Howdy! Thought I would start a new thread on my "my wife needs a car" subject since my original situation has changed. -ps thanks for all the good advice from the first thread! - was very helpful!

Anyway... I found a cheap 92 Geo Storm with a bad clutch for $200.00 bucks, it had 116,000 miles and overall seems good -minus the clutch. Thought I was done but I have an aunt that pointed out that where my wife's work is moving it snows / blizzards on a regular basis. and wouldn,t a 4wd be better? -She said she would kick in $1,000 if I could find a Subaru for her....

...sooo ...what were the good the bad and the ugly in the Subarus from 85-95? I've heard stay away from AWD and seems I heard something bad about turbos. Any favorites or horror stories?

 

I would go for a Legacy or Imprezza wagon. Check out www.ultimatesubaru.org, they have good advice there.

 

We had an '88 that was 4wd "you could switch in and out" and it was a good car, just had to put 2 axles in it. Otherwise a good car

 

Subarus are great. My uncle had an '88 or something like that and beat the crap out of it for 180K miles and it never missed a beat. He sold it for like $1000 a few years back. Whatever you do, don't buy a Geo Storm. I stripped one out for a race car project and that was one car that was not built too well IMO. I would have driven that thing on the road. We had to do a lot to it just to makle it safe to put the cage in.

 

I never saw a bad Subaru only bad drivers. I had a 93 and drove it for 210,000 and sold it to an autoparts store to run parts and they drove it another 100,000!

If any one tells you they are bad, go to a junk yard and ask for parts. You won't find many in any yard if at all!

 

I had a '92 Storm GSi. It had Lotus suspension and the 1.8 DOHC Izusu engine. 140 horsepower in a 2400 lb car. Fun to drive, but I think a car wreck would have been fatal at any speed over 35 mph.

My biggest problem with it was finding parts.

 

I had a whole dumpster full. I should ahve just driven it in the dumpster right then and there. It won a few races. The handling was good.

 

When I sold cars at a Chevy dealer, one of my favorite cars to drive in a snow storm was a traded in AWD Subaru DL with a 5 speed. Forget shoveling the driveway, I would just launch it down the driveway and over the snow bank into the street