Potential First time SVX Owner

SubaROO · #1 06-11-2009, 01:36 PM

Hello SVX World

.

So.. a bit of background on me.

My name is Ray, I'm 18, and headed to college in the fall. I've been into cars for as long as I can remember, because my father has always been in the industry. I myself am partial to muscle cars, but know I could never afford one at my age. I'm a dreamer, but I have a pretty good grasp on reality.

Anyway, I was leisurely browsing my local Craigslist and I happened upon an SVX. It's listed for $1900, is red, and is front wheel drive. According to the owner, the car has 123k miles, and the original transmission.

However, I did a lot of research on the cars (how I basically came to find this website).

I think the transmission issues go without saying, because every forum you see mentions them a thousand times in some way shape or form. Should I be wary of this car's transmission, since it's got a fair bit of miles on it, and expect failure soon? Or is there a chance that this car is good to roll for a good while to come?

Also, I saw something on the wheel bearings, but I couldn't find anything about that issue on FWD cars, only the AWD. Is this true, or should I worry about those too?

I really like the SVX. They look amazing. And I'm well aware that it's not some Honda Civic POS with a hundred million bolt on accessories from every catalog in existence. I don't want this. I want a good looking unique car that I can trust to take me to and from work, and to college classes.

P.S. My name actually works on two levels. My childhood nickname was (well, no, it still is...) Roo. So SubaROO seemed clever at the time.

NiftySVX · #2 06-11-2009, 01:48 PM

My FWD SVX had the wheel bearings replaced on it under warranty back in 1996, there is no difference in the bearing or hub assy in FWD vs AWD because the FWD, which is the variant (all of these cars were originally intended to be AWD, FWD was an afterthought) uses a stub axle in the back, which is basically just what you would imagine they would use to plug the hole where the AWD has an axle. When I converted to AWD, I simply removed the "stub" and inserted the actual axle.

As for the transmission, all of the front wheel drive models arrived late enough in life to receive all of the transmission updates, which makes them far better than those fitted in the cars older than MY 1994. The front differential, however, is not particularly tough and will fail if abused. This is usually easily rebuildable, even more so because you can pick any ratio of final drive you fancy. I would imagine a 4.44 FWD would run pretty good, especially with a hot rodded trans and converter done by LAN or level 10.

I would love to have another FWD

Manarius · #3 06-11-2009, 02:52 PM

Transmissions on the FWD cars are fine. Put on a cooler for good measure and you'll be good to go.

My AWD car has 185k on the stock transmission and it doesn't run half bad.

SubaROO · #4 06-11-2009, 04:21 PM

Awesome. So a FWD one would be fairly reliable for me?

The car is a 1994, by the way. If that affects anything.

Manarius · #5 06-11-2009, 06:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SubaROO

Awesome. So a FWD one would be fairly reliable for me?

The car is a 1994, by the way. If that affects anything.

In 1994, Subaru removed the screen inside the transmission that was causing a lot of the trannies to overheat and cook themselves up.

This doesn't change the fact that you should still go with a transmission cooler as a precaution.

SubaROO · #6 06-11-2009, 07:30 PM

So how difficult would this be to install?

Or, more practically for me: how much would this cost at a shop?