New Member Intro (long, sarcastic, and entertaining)

So this all started in in December 2013. Was looking to purchase my first car @ age 25. Wanted something that I can load up and got to the cottage with, something that can still kick in the a$$ for passing, and has a rugged look.

 

Decided on an 05 Outback XT, with 174k km located about 140 km from my house.

 

Dec 9 2013

The guy selling it, is a mechanic who buys cars, and only speaks French. My French is passable. Drove there already knowing I would most likely purchase it. He jacked up the car and everything looked great. It was a day with heavy snow fall, and as I would put the pedal down in 2nd, I would feel a lot of slippage. Now this was my first turbo car, so I thought all that torque and snow was even making the AWD system slip. Unfortunately this was in a small town, far from home, impossible to get a mechanic to give it a thorough shakedown. Have you guys noticed what a great moonroof this thing has? It's huge!

Purchase the car and on the way home I'm doing hard pulls because, well, it's a great car, but I kept slipping, even at 70, 80 km/h in 3rd... A little voice kept saying you're not slipping cause of torque.. you're slipping for another reason...

 

About 500 m from my house, I'm at a stop light, let go of the clutch... and... it never engages. All the slipping wasn't actually the wheels slipping, it was the spent clutch. Crawled home in 4th with the 4 ways on.

 

Call the guy, tell him the story,

him :"Oh you must of abused the clutch, it was fine when you left"

me : "Even if I don't know how to drive stick, which I do, it's impossible to kill a clutch in 140 km of highway driving "(some pulls;)

him: "I'll call you tomorrow"

 

Had to call him Dec 10th, tried send me a new clutch, I pay for labor. I say no. So he agrees to drive to my city, tow it back to his place, and he'll do all the work and clutch. Only problem he's leaving for Cuba in 2 days so he'll have to leave his friend in charge. Just think about the moonroof, it's great...

 

7 days after my initial purchase his friend calls me, "your car is ready".

me : "You fixed the clutch, everything is good to go? I'm not driving for 2 hours to test it"

him: "yes it's perfect, the car is outside, and I locked the keys in the car"

me: hoping it's a language barrier "Did you say the keys are locked in the car?"

him: "yes"

me : "that's unfortunate, cause those are the only keys to the car"

 

I'm on the way to the car and I call a tow truck to come break into my car.

When I get to the car, I of course try the drivers door. Locked. Try every single other door and it's unlocked. Tow truck driver wasn't happy.

 

Get in, turn on the car, and it's what I like to call christmas lights. Every single light that could be on, is on. Mainly check engine and flashing cruise control. Take it for a drive and the whole car is shuddering , just botched the whole damn job. Wasn't even safe to drive home. So took the keys, dropped them in his mailbox and wrote him a strongly worded french e-mail.

 

Day 14 - Buddy boy who sold me the car came back from Cuba, calls me and "c'est bon". I just shudder, and make what I hope is the final trip.

 

Get there, and it really is all fixed. 2 hours later, at the same stop light where the clutch vaporized, christmas lights. Turns out it was some sensor that was just throwing. After clearing it, everything was fine. Great.

 

Early Jan 2014 - Am driving the car around and having some fun but was experiencing very bad "ghostwalking". Take it in to the Subaru dealership:

1) CV Boot is torn

2) Front left Wheel Bearing is shot

3) Rear Struts are done

4) They recommend a new propeller shaft.

 

For 2600. I payed 7600 for the car. Not happening.

As some background, I'm an aerospace engineer. I know how the car works but have never gotten my hands dirty. Literally no more than changing a tire.

 

So it was time to pull out the service manual and use the magic of these forums. Did all the work myself except for the prop. shaft, and saved a lot, and learned even more. So the main reason I'm writing this story is, if you're having trouble with the car you can learn literally everything you may need to know here, to help you either make a decision, or figure out how to do it yourself.

 

While I'm at it, I decided to bulletproof the car as much as I can, and did the timing belt, waterpump, and thermostat. For good measure checked out the banjo bolt and it was clean. Not clean enough...

 

Mid March 2014 - Cruising on the highway at 100kph and put the pedal all the way down. Nothing. Literally nothing happens. I pull over and a bunch of smoke out the tailpipe and a rattling sound from the engine. Turn it off, and I knew it's the turbo. It was the turbo, but luckily it just whimpered and died. No catastrophic shards of turbo in the engine. At least the sun was brightly shining through, my moonroof.

 

Now literally a month prior I had ordered the Vag-com cables from ebay(china) with the right chipset, and was going to try and tune myself, feeling adventurous right?

 

So this is my DD, and having it out of commission wasn't really an option.

Tuesday - Turbo Died

Wednesday - Confirmed that the turbo died. Stayed up all night reading.

Thursday - Managed to find Blaast Performance (same city where I got the car . Sourced a rebuilt VF52 from Blaast, he bought my old Vf40. Sourced a Cobb Upipe, and ordered rush shipping from BarManBean for a bulletproof mod for the TMIC(Shoutout for being very helpful, thanks!). Also begin dialogue with Dave @ Cryotune to get a map ready

Friday - TMIC Mod comes in

Saturday - Drive to pickup new turbo

Sunday - Purchase a cryotune

Monday - Upipe arrives

Tuesday - Drop off Turbo, TMIC mod, and upipe with a guy who can do it much faster than I, in the morning. Except Dave needs a learning view to get me the base map... Drive home, and what's waiting in the mail? Vagcom cable I had ordered a month prior. Drive back, get the learning view sent off to Dave.

Wednesday - Car is assembled and Dave has sent me a base map to get the car going.

 

In 3 months I went from very little car knowledge to... slightly more, and having a great moonroof.

 

Wanted to say, I'm here to stay, and love the forums for all the info and helpful guys out there. Have learnt a lot.

 

Cheers. :beer:

I just want to know, Moonroof..Is the sun still shining thru your moonroof?

 

Oh, and welcome to the forum!

Not quite, its still snowing here haha. Thanks!

 

Sent from my GT-I9505G using Tapatalk

Welcome! An entertaining intro post for sure It's good to read about someone putting in the work to make a bad situation less bad. Enjoy your moonroof and new found power.

Welcome! Fun times.

http://cdn.wegotthiscovered.com/wp-content/uploads/Burn-After-Reading1.jpg

I take it you're not set up to mould hard rubber. . .

dat moonroof