My Legacy is dead.

As of last week, I pretty much killed my Legacy. I was heading home from work after working my normal 8pm - 7am all night shift. I have about a 30 mile drive home from Seattle and was on the last 2 mile stretch and then something really bad happened. I nodded off and plowed into a intersection with a red light and all, t-boning a Ford ranger in the process. I snapped to attention a split second before impact and was somehow able to steer a bit out of the way and avoid a direct impact and hit his bed spinning him around instead of impacting his driver side door. The 45-ish mph impact crunched my front (obviously), but my airbag never deployed. My guess is that because I drove through the impact and did maintain some speed and stopped on my own. not from the impact. I need to give my Subbie kudo's, I did not even feel the impact and had no soreness the next day. Luckily no one was hurt.

 

I am pretty severely bummed, I am 32 and have never been in a wreck. My last speeding ticket was way back in 1999. Now it looks like my car is going to get totalled, already at $18k damages. A bunch of the damage was from my battery exploding and saturating everything with acid inside the engine bay, so that will most likely go up.

 

This is the first car I have ever really liked and put any extra money into as well, 18" Prodrive PFF7's, iON springs, JDM replica mesh grill, Cobb Accessport with TDC stage 1 map, etc. Now I feel so deflated, I have no idea what to do as I do not feel like building another one and the base GT just does not do it for me after having my car. Plus I do not have the funds to do it all over again.

So as much as I love my Legacy, I cannot afford to build another and I also feel weird about it, like to do not want another for some reason. Maybe because I do not want a daily reminder how cool my car once was.

 

I have not received word that it is totalled yet, but the body shop doing my work and acting as adjuster pretty much told me it is most likely gone.

 

So begins the hunt for a new vehicle, sadly I do not have a lot of time to do a ton or research and most cars out right now that I can afford just do not do it for me.

 

I have been eyeballing a couple possibilities though:

 

1) 06' Mazdaspeed 6 Grand touring. I can get on fully loaded minus Nav for a hair under $25k. I test drove one and was impressed. It handled better than my Legacy with little body roll, did not have the bottom end grunt of my TDC tuned ride, but it seemed to pull better up top. The clutch was pretty sensitive, but felt solid. The interior is nice, certainly not as good as the Legacy, but not to far off. The Bose stereo is decent, it needs a better sub as the bose one does not fill in the missing bass all that well, but it is better than most stock stereo's I have heard. Overall it seems like a good deal and since it is already pretty pimp, I would not feel the need to modify it very bad. Another positive is that only 5000 were made in 06' so they are not everywhere, but it is close looking to regular Mazda 6 which is a slight negative since they are everywhere.

 

2) 06' Honda Civic SI. Test drove one of these as well. Lots of fun and the cockpit feel of the driver setup was great IMO. It of course has no torque and needs to have the crap revved out of it for good thrust, which might get annoying on a day to day basis. But I swear it sounds like a mini F1 car when you are on it. Ride was firm, but not stiff and it handled very well. The factory stereo was really pretty good with much better bass response than the BOSE offered in the MS6. But these cars also have extra road noise that the MS6 and LEgacy do not have, are in high demand so even getting one for MSRP is tough. There are maybe 10 in the whole Seattle area left for sale. So chances are it will ring in at close to $23k once I add the foglight option. Resale should be very good though.

 

3) 06' VW GTI - Can get one with 18's, leather and bodykit for $800 under invoice, but it is not going to happen as my wife is dead set against hatchbacks for some reason. Bummer as it looks like it might be a fun drive.

 

Still looking around for other ideas but I am looking to not spend more than $25k

Scratch that. Pick up an used '05 or new at below cost '06 since the '07's are just hitting the lot. Even if not below cost on a '06, you can get at least $500 below invoice (at least!!)

 

The Mz-6 touring... meh. Boring driving experience. The SI, same with less space. The '06 GTI, maybe, but again, you loose a lot of space. Sorry to hear about the accident and I hope you stay in the subbie family.

your Subie saved your LIFE!!!!! any other car and you would have been injured. There are a couple of used cars on the site take a look some are still stock some have mods. Oh if you can, unmarry your AP before they take it. And how are you wheels any damage take those too. Every little bit will help. Oh Glag to hear you are OK.

I was just in a minor reck so I know how you feel although much attenuated. The subie saved your life man get another one. It's the least you can do. You can get an 05 cheap and it'll be the same great car with a few modifications.

I had a similar situation about two years ago... only one speeding ticket back in 1993. I was driving my first Subie (first car I ever loved) OBXT 05. Lost the rear end on a turn with wet pavement and stock tires. Totaled the car. No air bags deployed and none of my passengers were injured.

After considering what all the other cars I could get to replace my OBXT... I ended up purchasing the same car, same color, and same options.

It was a very hard decision to make at the time, but after two years, it was the best decision I could have made.

Good luck and all the best!

Cheers!

Sorry to hear..... but glad you were not hurt......

 

If they are planning on totalling the vehicle you'd better start taking some of your items off......

like wheels & other item's.

 

Buy a set of steel "junkyard wheels" & replace them, you cannot just leave the car without them though.

I should hopefully find out today what my insurance wants to do. I think I still owe about $23k on the car, I bought it nearly a year ago. I do have gap insurance on it just in case however if it's value is below that. So basically whatever I buy will be like starting from scratch, except I will be out my $500 deductible and $600 I have already paid out on my rental car (yes my insurance pays for the rental, however the local taxes and fees are stupid at about $40/day which I get to pay).

 

I seriously loved my Legacy. The only reason I am looking at other cars is because I do not like to buy used and no matter what I buy, I will not have the spare $$ to do any modifications and I did not truely love my Legacy until I made it mine with the mods I did.

 

I am going to try and unmarry my accessport and if I go with a different car or year Legacy I'll be selling it, the engine bay was thrashed by my exploding battery, but the collision guys said that they'd try and hook up another battery so I can try to unmarry it. I guess two of my PFF7's were damaged, not sure how since I am pretty certain my wheels did not hit anything, but maybe the tow company was not nice to them? I do not have my stock wheels anymore so I am not sure how I could swap them out anyway without buying some cheapo spares which may or may not be worth the effort depending on the condition of the PFF7's (I for sure check it out though). I had funnily enough removed my STI replica lip to sand and repaint prior to the wreck, so it is untouched in my garage.

If you wind up having to get another vehicle LMK what you want for the Replica lip;)

Sorry about your accident bro!!! I work nights also--- I know the SUPER SLEEPY feeling very well ! I have some stockers in my garage, maybe we could work something out?? Also interested in the lip

Well it is official, my Subbie is indeed totaled.

 

Test drove a bunch of vehicles this last weekend, 06 WRX limited, 06 Legacy GT, 06 Civic SI, 06 VW GTI, 06 Mazdaspeed 6 GT, 06 VW GLI, 05 Infinity G35. After much thought I decided on the Mazdaspeed 6 GT in Velocity Red Mica. Stock for stock, I just liked it better overall than all of them although the Legacy and G35 provided stiff competition.

 

Sorry to be leaving the Subaru family for now, but I have no doubts I'll be back. Maybe with the next generation Legacy.

Thanks, hopefully I will not have another wreck. I am 32 now and this was my first wreck and I am a consistant 20k mile a year driver. The mazda does have a 5 star impact rating which is reassuring, I cannot imagine it being any better than my Subbie was, but hopefully I will never have to find out.

Good luck with it. I hope you've looked at some Mazda boards and researched the car you decide on before you purchase. For the record, I'll never buy another Mazda again.

Thanks, hopefully I will not have another wreck. I am 32 now and this was my first wreck and I am a consistant 20k mile a year driver. The mazda does have a 5 star impact rating which is reassuring, I cannot imagine it being any better than my Subbie was, but hopefully I will never have to find out.

 

 

Go over to mazda6club.com and do some research on the car you have decided to purchase. A lot of owners have been having random issues. Also the 5 star rating is only if the vehicle is equipped with side airbigs, without them it gets a 3 star if I remember correctly. Makes you wonder how well it holds up.

 

Not trying to dissuade you from purchasing the MS6 but just a heads up from somone who was very close to buying one also!

 

GOOD LUCK and glad you are ok from your accident.

Yeah have done some research. I did see some of the problem posts (loss of power, 2 guys with awd system probs, etc), but I have read a fair share of problem posts here as well in addition to my own subbie having annoying rattling, misaligned trunk, A/C that cycled between hot and cold, easily chipped paint. That is what forums are for, bragging or complaining. I have personally owned a 01' Mazda Protege before and had not a single problem with 90,000 miles before I traded it in (on my Legacy actually) and my mom had a millenia that had nearly 150,000 miles without an single issue. I have no problem with the Mazda brand.

Good luck w/the mazda. I've owned 2 (rx7 and 626) and they were damn solid cars.

lame

whatever you do, stay away form the VW, this coming from an ex-VW owner(B5 passat, MK4 golf x2, mk2 jetta, mk3 gti...) they are unreliable and have so many stupid little problems..and lack of dealer support too...

Well it is official. Farmers total loss division settled with me to the tune of $26749 ($24563 + $2186 (tax) ). I owed $24400 on it still and after the deducted my $500 deductable, I am left with $1849, which was more than I was thinking I'd get.

 

Thanks to everyone that has given me advice and hopefully I will own a subaru again soon.

 

In the meantime, I really do like my MS6. It is not nearly as refined as the Legacy, but it sure is lots of fun while still having a reasonable amount of luxury.

Sorry to hear it.... and

I do not have of the day of the crash and by the time I got to the body shop they had taken off the bumper already and started some disassembly of various parts.

 

http://home.comcast.net/~jhatfie/legacy_crash_1.jpg

Yeah, I thought it was not going to be $18k in damages bad, but what the pictures show well is all the acid damage from my battery exploding which coated the entire engine bay. Supposedly the engine was impacted as well and took damage as well, but you would not know from looking at it. Was it all enough to total the car? I think my adjuster was being overly generous with his damage estimates.

I recently had a wreck where the damage was located primarily to one side of the car with some minor body damage all around... it ended up totally close to $16k after all the hours and parts - your's looks worse unfortunately. Sorry to hear about that man, I know how you feel but be glad you're ok.

 

One last thing though, I personally have found that driving tired is as bad or worse than driving drunk (not that I drive drunk). You may feel like an idiot, but if you're feeling that way pull off and doze in a parking lot for 20 minutes... I know I've done it a couple of times, but nothing's worth the risk of losing a life.

 

I have actually worked a deal out with work, they have wanted me on days for a long time because of my skill set and experience, but I stayed on nights becuase of the shift differntial and guaranteed overtime every week. So now am moving to days so hopefully I will not have to deal with this again, I am giving up about $10-12k a year in doing so, but I think my health and family will thank me.

Sorry to hear..... but glad you were not hurt......

 

I am giving up about $10-12k a year in doing so, but I think my health and family will thank me.

 

Wow, if you don't mind me asking, what is it that you do for a living? And sorry to hear about your accident. Whatever you ultimately replace your legacy with, hope you're happy with your purchase.