Greenpill me on the subaru baja, Veeky Forums

greenpill me on the subaru baja, Veeky Forums
considering one as a do-it-all DD/winter car

wish we got these in aus

would buy.

do it cunt

Outback with forester struts and a bed. Beware of rust and headgaskets.

This right here. Perfectly cromulent DD or winter car. Just check which EJ25 it has and if it's a headgasket one that hasn't had the newer model headgaskets installed then anticipate one day you might need to put in the newer model headgaskets (after which time you'll never worry about headgaskets again unless you overheated and warped it)

It's an 04 with 145,000mi, how could I confirm?

Service records, it must have had a timing belt job too make sure to ask

IIRC they started using the new gaskets in 2004, so you might be safe or you might have the odd engine that still had the failure-prone gaskets. If a magic EJ25 expert doesn't appear in this thread then you'd have to use a form or search engine to find out if there's some special marking on the engine or maybe something you could get from the VIN or whatever.

Do you know if the gaskets have been swapped yet? 145k is up in the territory where I would expect to start seeing symptoms sooner or later unless you're lucky and they just plain don't fail on you ever.

The 2.5 turbo version with the manual is the WRX drivetrain on the [slightly longer] Outback chassis.

That particular trim is 10/10 modifiable sleeper.

Yeah all the 2.5Ts from that year or two were pretty dang rad as heck. Too bad somebody at Subaru decided there would be no fun allowed.

No mention of the gaskets, but the plugs and alternator have been replaced, as has the turbo and battery.
If the turbo failed, could that mean serious damage elsewhere in the engine? I understand the banjo bolts fail and starve everything of oil

Oh, if it's the turbo version then no head gasket worries. The notorious head gasket issue was only for the NA 2.5s.

Alternator completely reasonable at that age. I don't recall how common turbo failures are from that era or what they might imply. But if that doesn't wind up being a big red flag you're looking at a great DD/winter toy right there.

So America has a ute that Australia does not?

Surprising, right? Subaru has pretty decent presence in Australia and there's a healthy ute market to boot. Maybe they saw the sales numbers weren't terribly exciting in other markets and decided it wasn't worth the effort.

I'm glad ppl know about the banjo bolt thing. It was uncommon knowledge back in like 07 even on nasioc.

If it threatens WRX sales it can't exist in Australia. The cashed-up young tradie's third option after an SV6 or XR6 has always been the boyracer blue WRX.

Pretty sure that's why they pulled the 2.5T from the lineup in the US after that one year or two. It kind of marginalizes the attraction of the STi if all it's bringing to the table is a more racekar ride, fancy center diff, and some bits and pieces normies wouldn't notice if you didn't tell them they were there.

But I would think the NA 2.5, which is enough engine to make the thing useful, would an obvious way to keep from too much market overlap. Or was the 2.5 not offered in Australia due to whatever silly vehicle taxes / regulations?

It should be fine, the affected engines were EJ25D and EJ251 NA motors. The Baja Turbo has the EJ255 also found in the Legacy GT/Outback XT/06-14 WRX/04-13 Forester XT. It's true there are still the odd turbo motors that will pop a gasket but not much more common than anything else. If you're really concerned you can get a compression test.

Better off just getting the wagon since the bed is completely useless in the Baja. You can literally haul more shit in the wagon while not looking like a total cunt.

This, do it cunt.

That is strange

Now here's a guy who's never hauled sod, bottles, muddy tools, or literally anything you wouldn't want in the interior of your car. Hose out a bed and your a done
Less cab, less space to heat too

They're cool, but impossible to find.

>Too bad somebody at Subaru decided there would be no fun allowed.
They were too weird and expensive to be appealing to anyone but car nerds like you and rich hippies.

>reeeee
>people are wanting to buy the fuck out of these cars
>it doesn't fit with our company plan
>we can't have people wanting to buy every model

what is wrong with car companies?

>ok let's make them want a Tibeca
>fug it's almost like they told us before it went into production they didn't want it

>and rich hippies.
holy shit this

the only time I saw one was doing landscaping in rich city neighborhoods