont like people that bash modern Fiats, theyre actually very relaible.

BimmsAndBices said:

I got a Subaru Loyale

okay, i dont know the Loyale very much but i have a question about Subarus that you may be able to answer:

WRX STi Impreza, based upon the WRC Rally car: 2.0 DOHC 16V Turbo engine. Both the street and the race car have basically the same engine. Excet in the US where the Impreza range has a 2.5 litre engine instead of the race 2.0.

why? the performance isnt boosted both engines develop ~ 300 bhp. If anything the car will be more sluggish as the PWR will be reduced. Economical perfomance will also be reduced.

why the 2.5?

its like the American public wouldnt buy a smaller more economical engine purely on the principal that bigger is better when clearly in this case it isnt.

Wiesse, you usually stick up for this [censored], perhps you have an answer.

It isnt even true to the WRC specification...

UK version > subaru.co.uk86C38A62FE5960F58025709900684E7AOpen ↗

American version > subaru.comoverview.jspOpen ↗

BimmsAndBices said:

...VW fathered the modern boxer 4...

Abducted may be a better choice of words. The fathering was done by Tatra in Czechoslovakia. Ferdinand Porsche's contribution came after Czechoslovakia itself had been contributed to the worthy cause. To the victor go the spoils.
Tatra continues to this day, creating rather exquisite on and off-road trucks, including some awesome Paris-Dakar entries.
I wasn't planning on doing any posts for a while, but y'all got the better of me on this one 😄
Regards,
Eoin

You're exactly right, MountainPro, Americans demand bigger engines, despite the fact that the smaller 2.0 EJ20 is a higher performing engine than the 2.5 EJ25. Even the non-STi WRX gets a 500cc increase for 2006. The EJ25 is a bit torquier though and Americans LOVE their torque.

I call it displacement inflation and sadly, just about every manufacturer selling cars in the US practices it.

And also, the Loyale/GL/DL is called the Leone most everywhere else in the world.

BimmsAndBices said:

You're exactly right, MountainPro, Americans demand bigger engines, despite the fact that the smaller 2.0 EJ20 is a higher performing engine than the 2.5 EJ25. Even the non-STi WRX gets a 500cc increase for 2006. The EJ25 is a bit torquier though and Americans LOVE their torque.

I call it displacement inflation and sadly, just about every manufacturer selling cars in the US practices it.

And also, the Loyale/GL/DL is called the Leone most everywhere else in the world.

i asked an american friend about this recently. They said that a 2 liter (litre) engine wouldnt sell in America. Image comes before all and it purely a matter of economics and how many they can sel. Consumers bend to the car industry. In the UK the consumer tells the dealerships what to sell. Its the oposite in America. Performance doesnt come into it, they would much rather have a 5.7 litre V8 that can barley reach 100 mph than a 2.0 that can get to 160 mph in under 10 seconds.

As for ameicans loving thier torque, its a global thing, not uniquely american. Try getting torque out of your forementioned V8 in 4th gear (auto). There isnt any. In the Impreza or Evolution the torque in 5th or 6th gear at 100mph is astonishing.