I need to know about any potential 'fatal flaw' with the '95 Legacy LS wagon. Let me explain. My first Subie was a '91 Legacy. I loved it. Unfortunately, when I bought it, I didn't know that it had the 'electronically adjustable ride height' air shocks. Two years into blissful ownership, I needed a $1200 repair on a car I paid $1800 for. I donated it to a school instead of fixing it. Had I known that it had these shocks that were prone to expensive failure, I would not have bought the car. I never even got to "raise" it. My second (and current) Subie is a 2000 Legacy L. Bone stock. Cheap. 6 months into ownership, it needs head gaskets, and $1800 is the lowest I can find a mechanic for. I found out from several people, "Oh yeah, the 2.5 in those things will blow head gaskets no matter what. You shouldn't have bought that without knowing if the gaskets had been changed." Had I known that, I would not have bought the car. So that brings me to now. There's a '95 Legacy wagon I have my eye on. Clean as hell. Low miles. 2.2 litre. No air-ride shocks. Everything works. My question to you is: What gigantic repair costs (if any) are associated with this model year? I've LOVED the two Subarus I've owned so far, but I haven't loved the huge repair costs that could have been avoided if I'd talked to someone that was well-versed in Subaru problems. Help!
Gigantic? Not many. You could have mixed and matched a functional used gas strut conversion on the 91 for a few hundred bucks and found someone here to do your headgasket work for much less than what you were quoted. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/, http://bbs.legacycentral.org/, and to a lesser degree legacygt.com would be worth getting familiar with. welcome and good luck
Thanks! Is there a way to check if it's been changed recently/needs to be changed soon? What are the symptoms of the MAF failing?
Not very expensive to replace( cheap part under $100 new). Eazy to pull out and clean with appropriate cleaner. You will typically get a check engine light on when it fails or is not working properly.
Wrong. You cannot clean this generation without risk of wrecking it. Its not a hot wire, its a hot FILM type. New they are RIGHT AROUND $300 with the mnsubaru discount. But you could get a used one from upull for under $20.
I just sold my 95' legacy wagon. I got it up to 327k miles with the original engine but on the drive home one day it started pulling a P0100 and P0420 code for the MAF and catalytic deficiency. Did some research and asked the guys here about it. Replaced the MAF (takes under 10 minutes to replace). It was driveable after swapping that out but still needed the cat. There are ways to fix that on the cheap but trying to pick up a new A/M part at oreilley was around $700. I was actually surprised it lasted that long without the cc going out because it's apparently a very common problem around 200k miles. Other than that mine was a freakin champ.
