Diesel sounding engine??

Hi, I am hopefully going to join the Subaru community soon, but the Legacy I'm interested in has a mystery problem. I have no clue about these cars at the moment, so I need some help.

The car is a 2004 Legacy L 35th Anniversary with a 2.5L. It's at a non-Subaru dealer and they replaced basically every seal and gasket in the engine because it was leaking. It has 120,000 miles on it and looks like it was relatively taken care of. The problem is when the engine is running it sounds kinda like a diesel engine. The mechanic thinks it is coming from the left rear cylinder. I don't know if I should buy the car or not. They want $7000 for it, and it drives good.

 

I know this is just a shot in the dark question, but any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you.

id walk sounds like rod knock for $7000 you could buy a 08 used 2.5i in better condition

might be piston slap. my forester sounds like a diesel too

I know the values of used cars are rather geographic. Where I live that would be $5000-$6000 car if the engine were running 100%. So I agree with GEE-OTTO to keep shopping.

I bought my 00 legacy l with 60k on it for $2500. I live in ct on top of a mountain and my fed Pontiac couldn't get up the road in the winter. Since then I've bought several parts cars cheap. I just got a 99 forrester that needs some talc for $700 so to me that seems like a lot of money for a gen3