Tlag

Welcome along.

There goes the neighbourhood :( :)

Got to be honest. I don't know a lot about Fozzies. It's the same EJ20 block and ancillaries as the Impreza so no reason why you can't change things and fettle things in the same was as the Impreza. The XT is the closest in mechanical spec to the Impreza (other than the STI) so a good base to start with.

Hoover? How did you know? :) I will l be sucking up the air from the atmosphere and converting it into lots of noise and lots of forward motion, :) I will be a starting a build thread on the car, probably around Christmas time.

Unfortunately, it sounds like classic Subaru head gasket problems. Due to the design of the engines, it's very rare to find the oil and coolant mixing when the head gaskets go. Is far more common for the gasket to go, between the water jacket and the combustion chamber. The water system gets pressurised and the escape route for the coolant is through the expansion tank.

Totally agree, but when it comes to my project car............ ;)

The next time I go, I will be driving my project car. The Christmas overtime is going straight into that :) Anybody else in the family wants to take there own car, they can fund the trip themselves. :)

I was gutted not to be able to go on this run. My daughter went with them though, and now she is been bitten by the 'ring' bug. I can see a family trip happening in 2014 :)

Have to agree, the P1 type do it for me

Over the years, I've heard both these points of view time and again. I still don't know which is right or wrong. I have only ever made sure that all four tyres are the same size and I have matching ones on a particular axle. One thing I have noticed though. All the space saver spares seem to be 16 inch, yet some of the cars came from the factory with 17's. How does that work? " yes sir, you can get home following a puncture, but may well wreck your diff or gearbox". :). Just a thought.

Thats excellent news. However, be very wary and check all the levels very regularly. For oil to mix with coolant, something is definitely amiss. I would still suspect head gaskets, so just be very careful for a while.

That is an absolute bargain. There is a strong possibility, it simply needs an oil change in the gearbox. However, there is the other possibility that it needs a whole new box. Even with the work, it's still a bargain.

Pistons out of place? As per what Adam said. The guy must have been a salesman, or the janitor :) Do not go for a secondhand engine. Only my opinion but suppose you did and then had it fitted. What's to say that 6 weeks down the road, the head gaskets go, or worse. Head gaskets are not a problem. As Adam says, it's simply the time it takes to remove and refit the engine which costs the money. As long as the heads are skimmed, the job should be good for many thousand more miles. I would be happy to quote you for the work. I currently have customers car from Kent here for work, so distance isn't really an issue.

It's a superb car. It drives really well :). Uber comfortable as well.

If you have oil mixing with coolant, it will be the head gaskets. The other items you have been advised to change are not essential to do but makes good sense as to do them separately will involve a lot of labour time and therefore money. On any of the EJ series engines, head gasket failure is not uncommon. Over the years, the designs have changed only very slightly with the biggest advances in the actual gaskets, but they still go. It is however quite rare for them to go in the way yours has, they usually don't get to the point where the oil mixes with coolant. It's usually coolant into the combustion chambers. Unusual but not unheard of.

'Please don't say a Speed camera operator. Or an Audi test driver. All else I can forgive ' If I was either of those, I would shoot myself :) This is my normal daily driver,

Hmmmm, I could answer that but on the grounds that I may then have to kill you, I won't answer it :) :)

Have been thinking about this and I,m really not sure it's as drastic as an engine internal problem. Other than spitting out black deposits, was there lots of smoke? Any strange noises, like metal on metal/ dragging noises? What's the mileage on the car?

Hi chap. If Adam comes over, at least you would have a diagnosis to work with. Adam will know what's wrong. Both Adam and I have seen the consequences of a holed piston and what you describe dosnt quite fit what we have seen, although that may be because our experience of that was with a turboed car and at high speed. Before pulling it apart, I would do a compression test. That will give you an indication as to the problem. Any help you need, just shout up and we can help you sort it.

The full trip was 11 nights and we did: ferry from Dover the Dunkerque, Paris, Millau Bridge, Avignon, Hyeres, Col De Turini, Menton, Monaco, Como in Italy, over the alps using the San Bernardino Pass, Lucerne in Switzerland and a weekend in Germany at the Nurburgring. Most of the cars had two people in and the cost per car, including fuel, hotels, food, spending money was just under £2000 per car. Sounds a lot and is, but we all have a lifetime of memories, can't put a price on that :) 9 cars went out, 6 came back ( under there own steam) and we lost 2 people in France, ( lost passports, customs wouldn't let them back into UK :)

As you can probably appreciate, that type of trip, with people you have mostly only met on forums, take a lot of planning. It's always a bit of a compromise, trying to please all the people all of the time, but on that one, we got it right but still learnt a lot from it. We are planning another for September 2015. It's a long way off but will soon come around and gives everyone time to save :) Sorry to the OP for the thread hijack. Wasn't intentional.

A couple of years a go a group a group of us went around Europe with contour cameras on our cars. The footage is HD and looks great but I think the Hero brand have moved on since then for similar money. Here's a clip one of our guys put together with the contours

That looks horrendous. What did they break? The only things I can think of they may have touched is the bottom ball joint and maybe a track rod end but even if they broke those, the bill should be no where near that high!

Pay no attention to the time it takes issue. I did my twin turbo Legacy in 9 hrs once. That was from engine off to engine on again. (I wouldn't do it again mind, about killed me) :). I would suggest the average is about £1200 to be honest. The cheap one is too cheap in my opinion. I doubt the heads are being skimmed for that, which really should be done on these engines.

I've not had too much experience with autos either but changing the oil in the box has helped out with similar faults in the past.