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Forester for sale.


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Heres an ad for a Forester for sale. I get excited when a subaru goes up for sale because there are so little on my island. it's once in a blue moon that they show up on Craigslist. Check out the ad

 

http://honolulu.craigslist.org/kau/cto/3263239252.html

 

I emailed him and this is what he sent. Thoughts??

 

"Aloha Tim,

Thanks for your email.

 

So, here are the details about the Subaru.

It's a 1998 Subaru Forester Sport, 5 speed. AWD. Power locks and windows.

100K+ miles, good body shape, no rust, interior is clean and nice.

Has roof racks & pretty new CD player. Brand new battery (2 weeks old).

Have all legal docs, and up to date maintenance receipts.

 

My wife's car, she's had it & taken excellent care of it for the last 5+ years.

Selling it because it needs to be fixed, we have a new car, and don't want to put the money into it.

 

Problem is:

It overheats, and the root problem has been undiagnosed. Speedometer stopped working too.

One day driving the car home from town - temp quickly jumped to HOT, car steamed and had to pull over.

Let the car cool off, put new water in the radiator & made it home.

 

Local mechanic friend came over to have a look.

After poking around, stumped, finally found a hole in a radiator hose.

He was sure that was the problem, so we got a new radiator for it.

He installed it. It's in there. brand new.

 

Drove to town again, same thing happened - overheated.

Different mechanic friend from Kalaheo came to town to work on it, replaced the thermostat.

Thought that'd be it.

 

That was fine for a few days, but then same prob. Car overheated.

 

After talking to a couple different mechanics - hypothesis is Head gasket is blown.

Cheap part, but expensive to fix (labor).

 

I don't want to deal with it.

 

Selling for $1000, would make a great car with some care.

We are in Princeville. Car runs great, can drive for a while but same thing will probably happen

after driving for a while. Will need to be fixed before regular use.

 

Could fix it up and drive in it forever (Subarus are great for that) or fix it up and sell it - make a little $.

 

If you are still interested, please let me know.

Going to sell it first come first serve.

 

Thanks, Mike"

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If you can do the work yourself and are willing to change the timing components it would be a good deal. But I would still try to get a 100 or so off.

The only real concern is that constant overheating stresses the rod bearings more than usual. The other parts will be fixed and then bam, a spun bearing.

Tough call.

 

O.

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Its a nice looking fozzy. $1000 isn't a bad deal, but like osei said I would try to get a little more knocked off. Hopefully they didn't let it overheat too bad. I would get the heads machined though. At $1k that would sell pretty quick out here in UT as subies are immensely popular.
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So it's not head gasket. It's got a brand new radiator, I found previous owners records of replacing the water pump 10k ago. They had a new thermostat put in. I just bypassed the heater core. Still overheating. In a weird way tho. Sometimes it will sometimes it won't. I drove around town without any problems. Then a little later it randomly shot up. Any thoughts would be Much appreciated
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Every component I can think of is either new or thought to be ok. This is good.

 

Try replacing the rad cap try to burp the system and then check to make sure your cooling fans are working properly by letting it idle and see if the fans kick on once you hit higher temps.

 

That's all I've got at 3:00 AM

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Not head gasket. Oil and coolant are normal and good looking. Couldn't be radiator cap cause it's brand new and seals really well (good pressure required to get it screwed on) I'm gunna check out the thermostat tmrw morning, and pull it out. What's a hydro carbon test?
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it test for hydro carbons(fuel and oils) in the coolant. if the headgaskets are just going you wont always see shit in the coolant roght away. unlike one car i worked on. there was more gunk and stop leaks in the coolant then coolant! but they ran the car like that for months on short trips to school and back.
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The ONLY way to confirm that the head gaskets are good, or the head gaskets are bad is to do a hydrocarbon test. NEVER assume they are good if you still over heat. Even if it doesn't always do it. My head gaskets went and it didn't always overheat at first. You can't always tell by lookimg at the coolant ant oil... These gasjets leak internally and super heat the coolant with combusted fuel/air.

 

If you know BOTH fans run, have replacedthe thermostat, radiator, and cap, yet it still overheats after purging air from the system, I would bet it's the gaskets. 9 times out of 10, it is.

 

Oh, and make sure everything is OEM

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Oh, and a hydrocarbon test will check the coolant for any hydrocarbons in the coolant. This shows whether or not combusted fuel/air is blowing past the gasket rings right into the coolant.

 

Btw, excuse my spelling errors. This nook sucks and I have no patience for anything this morning..

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Yeah, clogged cats can do that. But at its low mileage and condition I doubt thatis an issue. I have hardly ever seen Subaru cats clog in the first place.

 

As far as the hydrocarbon test, I would assume a dealer could otherwise I have no idea. I did my gaskets because nothing else I tried fixed my issue..

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