Mr B

Yes, I have a garage business in Devon specialising in Subaru/Nissan & do source some cars for people. You are at guess 700 miles from us though. Would of thought quite a few dealers in sensible distance from you will have some decent Forester XT's & 2004 models in very clean order can be had from £3k so with your budget you should find plenty & even late 2005 models with low mileage plus FSSH should be within budget.

what year/model forester ? You tried locking/ unlocking via remote then pulling boot handle ! Perhaps wriggle handle little while trying use key! If unable open you may need pull inner trim off & manually try release it, can be a pain if mechanism jammed/detached !

Yes the imports can be good & reliability still good if you fussy on what you buy. Only thing with imports is verifying the mileage, original mileage from auction sheets is recorded & can be checked online as a lot of importers like knocking off some miles when converting/reseting to Miles. My first choice would probably be the 2.0XT UK spec purely as less hassle with insurance & easier sell on in future plus running costs better of the bunch. I've viewed a few 2.0XT's for customers & had real clean 80k-mile FSSH late 2004 for less than £4k Good time to buy as sales are slow at start of new year & most people past the point of wanting a winter 4x4 so prices can be haggled more. Generally it quite easy find decent Forester 2.0XT as they tend to not get used as hard as the non turbo's & also tend be lower mileage & better price as more select buyer market ;-) being you happy with auto or manual should help too .... another glass of vino sir !?

Certainly not an off-roader in the sense of a LR Defender but they quite capable & a slight lift of say 1" spacer blocks on tophats along with 215/70/15 or 205/75/15 tyres gives almost another 1/2" & really helps the forester off road. They are quite good & far better all rounder than most, also reliability can be amazing. Hope you enjoy your Forester & have a muddy 2015 :-)

^ My names Paul, glad to be of help. Coilovers are a bit of a pet hate of mine :-S Likes of BC are ok on track & can be made work on the road but are not as good as quality struts for street use. Your cusco kit is quite well built but design is poor as is the spring rates for road use. You may get lucky & find lower rated springs works out ok but you may need compromise ride height as if the rod has say only an inch of bump travel before out of stroke then you need raise it to help, other option is shortening the rod but that starts getting expensive :-/ You want to measure & mark rod for maximum extension & compression & then you can see what travel you have at set ride heights & work out what can be done !

The coil springs are standard diameters so quite easy for you to get your own lengths & rates. prices range around 30 to 50 pound a spring pending on make & length/rate.

I just looked at pic of your cuscos on previous page & they the super useless type with no adjustable lower mount for ride height. The type that use the spring perch is a cheap bodge. when setting suspension the spring perch is used mainly for spring preload & setting corner weights of vehicle. The lower bracket should be the way to adjust ride height, with your type the lower you go the less bump travel you have plus you run with no spring preload in some cases. Cusco kits tend to come with 7kg front & 5kg rear springs which awful on the road, I have changed a few coilovers to 5kg & 4kg & even better is 4.5 & 3.75 but that has been on types with adjustable lower mounting & most were BC & the valving is softer & they have a little more travel than some. For road use best kit is sti inverted struts custom modded to application or Bilstien suspension kit.

Problem number 2 with coilovers is the stroke travel is minimal so with mildly softer springs you may get slightly better ride but shocks tend to bottom out a lot & seals fail quick. If your cuscos don't have ride height adjustment via bottom bracket & rely on spring perch for ride height then you seriously suffer as impossible set spring preload & balance stroke on that type. All the cheap to medium priced coilovers are the same issue & for road use they are simply dangerous as handling & wet grip is awful. Your best option would of been sti inverted struts with custom springs & rods/tophats modded as needed to match stroke with set ride height.

I would be looking at a 2005 2.0XT myself mainly as road tax reasonable on pre 2006, fuel economy acceptable, insurance acceptable & 2.0 litre engine more reliable & desirable over the 2.5 so resale value tends to hold better. Not a huge difference between 2.0 & 2.5 in fuel economy so go with your preference or by what decent example turns up. Generally easy find a clean 2.0XT automatic & at good price, prefer manual myself plus slightly better fuel figures on the manual too.

Falken Eurowinter HS449 are good as are Hankook Optimo 4S H730 if available in your size.

I would probably use KYB Ultra SR struts for an sti, standard suspension is quite stiff on those so damping of the pedders won't be best option.

On B roads you can't beat oem inverted struts really unless spend about 2k Bilstien do some good struts. BC are not the worst coilovers for the money but on B roads it a downgrade on handling grip & you soon be needing them rebuilt. All the cheap coilovers like BC miester R etc are virtually same taiwan !Removed! with no real testing & development on specific models.

I've been getting quite a few of these for plugs due to poor support & silly quotes from dealers. Easy enough test the plugs with multimeter & removal not long job unless do snap :-/ I'm soaking the plugs with release agent & leaving cars overnight & tackling removal following day to reduce risk of snapping plug or threads being ripped up on removal. Refit with light smear of anti-seize paste on threads & shaft, I'm using a ceramic & synthetic grease based high temp rated anti-seize. had a few rip some thread but not enough to be an issue. We been using Ashika branded plugs as original oem ones don't seem great . Glowplugs are around £22 each & as long as don't snap it not over expensive job. Just being careful with removal is critical & not snapped one yet & not had any come back for replacement as of yet but probably will in time unless Ashika far more robust than the oem, time will tell ! Not really sure why they failing, could be the oem plugs, could be too much heat soak or could be ecu related & they being used to much. We been having short lifespan on diesels & switched to Ashika after some brand testing.

What alarm system ? Sigma !? If still not working after battery change you could try reprogramming & if that fails then will need pick up another fob. If its Sigma m30 link below on reprogramming, if you don't know then manual pin code set that first while you have one working remote. http://uk.subaruownersclub.com/forums/topic/306-remote-needed/page-3

they are good but I still like a manual too ... best bet is test drive a couple.

38 would bring wheels out 10mm, main issue on forrester is drastic changes either way can cause fowling. I would suspect a 38 on 205 width to be ok though. Moving the wheel out 5 to 10mm is not drastic & if anything could improve handling as increasing track.. Moving wheel in is not good idea as they already run very close to strut plus reducing track would be a negative handling change, although 5mm is not drastic problem. Seen 53 offsets rims from legacy on SF & was ok but they did use spacers eventually.

Standard offset on yours was 48 (i think!) so a 53 will move the tire closer to strut. Would be best moving away from strut with lets say a 43 offset so then tyre would move away from strut by 5mm.

The bolt just replaces the upper bolt in the hub to strut mount, as you turn the bolt it can increase or decrease camber due to the cam on bolt shank. bushing will do same via centre hole off-centre so as rotate bush the suspension arm moves in or out (more of pain to adjust though) but I think for you the bolts are perfect solution & is the way Subaru done it on front & back for years. I have whiteline ones but will be stocking powerflex 12 & 14mm for a trial, from images & spec sheet they should be as good.

Can't see any issue with that as 6.5" rim still good for 205 & even 215 tyre width. Best inform insurance though on any wheel or tyre size from standard.

Could be slight suspension component worn/bent. You do have a certain amount of change simply by the slop of fittings such as strut tophat & standard bolts in the strut to hub bracket wich can vary the camber somewhat . Would assume if big difference the shop would be suspicious to possible underlying problem & mentioned it. Quite surprised that an alignment shop didn't have a few camber bolts though as the 14mm ones are common for quite a few cars & stocking 12mm & 14mm would be super useful to the shop & customers. Eibach camber bolts are pretty good too & I would use them but out of choice I would say whiteline are better. not expensive but stay away from cheaper unknown brands ... Edit: Just had a look at Powerflex camber bolts & they same design with washer tab as eibach & whiteline so probably just as good & easily available in UK.

i would say the whiteline 14mm camber bolts would be perfect choice. They are a quality product & easily obtained, eibach ones also are quite good.

Lol the original idea of leasing roads & giving them infrastructure & congestion improvement targets with rewards from the vehicle excise duty is blatant stupidity. Simply tighten your belts & use the f00king excise duty directly on quality road infrastructure & repair & have a proper team review costs & quality of al contractors involved. Trouble these days is everyone wants outsource everything in a bid to avoid the real headache of knuckling down & doing some real graft :-/ & being accountable for it. With amount of cheap east european labour we got in the uk they have no excuse for current mess besides poor policy, poor local councils & leaders who are full of bloat & fancy phrases but would struggle to organise a paper round successfully :-/

Yes they not bad but do bed into the hose a lot & when old they don't always give even clamping the circumference of the pipe. any decent quality full band pipe clamp could be used if needed, just got be careful not over tighten them really. Sounds like job jobbed though :-)

I would get a decent new clamp on that & clean inside hose & very very lightly grease smear it prior to fitting as helps pipe bed nicely without over-tightening clamp. twin wire clamps like in your pic can be troublesome. Is possible pipe gone hard & too scabby inside for good seal in which case a new hose is good idea. You can smear just a smidge of sealant on in it instead of grease which should stop it leaking & give you time source decent hose at nice price. Worth checking rad pipe not split as it does happen at times,

Worth looking at pitch stop then like stanton suggested. Also look at driveshaft joints & check play and feel from shafts through the diff.