bladeracer wrote:wanneroo wrote:I'll pass this onto him. I know nothing about them other than from when I replaced a head gasket on my brother-in-law's Leone over twenty years ago. That one impressed with it's towing ability and grunt but was horrendous on fuel. This 2010 looks like the same basic engine but with more junk packed in around it, doesn't look like it'd be much fun doing a head on this one, the Leone was pretty easy to get to.
I did notice the heavy crash cage around the car when we were doing the struts, about two-inch tube all the way around it. His second Subaru is a '92 sedan which I personally think is the much nicer vehicle of the two, it's a manual for a start, but it has some sort of gadget in the transfer case that automatically alters the ratio of engine power going to front and rear axles apparently?
The old 2.5 motors in the mid 2000s ate head gaskets, by 2010 as I recall it's still the same engine just evolved and upgraded. The big issue in 2010 was the early CVT transmissions, they went bang enough Subaru of America was replacing them free out of warranty up to 120k miles. The 3.6L six with a regular auto transmission has a lot more horsepower and torque.
As I recall at the time with the reinforced cage on the Outback, it could take 4 to 5 times the weight of the car on the roof before it started to give way. The other Subarus have the same set up. I got to test out this gear for real about 5 years ago at work when I was sent into a 45 degree angle hill in a Subaru Forester and got airborne, barrel rolled sideways and then fell to earth and rolled multiple times. The roof held and the car once rolled over, fired up and was still driveable. I was sore for about 2 weeks and got a bruise but other than that, good. If I had been in some general motors car or something, things probably would not have turned out so well.
Subarus are strong cars, they have their foibles but overall strong cars they are.
By 2010, the only Subaru with the ability to manual alter power going from front to back was the Subaru STI. They let electronics figure all that out these days.