Literally
6 months were spent on Craigslist trying to find this car. It’s not that
they don’t exist, it’s just that they fall into one of two camps; Either just
so totally beaten they are unsalvageable, or so overwhelmingly modified that
their price range is astronomical, and they look like a reject from 2Fast
2Furious.
I
went and saw a bunch of cars. There was the one that was so rusted out it was
about to crack under its own weight…one that had significant wreck damage that
somehow was neglected on the Craigslist ad… and one that was so completely
riced, there was just no saving it. I hope someone buys it just to put it out
of its misery. The prices also ran the
gamut from $3500 for a “motor blown” model to $17,000 for a stage 2 with way
too much boost, bro.
My
budget for this project is $5000 for the car and $1000 in parts for $6K in
total. I know with a little work, I can easily sell it for $8-9K, making a
decent amount of profit. But besides the extra money, I get to drive a car I
always wanted, and have something fun for the next Polar Vortex. I also get to
learn how to wrench on a Subaru.
I
finally found close to what I was looking for up in Rockland county, about an
hour from my house. The guy was asking $5000 for a “Silver Mist” 2004 5-speed
wagon. So I took a ride after work one day to check it out.
First
things I noticed: high mileage at 184k, and some rust on the rear quarter
panels which is easy enough to fix with some patience. Also, pretty much every
Subaru has this after ten years. It had a little front end damage where they
had hit a rock or something, and one of the fog lights was cracked and needed
replacing. The other one didn’t work. Easy. The exhaust was loud. I can live
with it. The clutch rides a little too high for comfort. The AC didn’t work. The
tires are worn and the CD player didn’t function. After factoring these in, I
offered him $4100 for the car, and the deal was struck.
I take delivery of the car, make the
transaction, and then proceed to take it for a ride. I open it up on the
Bethpage parkway and proceed to rip through the gears…the turbo kicks in, 3K RPM is awesome. 4K is heavenly, and then @4500…BOOM the car shutters and the
check engine light comes on…Seriously, WTF?
I
take it slow for a little bit and then resume driving normally. The car seems
fine. I get home and Google it, and find out this is something called “turbo
creep”. Since this is my first turbo motor, I have some learning to do. I
use my new and awesome Bluetooth OBD II reader and determine that the fault code
is a blown turbo wastegate solenoid…which sound expensive. So after some forum
lurking, I learned that other things can cause this issue. Then I found the
culprit, simply a worn vacuum hose exiting the solenoid. 50 cents worth of
surgical tubing, and its fixed.
 |
| Think I found the problem... |
But
as I spend some time with this car, I am finding more and more things that need
fixing and adjusting. The rear washer fluid hose had a massive tear in it which
was causing a flood into the rear cargo compartment. $1.25 on a hose splice and
its fixed. The heater blower motor was making a noise. Rip it apart, and find
half the fan is shot. Twenty dollar replacement. The front control arms are
rusted through. I spent 80 bucks on a new set, along with a new AC compressor
through some dude on Craigslist. They even came with new bushings, score. New
fog light also got put in.
So
now I’m about to tackle some of the more costly items like Tires, exhaust and AV, and
I’ll see how lean I can get and still make a profit.
 |
| New foglight to replace cracked one |
The thought of doing the
bodywork horrifies me. I have never painted a car before or removed rust. But this is why we buy project cars, to learn how
to do this stuff. To get our hands dirty and make it our own, and then sell it
off and make some money for the next project.
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