School me on 04-08 Subaru Foresters

[Ca_Silvia13]

I've never owned a Subaru before but i've got my eye on a few of these with a manual transmission. Would like to see if anyone had owned one before, typical problems to look out for, things like that.

I've done a bit of research and head gaskets seem to be the only issue but i wouldn't mind hearing what local owners have experienced before.

Motor i would be interested in is the turbo 2.5L, i heard that the non turbo 2.5 has bad oil consumption problems.

[n1zm0]

I was looking at these awhile back as a DD (moreso for winter)

there's this thread:

http://forums.beyond.ca/st2/forester-2-5xt/showthread.php?s=&threadid=325586 and redevil has a nice one.

As said in the thread I found the manual XTs with low or even decent kms are pretty rare, when I was looking for about 3 months the best example I could find was a 2007 manual XT with 167k kms for $16k, they seem to hold their value well and the owners know that when they put them up for sale.

[heavyD]

At the years you are looking at I wouldn't expect finding one in great shape especially a turbocharged model. You will have better luck finding a 2009-2013 model but the interior is pure trash for the price you will pay.

[zaider]

Head gasket issues were mostly fixed by the time the generation you're looking at rolled off the assembly line.

They were mostly the early phase EJ251's that had failed head gaskets... so late 90's / early 2000's Imprezas/Foresters.

The engines you're looking at (EJ255 ) didn't really get that issue at all.

The issue you might see is a cracked oil pickup tube which can lead to oil starvation. A lot of folks will replace them with a KillerB pickup (couple hundred bucks and a day's worth of work in your garage).

Other than that, the transmission isn't the glass one that the 02-03 Imprezas got, so you're good there.

You might have issues with leaky struts if they're the originals, but that's to be expected with a car of that age/mileage.

Timing belt needs to be done at 160k. Its doable in your garage, but takes a day. While you have it apart, people generally do the water pump (even though i've never heard of one failing) and you need to replace the idlers and the auto-tensioner cause those have generally worn out by then.

[luxor]

Originally posted by zaider
Head gasket issues were mostly fixed by the time the generation you're looking at rolled off the assembly line.

They were mostly the early phase EJ251's that had failed head gaskets... so late 90's / early 2000's Imprezas/Foresters.

The engines you're looking at (EJ255 ) didn't really get that issue at all.

The issue you might see is a cracked oil pickup tube which can lead to oil starvation. A lot of folks will replace them with a KillerB pickup (couple hundred bucks and a day's worth of work in your garage).

Other than that, the transmission isn't the glass one that the 02-03 Imprezas got, so you're good there.

You might have issues with leaky struts if they're the originals, but that's to be expected with a car of that age/mileage.

Timing belt needs to be done at 160k. Its doable in your garage, but takes a day. While you have it apart, people generally do the water pump (even though i've never heard of one failing) and you need to replace the idlers and the auto-tensioner cause those have generally worn out by then.

To add to this, the Ej25D (dohc) also had head gasket problems but that was a while before 04.

There are reports of cracked oil pick up tubes but generally it doesn't seem to affect many and fairly isolated. The water pumps definitely don't fail, they can leak like all water pumps but even that's rare. Very good idea to replace all pulleys and tensioner every time. You can convert the 04 to an STi fairly easily either by adding Sti parts or dropping the motor and sub frame in, the 04 ECU can swap right in too.

[zaider]

Yeah, I haven't come across evidence of a failed water pump on a Subaru (but that doesn't mean they aren't out there), but generally when people change the T-belt, they do the pump "cause they're already there". As for the idlers and tensioner, most of the time when they're removed, you give em a spin and can hear the bearings rattling around. If one of those seizes, your belt is going to rip, so those are definitely good to replace. Given the time and effort to get there, do it once and do it right.

I haven't looked too much into Forester swaps, but can you not convert 05-08 Foresters that easy (since you only mentioned 04...)? Generally you can swap most EJ-series motors with any other EJ-series motor. Subarus (older ones at least) are built like lego.

[pheoxs]

My mom has a 06(?) forester, non turbo, auto and it's been great for her so far. She hasn't really had any problems with it and is around 260k kms now. It started burning oil in the last ~40k kms.

They take it on tons of trips down to the states and such and always been good for them.

[bjstare]

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[Ca_Silvia13]

I am starting to realize how unbelievable rare these things are with a 5spd...:banghead:

[dirtsniffer]

LOL, I didn't want to burst your bubble when you first started the thread.