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Head gasket issues aside, Subaru's tend to be pretty good cars. Not the best, and not the worst. A bigger part of the equation is how has the particular car been cared for. Does it come with full service records? More than one prior owner?
Any car is far more than just the engine. There are a myriad of other systems to potentially & eventually fail. A 2001 is already 12 years old, and isn't ever going to get any newer. Be prepared for problems to pop up on a car that old.
Head gasket issues aside, Subaru's tend to be pretty good cars. Not the best, and not the worst. A bigger part of the equation is how has the particular car been cared for. Does it come with full service records? More than one prior owner?
Any car is far more than just the engine. There are a myriad of other systems to potentially & eventually fail. A 2001 is already 12 years old, and isn't ever going to get any newer. Be prepared for problems to pop up on a car that old.
I haven't dug that far into the cars past, being that it was donated I'm not to sure if that info is available. I did look it over and I couldn't find a dent, scratch, or piece of rust anywhere this thing is spotless
I have a 1996 Legacy wagon that is a couple of thousand short of 200K. It has required the head gasket repair and a few other things. Unfortunately the salt has, after all these years in New Hampshire, corroded a hole in an unfixable place. It will be scrapped in a few months. I will miss it. I will replace it with a 2006 or newer Subie Legacy sedan. Supposedly they have better rust control. I hope to find an affordable care with a turbocharged engine. More power = more fun.
The dry road handling, with four decent summer tires, is very good. It will easily double posted ramp speeds with mild under steer. In the winter with four good (>3 yrs old) full snow tiers the handling on packed snow is phenomenal. I can easily maintain or exceed posted speed limits on snow covered back roads. It corners with slight under steer that can be turned into a drift or tail out slide with throttle. Great fun if you get out when nobody else is around. I practice in an empty parking lot after the first snow.
The trick to keeping these things alive is proper oil and other lubricant changes, frequent underbody washes in the winter, fixing dents and paint chips and repairing anything else immediately after a failure. Oh, and don't drive like I do in the winter. That is a learned perversion. It has taken me five decades to learn.
2001 with the 4-cylinder engine is one of the years affected by head gasket failures. The vehicle that you are considering may have been repaired, but I would check the service records to be sure, or factor a head gasket repair into to the price that I would offer for it.
Traction is very good in adverse weather conditions with Subaru's AWD system, though fuel efficiency is not a strong suit for the class from that era. Reliability is average, not to the same level as a Honda, but as long as the car is maintained, you should not experience too many issues with it.
Subaru AWD is fantastic, but my Mom's 04 Outback Wagon has had some major issues, lucky they were covered under warranty. Before 30k the ECU went bad, about 2k, the cat convertor went bad a bit less than 2k. Recently the cruise control light is going haywire again. The car was maintained flawlessly so it's not that.
Spend the money and get Consumer Reports it's the only truly objective source of info.
2001 with the 4-cylinder engine is one of the years affected by head gasket failures. The vehicle that you are considering may have been repaired, but I would check the service records to be sure, or factor a head gasket repair into to the price that I would offer for it.
We're currently driving a 2000 and 2001 Subie OBW Limited. We bought the 2000 with 179,000 miles on it, and there was no sign of head gasket failure, however, the dealer (a one-man sales lot and repair shop) specializes in Subie's and he went ahead and replaced the head gaskets for us before delivery. He says he can do them in 4 hours on engines in this condition, where there's no failure present and everything is original. At the cost of the head gaskets and the modest amount of labor time to perform the work, it's good insurance for him. With my trade of a 1995 Brighton Wagon with 300,000 miles on it, we gave $1,800 difference OTD.
That 2000 OBW now has 196,000 miles on it and the only other repair that it's needed (outside of routine specified maintenance, fluid changes, 3rd set of tires which are still in excellent condition) is the now failed cruise control command switch on the steering wheel. The switch failed on a -12F morning drive, when my wife was a bit more insistent about engaging the cruise than the switch. Located an OE switch at a dealer for $56, and it's now on my desk awaiting the weekend break to install it, a 10 minute project.
The 2001 OBW has a replacement engine at 100,000 miles due to some crash damage to the original radiator and hoses; they failed and the original engine was driven without coolant for some distance before it locked up. The boneyard engine that I installed to replace it was supposed to have been out of a 100,000 mile car; not possible for me to verify that mileage, but it would be unlikely that a boneyard would represent an engine with higher mileage than it had on it. In any event, it hasn't been apart for head gaskets and it's run another 45,000 miles without any signs of distress ... except for a marginal injector which wouldn't always flow fuel uniformly. Once the OBDII set a hard code for the mis-fire on that cylinder, a check of the ignition system and compression were fine and the injector was replaced. An easy repair, and I had the spare injector on hand from the original engine. Otherwise, no issues present on this car except it looks like it will need it's first replacement set of rear brake pads.
Traction is very good in adverse weather conditions with Subaru's AWD system, though fuel efficiency is not a strong suit for the class from that era. Reliability is average, not to the same level as a Honda, but as long as the car is maintained, you should not experience too many issues with it.
In view of my very few parts failures on Subie's in 14 years of driving them around the Rocky Mountain West in some pretty nasty road conditions, I'm gonna' take exception to your "reliability is average" assessment.
The only other hard parts outside of routine maintenance items and consumables on all the Subie's I've owned was a failed heater blower motor on my 1997 OBW (which had the infamous 4-cam motor with head gasket issues, easily fixed on that car with the latest sandwich series head gaskets at nominal time/expense) which was the result of a mouse nest in the blower unbalancing the motor, and a driver's seat heater switch.
I've got family members who drive various Honda cars and none of them have put on the miles I get with my Subie's without spending a fair amount of dough on their Honda's to reach comparable odo miles.
Agreed, fuel economy isn't the strong point of the Subie's; if your driving situation doesn't need the AWD capability, then there are cars that will deliver better fuel mileage with comparable or better performance. That's why the Subie's tend to be regional cars for adverse climates where the AWD is beneficial and a justified expense. But with 27-28ish mpg from our 2000 & 2001's, composite driving, they're more cost effective than my M-B diesels which were delivering 29-31 mpg.
for the OP, my experience has been that these are easy cars to work on for all the routine maintenance and repairs. The only stuff I'd not mess with due to an abundant supply of inexpensive boneyard items would be an engine, trans, or rear diff assembly ... should you happen to have a failure of one of these items, not a real common issue. For reference, the engine comes out with hand tools in well under an hour and I've known folk to have two people grab onto the engine and slide it out and onto the bench in less time than it would take to put a cherry picker on the engine. The hood opens almost vertically if needed, so you have super access to the engine compartment.
Insurance costs? compared to my other vehicles, they're pretty low cost due to excellent crashworthiness ratings. But only your insurance agent will be able to give you a quote; don't hesitate to shop around and avoid the lizards, helping hands, and ditzy ladies touting their products.
Eek 140k and you haven't done the head gasket yet?!
I'd do it very soon. Call it "preventative maintenance."
I've seen a lot of the early 2000 to mid-2000 vintage Subies have zero head gasket problems at 200,000 miles.
With the later SOHC engine design, the head gasket failure is a minor external seepage rather than the catastrophic internal failure that the DOHC earlier 2.5 motor had.
That allows a Subie owner the ability to wait until an actual head gasket failure has surfaced before needing to take any action. There's no overheating/head warping/block failures with the SOHC engine series, it's simply a minor annoyance seep of antifreeze and easy to spot.
It's good practice to follow Subie's guidelines about coolant interval replacement and to use their OE anti-freeze, which is formulated for their engines. Note that the recommended coolant additive is Peak brand, and available at many auto parts stores for a fraction of the price of the dealer package.
Probably someone has already mentioned it, but in 1997 the Subie I-4 went from a non-interference to interference cam/piston profile, so while a broken cam belt on the older cars means you have to be towed home or to a shop, the 97 and newer will have some internal engine damage if you don't change the belt pre-emptively.
Agree with Sunsprit, Subies tend to have good designs for maintenance, thought was given to having enough room to remove the part, stuff that gets replaced frequently like brake pads are very easy labor-wise to do.
Use the Subie branded antifreeze and IMHO mix it with distilled water, not tap water, for best corrosion and deposit control. Don't even try to tell this old Navy Nuke that water quality does not matter - it matters!
I've seen a lot of the early 2000 to mid-2000 vintage Subies have zero head gasket problems at 200,000 miles.
With the later SOHC engine design, the head gasket failure is a minor external seepage rather than the catastrophic internal failure that the DOHC earlier 2.5 motor had.
That allows a Subie owner the ability to wait until an actual head gasket failure has surfaced before needing to take any action. There's no overheating/head warping/block failures with the SOHC engine series, it's simply a minor annoyance seep of antifreeze and easy to spot.
It's good practice to follow Subie's guidelines about coolant interval replacement and to use their OE anti-freeze, which is formulated for their engines. Note that the recommended coolant additive is Peak brand, and available at many auto parts stores for a fraction of the price of the dealer package.
I think my 2001 OBW may have had the additive put in by the dealer when the previous owners had it. I am aware that the hg problem is a seep, not a catastrophic failure. I keep an eye on it.
I was just looking at a 2013 Subaru Imprezza with the 2.0L 4 popper that is rated at 36 mpg hwy. The sticker price was around 24K, and this forum has really made me realize this brand has a very loyal following.
I'm a little torn between the AWD Imprezza with a rating of 36 mpg hwy., and the sexier VW GTI with the 2.0L turbo but which is only rated at 29 mpg hwy, and I have said I wanted as close to 40 mpg in any new car purchase.
Even though I've been in love with the GTI for over 5 years now, and only recently has Subaru made it onto my radar, there is something entirely practical about this car that keeps peaking my interest. I hope to test drive it in the next day or two. (The WRX, as cool as that car is, is priced too high and the mileage is just too poor)
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Subie's forever
