February 12, 20169 yr Hi - I'm new to the forum and hopefully new to Subaru ownership. I've inherited a bit of money and in the spirit of the person who left me with it, I'm going to have a bit of fun with some of it, so I'm looking to buy a Forester so me and my son can go off and get it nice and muddy after a bit of subtle modification. I'm going to be having a good read of the forum over the next few days, but are there any glaringly obvious things to watch out for, or a particular spec I should aim for getting? My budget isn't massive, probably a grand and a half, so I'm concentrating on Gumtree for a 2003ish model It's not going to be a daily driver, more of a weekend toy, a dog carrier and load lugger if I get dragged to IKEA, so MPG and massive amounts of acceleration don't bother me, i'm more interested in being able to get away from the beaten track with my lad and spend some time with him, so would a regular Forester X have enough grunt under the bonnet or should I be looking at the XT? I know, I should also be looking at Land Rovers, but I drive one of those everyday at work and I fancy something a bit different. Any advice you could give would be very welcome - Cheers!
February 12, 20169 yr Welcome! Sounds like you have just the right mind set! You should def not be looking at Land Rovers for £1.5K lol You'll def get some good pointers here, good luck with your search and we look forward to seeing the impending addition
February 12, 20169 yr Hello & welcome, we've a member who's just joined and set about lifting his by an inch or so to do some off roading in, you even get a late sf model as they are a bit more bullet proof
February 12, 20169 yr Author Cheers - newbie question, but is the SF model the one to go for then? I think I've been looking at the SG (2003+) models but if the SF is a bit more bulletproof I'll revise my search and go for one that'll leave me with a few spare beer tokens. Basically, if it'll get me and Junior round the not-so-mental trails at the off road centre at Tong, (Sorry Stants, you've got another West Yorks member joined) with a bit of fettling and some decent tyres then I'll be happy
February 12, 20169 yr Is the off road centre still open ? Used to go there as a teenager with enduros. my folks live at the back end of pudsey so know it well over black Carr woods etc The more the merrier mate ! We're a bit thin on the ground recently. If you want to have a poke round an sf give me a shout the sg is nicer inside and more refined but, another member her Mr b says the sf is put together a bit better
February 14, 20169 yr Author Cheers both of you - I've got a couple on my watch list on gumtree, from both the SF and SG models, so hopefully one of those will pan out. Are the Auto's any good, out of interest? Mrs A has an auto-only licence so it's something I'm bearing in mind, so long as they've got a bit more testicular fortitude than a Volvo who's gearbox I managed to make implode on the M62 a few years ago...
February 14, 20169 yr [emoji23] how do you blow up an auto box on a motorway ? Can't really answer the auto box question, @david1972 may be your best bet for answering that,
February 14, 20169 yr I had a 54 reg all weather auto, many years ago, and that was a great car. It was not fast like a turbo model (a bit like my current XV), but could still get it wound up nicely. Only drawback of the auto is that you lose the low range, so severe mud plugging is probably out of the question, but I used to visit farms for work, and never got stuck in their mud or deep ruts.
February 14, 20169 yr My 3.0l is an auto....smooth as silk and lots of grunt when required although it's a flat 6 as opposed to flat 4 in the SF 2.0l auto foz; a different animal I'd expect. Never missed a beat in 18 months though
February 14, 20169 yr No problem mate, was manual and still look back happily on those days [emoji106] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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