Thinking of buying SVX. Your opinion
 

I went and looked at SVX yesterday and I would like to have your 2¢ worth.

Here the skinny minni on the car

1) Car is a 1992 model and has 150,000 miles on it
2) Transmission was rebuilt at 112, ooo miles
3) New bearings put in this spring all around
4) Brakes and rotors done last year
5) Rust around the rear fenders where the bumper and body meet. Not too bad
6) Some rust on the doors beside the cladding. Not too serious looking
7) Everything worked apart from the a/c and one of the rear window. You can hear the motor working but it not coming down.
8) Sunroof worked but you had to push slightly on it to get it started and it it as slow opening and closing.
9) Car color is black (unforntuantely) and paint is in so - so shape.

Asking price is $2500. When I drove the car it appeared to run well and the transmission shifted with no issues. Car had good pickup. Owner seemed to pretty good with the mechanical upkeep. Overall impression was that the major issues with this car were cosmetic (rust and paint). Are these common rust area and are they easily fixed?

Is this a reasonable deal? I tempted to buy the car subject to a mechanical inspecton but I'm not sure about the cosmetic issues. If aybody has had body work done in these areas can they give an idea how much it costed them. Since you guys know more about these cars than I do plese give me your 2¢ worth. My plan is to use this car as a daily driver.

Sounds like a very typical condition car at a typical price. With the tranny, bearings and brakes already addressed, you should be able to focus on the smaller issues.

2100 sounds more reasonable

A $50 tranny cooler will be the best investment you could ever make on these cars. Buy one on your way home from picking it up.

How is London? I spent two weekends in a row up there several years ago and I went to some bar called Carrie's. Had a great time, don't remember much but, oh well:) As far as your questions go, I'll throw my two cents out there.

Is the car your main transportation and is cheap reliable transportation a must? If yes, move on, find a Civic, Corrola, Saturn something that is simple, has cheap parts, and good fuel milage.
If No, go ahead and save a SVX from pending doom.

Are you mechanicaly inclined? If no, then it would really help to find a mechanic that is familiar with Subarus. If yes, good.

If your buying it becuase you think a SVX can hang with a Supra, Rx-7 Mustang, Z-28, then you are gonna be dissapointed.

If your buying it becuase you want a nice car that handles good, quiet from wind, quick but not fast, a head turner, and you have the patience and money to repair an older car when it needs it, I say go for it.

It sounds like the main mechanical problems that are common with this vehicle have been addressed. So that's good.

The body rust. The bad thing is that the cladding is probably hiding more rust underneath, the good thing is that the cladding is probably hiding more rust underneath. I had the same problem with my SVX and the estimates I had from good body shops went from $3300 to $4800.

What was included was about $1500 in replacement panels (two doors and two quarter panels) from Subaru, $500-$1200 for labor to put the new panels on and $1000-$2000 for the new paint job.

You can buy used doors and quarter panels off of Ebay for about $300 so that will save you $1200. If you are mechanicaly inclined you can replace the doors yourself which will save you another $300-$500 in labor and if you can cut and weld metal you can save the rest in labor by replacing the quarter panels yourself. A halfway decent paint job can be done at Macco for about $500 if you don't care about a little overspray, little runs here and there and some other paint flaws that are associated with cheap paint jobs. You can save alot of money by cutting out the rust and welding sheet metal and using mud to to fix the rust areas and if done good should hold up for several years. The good thing about the cladding is that most of the rust damage will be hidden from site so the repair job can be done kinda halfass as far as looks go and it will come out ok. The main thing is that if you let the rust continue it will start to work its way onto intenal door frame parts and panel anchor parts that won't be able to fix very easily.

All in all I'd say it depends on what you need the car for. If this is the most you can afford on a car and good tranportation is important then I'd say find something else, if it's a project car and you have time, patience and money to work on it then I say go for it. Please save a SVX from being smushed in a car crusher.

Thanks for detailed reply Hose92. Another oarsman:) . I did that many many moons ago. If the bar you're thinking off is Cathy Brown's its still here and catering to the university crowd. Needless to say it not a bar that I would go to. Make me feel older than I am already.

I already have a toy car (84 380sl) so I really am looking for a daily driver and from what I've been seeing in this forum this might not be the right car for that task. It's a really neat car and it appears to be pretty well built but that tranny is a real achilles heel. I haven't ruled the car out yet but I think I'll put this car on hold for the moment and look around a bit more.

I can't remember the name but that's probably the place I went to. I knew it began with a C and that's when my memory quit working. I too am no longer able to get that crazy. The good thing about the car is that you have a back up car and a nice one to boot, if your main transportation fails. Good luck and nice talking to ya, Hose