2003 Subaru Forester issues: Should I cut my losses and get a different vehicle?
 

Greetings everyone, in 2018 or thereabouts I had bought a 2003 Subaru Forester that when I got it, it had 125,000 miles on it and the body was mint (no rust or anything on it, as it originally came from Pennsylvania where they don't use salt on the roads in the winter.)

Well fast-forward to 2023, the car is now 20 years old, it has 155,000 miles on it, and going through several rough Indiana winters where we use salt on the roads to treat the roads in the winter, the car has some rust developing on the passenger side rear fender/wheelwell area, the door seals are all but shot (although it was like that when I got it.)
The frame has at least 2 spots where the frame is rusting through/failing and the evaporator/vapor-lock portion of the car's fuel system has at least 2 leaks in it, and to properly repair it will be at least $700 or more in just labor costs because to repair it, the whole back end has to be dropped in order to get to the fuel tank to repair one of the leaks and the car isn't even worth what its going to cost to fix it up properly.
BTW the fuel system issue is causing gas fumes to leak into the cabin of the car via the HVAC vents in the car's cabin, and the only way to "solve" that issue was to keep my gas cap loose.

As far as the frame damage goes, none of the body shops in my area are willing to do that kind of repair work because of liability reasons.

My parents want me to keep driving the vehicle even though its possibly a safety hazard, just because I just recently bought new tires for it (I bought them before I found out about the fuel system issue and the frame issues.)

My question is, should I keep driving the car until it literally falls apart (even if its a safety liability, or should I cut my losses and just buy a different vehicle?

If the frame is rotted out the vehicle is a safety hazard and should be taken off the road.

Agreed.

Cut you losses and move on. Perhaps you could buy something not rotted that your new tires will fit :scratch2:

If it costs more to fix it then it's worth cut your losses.

I kinda plan to drive my suburban till it rusts in half or gets totalled, then pull the LS motor and trans to reuse on some future 50s car for my collection. If it wasn't for dropping the rear end I'd almost suggest the evap as a DIY task...I pretty much do everything that I possibly can do on my truck myself (everything from oil changes on up to brake work and pulling the transfer case), unless something that can't wait unexpectedly fails in winter...Then I usually find a shop... Except that one time the battery crapped out in the driveway and the captive nut spun and I had to pull open the inner fender in the snow to fix that...Good times. :thmbsdn:

The body on my truck has multiple rust holes, a couple years into owning it I found the Bondo patches when the metal around them rusted, then lacking a welder I used a 75W soldering iron to solder in steel patched after cutting out the rust and bondoed over that...That was before the pandemic, and it's about due for round 2 of that...It looks like holes formed in exciting new places. The one good thing with mine is the frame has held up better than the body... It don't have to look great it just has to work...Till I have a house and save up enough for a better SUV.

I've heard Pennsylvania is infamous for salting their roads so bad it ruins cars. I think whoever sold it to you didn't winter drive it and lied about why it wasn't rusty.

So I had the car in at the mechanic today and they showed me the undercarriage and they showed me that the frame is definitely rusted out in spots but its still good enough to drive for right now but I would definitely consider looking into getting a different vehicle within the next year or two, but also there is an oil leak as well that seems to be coming from the topside of the engine which I suspect might be either the head gasket or the valve cover gasket, and both of those issues are something that the Subaru Horizontally Opposed "Boxer" Engines are notorious for having failures with, and are both expensive fixes, plus I have a leaky brake cyclinder on one of my brake calipers which I think I'll have my dad help me change that this weekend.

So I guess I'll be driving it for at least another year but also saving up and also keeping an eye out for something different in the mean time.

The car is worn out.. Get rid of it. If you do a private sale be SURE
its to someone over 18. Have a disclosure of known problems SIGNED
by buyer. Sell as " PARTS CAR ONLY".
Or sell to junk yard. In N.H. they pay $200 for almost anything.

Go find a non fleet Crown Vic. They have very few problems that
are hard to find & expensive. MPG not bad at 28 MPG HWY. Had
I had two that went 250 K / 15 yrs before the rust got them.
No major problems, ran great till the end.

good luck
73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

All cars seem to have a weak point. The well-loved Toyota has water pump and wheel bearing problems, plus rust. Being in Wisconsin, rust is really a problem.

It's worse on the Toyota pickups, some years actually had a recall for rusting frames.

A friend has a mid-90's Tacoma pickup. He opted to have the frame replaced instead of taking the money they offered him. His vehicle was very well-kept and had low miles. It was really a project to transplant all the parts.
I guess Toyota quoted Blue-Book wholesale. It ended up costing Toyota a lot more than them settling for a decent agreed upon price! :scratch2:

Subarus of that era love to rust. If it looks like Hoovie's Baja (search on utube) then get rid of it. But maybe pull that EJ25 motor to put in an old VW. The valve covers are probably leaking, and leak oil. Bad head gaskets (common on naturally aspirated EJ25 engines) usually causes overheating and Mountain Dew in the oil. I did the valve cover gaskets on the EJ255 (2.5L DOHC Turbo) in my SH Forester. What a PITA, no room! and had to loosen the motor mounts and lift the motor up cuz the valve cover hung up on one of the cam journal bearing caps when I tried to get it out.....

And it seems that they STILL will honor it, though they don’t say so officially.

Then again, they once had a recall because their odometers wouldn’t go beyond 299,999 miles…

It was probably a marketing ploy, to prove their cars will last for more than 300K. :D

My 2006 Tacoma got a new frame 8 years ago, many others sitting at dealer lot waiting for frames (from Mexico) had it far worse than mine. I spray water all under it several time over winter but the steel around frame's punched out holes literally delaminated like a wet phonebook.

PA uses Magnesium Chloride on any freezy rain days for low-temperature de-icing, it doesn't even need to snow:thumbsdn: It lives to eat metal and sneak under any paint that has chipped off. Its bad stuff compared to Sodium Chloride.

I have had three Subarus and while they will easily make it to 200K with known issues, frame rust can and will make your car less safe.

Hitting a pothole or just a curb buried under snow could instantly spell the end of your ride.

Consider how the car would protect you in an accident if a designed "crumple zone" is compromised or extended.

Here's what I do.
The next you change your oil, save it and "paint" it all over the underside of the vehicle.
You'll need a 4" wide paintbrush. Its a messy job so wear some old clothes.
If you get it on the exhaust system, it will burn off.
The plus side is that it saves the chassis and you only have to do it every couple of years. Good luck!

Good to drive over a dirt road immediately after doing that. The dust will mix with the oil and form a oily sludge that's harder to wash off than the oil alone...that stuff, if it builds up thick enough, can protect cars for decades.

Well I will actually be getting a new vehicle after all.

There was a hail storm in the town where I work and the hail storm dropped 1" Hail balls by the bucket loads for about 5 minutes and the hail damaged my car pretty badly (it didn't damage the glass but it did damage the hood and roof of the car pretty badly) it was still "drivable" but when I submitted the hail damage to the insurance they ended up totaling the car out (which I figured they would) and I ended up getting $6,033 from them for the car.

So now I will be getting a 2006 Honda Pilot EX-L which that money (and what I've already saved up which was almost $1,000) will almost completely pay off the car (my aunt is buying the car for me and I have to pay her back for it, and I'll just give her the money I got from the insurance from my Subaru and what I already saved up to go towards paying her off.)

It looks like Mother Nature worked in your favor! Does the home you just bought have a garage so you can protect your newer ride?
There sure has been a bunch of strange weather patterns lately! The same thing happened in southern Wi and parts of IL.

Why can't I get lucky like this? lol.

Glad everything worked out for you.

Unfortunately my house doesn't have a garage anymore (that is if it ever one to begin with) so I'm just going to have to get a carport to install on the side of my house (where my driveway is which is an old concrete driveway that is starting to sink into the ground/fall apart.)

I see those forresters around here and they look like pretty nice cars. BUT, did you know they have a rubber timing belt? You don't want that to snap on you when you are on the highway. I prefer vehicles with a chain. One less thing to worry about!
Not sure about your area but the mechanics, around here, charge more to work on foreign cars than domestics. Not sure why.

The car he's replacing it with is a Honda!
Maybe Honda uses a chain. :scratch2:

Belt VS Chain isn't the isn't that much of an issue as long as the engine uses Non-interference valves. Belt or chain can fail on you if you don't keep up with the recommended service interval, and both can leave you on the side of the road. Chain is usually better, but can be as bad as belts on over head cam engines with complex chain paths .

What's worse is interference engines where when the timing linkage device snapps or jumps too many teeth, the pistons (which keep spinning longer) smack into the open valves....This often completely destroys an engine, and usually requires a new head, pistons and honing.

The early Ford Focus 2.0's were belt but they were non-interference. But after 2005 they switched over to chain. The Hyundais use belts and its an interference engine that self destructs. There's a Hyundai/Kia plant not far from here. They also use a soy based wiring that is favored by rodents. But I still see a lot of Kia's/Hyundai's around here.
There is a company that's advertised on the CarDoctor radio show that's called New Hampshire Oil Undercoating that sells a product that inhibits corrosion. Probably just used motor oil.
As I understand it, the first thing to corrode thru are the aluminum brake lines. So be careful.

The 100K warrantee coverage on the KIA states that the timing belt be changed at 60K miles and you must show proof, otherwise warrantee voided!

Hey, it's good you got a nice insurance payment on a car you otherwise would not
have gotten much for with a bad frame...... Just to set the record straight though,
Pennsylvania does salt the road in the winter. They even use more in a good part
of the state because it's more mountainous than the part of NY that I am in....
So that car was in salt for 20 years, It most likely did not rust out the frame
in the short time you had it. Also Those Subadoo's have head gasket problems
that often show up before 200K miles. And the engine has to be removed to
fix that so you got a really good deal in that weather-related trade-in....
I would almost say you dodged 2 bullets there......


.

I once saw an Asian lady in a parking lot getting in a 2005 Kia Sorento. I told her it was a pretty car. She immediately started laughing asking if I wanted to buy it. Turns out it had stranded her and she just spent over $1K on a new CPS sensor and they did the timing belt also.
The GA. governor was so happy when he landed the Kia plant near here. But he didn't know they would import their labor force also. The operating language is Korean. So, if you worked for the Ford or GM plants (that had closed down) you were $#!+ out of luck!

The other issue I had with my Forester that was kind of annoying (and it was a common issue on the 2003-2008 model year Foresters) was that the door seals had failed on the car so when I would drive at highway speeds I would hear a lot of road noise (wind noise) coming through the doors, this was because the 2003-2008 model year Foresters used a pillarless design for the doors (the A-Pillar was absent on the doors like on many of the old American Cars back in the 1960s where the windows had no frame around them.)

Everything has an interference engine now. I prefer timing belts, they are easier to replace. and in Subarus the engines are longitudinally mounted for ease of access. Lots of domestic cars with OHC engines have timing chains that love to break and guides that get trashed ('08-12 GM 3.6 V6 especially) or the chains get loose and rub a hole in something. The 2.0 DI turbo 4 in my Audi has belts and chains, the belt runs the water pump and the exhaust cam (I think) then there's a little chain on the back of the head going between the exhaust and intake cams. it stretched out and the guide broke. Luckily the previous owner fixed that. Also the timing chain in my truck stretched pretty bad (Mopar 318).

Toyota 1UZ/2UZ V8s can last and last and last if you keep that timing belt changed every 90k

Sorry, belts are rubbish and those GM 3.6 chains that failed were mostly neglected engines that owners failed to change the oil on.

If you want a nearly bullet proof American Car Engine the old GM 3800 engines were nearly bullet proof and could easily go 300k+ miles without any major issues if well maintained, its not uncommon to see listed on Facebook Market Place a Buick LeSabre or Oldsmobile 98 or 88 with a 3800 in it that has over 200k miles on them that are still in good running order.

Another good engine was the 4.0 L Straight Six that Jeep used on their Grand Cherokees and Cherokees for many years, those engines were nearly indestructable and could easily go 300k+ miles without any major issues as well with good maintenance habits, you don't know how many times I've seen people listing Jeep Grand Cherokees or Cherokees with 250k+ miles on them that were still in good running order.

Yep those are damn near indestructible. I'm still toying with the idea of selling the Forester (when it's paid off) and finding a minty 3800 powered grandma car.