Just got one (w/ pictures)

[skeeboo]

http://www.joealamo.com/subaru/1.jpg

I purchased this used 1999 Subaru Legacy Outback Wagon yesterday. First car.

Honestly I wasn't considering a wagon, but this thing just jumped out at me when I first saw it by chance (pictures online at the dealership site). Just couldn't get over how cool it looked.... for a wagon. Still, I put it off and continued my search. This past Monday, I visited various local dealerships. None of which had anything interesting (I was looking for some "small" SUVs that didn't guzzle too much gas) and had 4x4 for NY winters. However, I kept seeing Subaru Outbacks. Zooming by the house. On the highway while at dealers, parked at fast food places I stopped at. Then the last dealer I went to had one in stock, but it wasn't as cool as the one I had seen online (didn't like the light green/tan looking scheme). However, it was cool to see one up close. That, combined with seeing them zoom by everywhere, I took it as a sign.

I did research on it, CarFax came up clean. Still. I was in doubt. A WAGON?! But a COOL looking wagon. What awesome colors! And the flood lights! That visor thingy on the hood! The air vent thing on the hood! Wow it has all wheel drive. "This car is pretty badass" I thought.

http://www.joealamo.com/subaru/2.jpg

Googled it and found THIS forum, along with the Outback section at cardomain.com, showing pictures of all the cool stuff people have done to their own Outbacks. I really believe what helped sell me on going for this car was the incredible active community here and on cardomain.com. So many great mods, so many neat ideas and improvements. Wonderful information on where to get parts, tips, the works.

Tuesday I contacted the dealer and said I only have 7 grand to spend in the form of a loan check ready to go. They wanted $7995 on their main site. Minimum $7365 on one of the other sites they listed it on. Oh, and I needed taxes to be included. "That's a crazy deal" the guy told me. Since I'd be getting it for about 6500. NY taxes would bump it up to around 7000. However, they were getting new inventory in and needed to move stuff off the lot, so maybe it could work.

Got the call back a few hours later. The deal could work. Car dealers are funny. I bet they "paid" 5 grand for it on a trade in. KBB says it's worth 9-10k retail in "excellent condition". And excellent it is. The person who owned it before (one owner) took REAL good care of it. Everything, right down to the manual and touch-up paint tube were included. The dealers site listed it as follows:

http://www.joealamo.com/subaru/6.jpg

This (99) SUBARU OUTBACK WAGON appears to have been a (1) owner and has a clean VEHICLE HISTORY REPORT. Overall it is in "EXCELLENT, ABOVE AVERAGE" condition inside and out. The TITANIUM SILVER/CHARCOAL exterior 2-TONE paint is very glossy and free of any damage. The exterior has no major dings or dents. There are a few stone chips, nothing major. The Wheels are in good condition but do have some clear coat peeling. The tires are 205/50/17 Michelin's in excellent shape with approx. 75% of tread left. The CHARCOAL cloth interior is in "EXCELLENT" condition. It shows NO EVIDENCE of unusual wear. All options are in perfect working order.

After working out a basic agreement by phone and e-mail, I went up to see the car for the first time on Wednesday afternoon. Keep in mind this wasn't a local dealer. Or technicaly it was, but about 50 miles away! Quite a trip for a car, when there are at least 30 in town and surrounding areas. I had to take a Greyhound to get up there!

The dealer picked me up at the bus station and we headed on over. Saw the Outback, and it was love at first site (after the long distance love via awesome pictures online).

http://www.joealamo.com/subaru/3.jpg


The shop guys cleaned it up (even more), put a new coat of wax on it, the works. Everything seemed to be in working order after playing around with it for a while and checking everything out. The deal was made, they got 7 grand and I drove off in a 1999 Subaru Legacy Outback Wagon for the 50+ mile trip back home. Still pondering what the hell I had just done, but still feeling great about the purchase! It's going to come in very handy for me. I'd like to take a road trip at some point. This will fit in perfectly for that. My mother purchased a home recently and this will help haul some of the crap she needs from home depot. I could go on, but here are some more of the dealer images and comments:

http://www.joealamo.com/subaru/trunk.jpg
http://www.joealamo.com/subaru/5.jpg
http://www.joealamo.com/subaru/backseats.jpg
http://www.joealamo.com/subaru/front_seats.jpg
http://www.joealamo.com/subaru/dash.jpg
My 99 model came with a tape player. I don't remember the last time I played a tape. Oh wait, it was September 2005. In Dallas (I'm in NY) in my friend's 1994 Saturn. lol. The 2000 model I saw had a CD player. I would have preferred that. However, what I'd really like is an MP3 player! Any of you guys know where to get a good replacement for the tape player section? MP3 would be great if available, CD is ok.

http://www.joealamo.com/subaru/tire.jpg
The clear coating on the alloy wheels is peeling. The dealer told me that I could visit an alloy shop and have them redo them. Anyone know how much that would cost? I'd like to keep these, but all-new rims would be nice too. Decisions decisions.

http://www.joealamo.com/subaru/4.jpg

Other stuff I'd like to do eventually:

* Tint the windows a bit, if legal in NY
* Fix the ding sound when the door is open (works fine but sounds like it's choking and about to go dead at times)
* Update the sound system.


Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the great forums you have here. I'm dead serious about how this place helped in the decision process. Look forward to reading all the posts on here and jumping in.

[smoke3006]

Looks great, excellent choice.
How many miles on it?

You should be able to tint the windows without a problem.
I bought a cheap Blaupunkt (sp?) headunit that has stero input connections to hook up my Ipod. Worked great in old previous car, just haven't got all the parts to install it in my Legacy yet.

[sheepdog]

Congrats on the buy :wink:

As smoke said, window tint is easy, and its easy to find out what the legal limit is in NY. I dont know off the top of my head, but its 35% here. Someone on here might know.

The head unit replacement is a piece of cake. You can do it yourself, or just take it to best buy, pick out the one you want, and let them install it. It's guaranteed and takes zero effort. Thats what I did :lol:

Don't bother with the wheels. For what you would spend getting them refinished you could get a set of Rota wheels or a set of stock wheels in better shape.

Sound system is also easy, there are people on this forum who know waaay more about audio than me haha.

Ding sound, just track the sound down to where it is in the car, and unplug the box. I hated that thing.

[Huffer]

That's a sweet deal. Not sure about the auto, but hey, everyone makes a choice.

The door open sound can be disabled by unplugging the door module under the dash. Same with the seatbelt dinger under the seat.

Wheels - don't bother refinishing them - if you are going to get something in better shape, pick up some 16" WRX wheels (used).

Alpine make great headunits. They also have adaptor harnesses.

[Plays_with_Toys]

Looks really clean! How many miles (as someone else already asked)? The one future thing you'll have to put money aside for is the headgasket job, unless its already been done. Tons of info about that on here and on www.nasioc.com (http://www.nasioc.com) I just run a tape adapter in my car. I run that into my sony MP3 player, which I put industrial strength velcro onto, and put the other side of the velcro onto my cup holder part. It sticks nicely and is in a good accesible position.

As for wheels, just look around for someone with a WRX/impreza that is getting rid of his wheels. That crowd always upgrades the wheels and then, they sell of the others pretty cheap.

[Superu264]

Great looking outback! Good call getting them down to 7000 :lol:

Good luck, you'll love it. When I bought mine I was NOT considering a Subaru but like you when I 1st saw it, it jumped out at me.. and despite all the problems/things wrong with it at first because the original owner didn't take care of it, I LOVE IT.

[Huffer]

The one future thing you'll have to put money aside for is the headgasket job, unless its already been done.

Still going on originals, 180k+ :P

[Wiscon_Mark]

That wagon is simply beautiful

Not gonna lie, you got a great deal. Too bad it's an automatic. However, an auto for a first car isn't a bad thing.

Looks to be in pristine condition. Good luck with the car! I like how you were getting that "sign" :lol: It's definitely good car that you will enjoy a lot.

Welcome to the site :D

[badbasser98]

Welcome to SLi, and also to the world of Subaru. I have always had a soft spot for the silver second gen Legacys and Outbacks.

Check around the site. I am sure you will find a few things you are going to have to do shortly :wink:

-BB98

[ooberdoob]

god they look good clean don't they?

[ivwarrior]

Very nice looking Outback. Congrats, it'll make a great first car. It'll go most of the places those "cute utes" you were looking for will go, and will haul likely just as much as they would.

If you want to just refinish the wheels, keep an eye on these forums, there's a possible deal coming on powder coating, although to do it you'd be without your wheels for a little bit.

The sound system is super easy. Best Buy has "plug-n-play" adapters make the wiring super easy. There's a good write-up here in the DIY section on doing the actual swap. Search that section if you want to do it yourself.

Lastly, don't forget to also check out www.subaruoutback.org (http://www.subaruoutback.org) :D

[skeeboo]

Thanks guys. Ran it around a couple towns today. Love it. About the miles, I can't believe I forgot to put that in my original post. It had just under 110,000 on it. Which I thought was pretty high, but one of the things I read about these cars is how they keep ticking as long as you take care of them. The previous owner did. Even brought it to a Subaru specialist at some point to get it serviced. I believe I saw a post on here over the weekend (before buying) where someone said their 1995 Outback had over 200k miles on it and it's still going. That was a pretty common theme in most of the reviews.

Yeah it's an automatic. First car, and I've had a bad experience with a manual transmission. So I figured automatic would be fine, for now. One less thing to think about while trying not to kill anybody. The dealership I got it from actually had a 98 Outback with manual for about 6k. That one was blue and black.

The first thing I'm doing to it is getting windows tinted. Made an appointment for next Tuesday. Some pros are going to do it for $200. Apparently there is a do it yourself kit too, for about half the price but honestly, I'd rather let the specialists handle it. They know the legal limits and have all the right tools to get it done correctly the first time.

Thanks for the head unit and iPod tips. Ideally, I'd like something that could store MP3 files directly. Something that has a USB port where I can plug in a thumb drive with songs would also be cool. I think I'll go on down to Best Buy over the weekend and see what they have.

Unplug the box that makes the ding sound? lol. It's not driving me nuts yet, but it probably will eventually if I leave it like that. Sounds like the connection is a little loose, so sometimes it's clear and other times it sounds low and like it's got a bit of static in it.

Thanks (yet again) for the advice on the wheels. If it costs about the same or more to refinish them, then yeah it'll obviously be best to get something better or stock. I'll keep an eye on eBay. I see people on there selling various parts for these models. Everything from manuals to tail lights. lol.

The sound system didn't sound to bad to me today. Got to play around with it some more and figured out the bass/treble buttons. It no longer sounds tin-canish. I wondered if the speakers were going bad and figured it would be easy to replace if they were (I've changed speakers on a stereo before so maybe this wouldn't be too much different). I think I'll leave that how it is.... for now. lol. I also discovered that the antenna comes up... right after I wondered why the hell I wasn't picking up any good stations on the radio. ROFL. I'm literally learning about this thing as I go.

Ohhhh subaruoutback.org! Haven't seen that one yet. Thanks! :D

[Wiscon_Mark]

That post makes me smile.

Speaker installation is easy.

Just use this writeup as a guide to get the door panels off, the rest is self-explanatory.

http://www.sl-i.net/FORUM/viewtopic.php?t=589

[shazapple]

That looks exactly like our old 99 Outback! Same colour rims and everything. It was a very nice car and congrats on the purchase! I love the alloy wheels.

Well be glad to help you with any changes you want to make! I have a MP3 CD player and front speakers in my car right now. Its a very nice upgrade.
heres a little writeup on how to install a new headunit if you decide to do it yourself
https://sl-i.net/FORUM/viewtopic.php?t=1651

[Wiscon_Mark]

Yes, I have an MP3 CD encoded player also...it's a blast to have 10+ hours of music on one CD :D

[Plays_with_Toys]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SUBARU-L ... dZViewItem (http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SUBARU-LEGACY-OUTBACK-17-OE-RIMS-WHEELS_W0QQitemZ8056463061QQcategoryZ43956QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

:wink:

Like I said, most people with the nicer/newer rides will take their wheels and swap them, letting people like us pick them up nice and cheap. Though, if memory serves me correctly, these are supposed to be a heavier rim than most subie rims.

[Wiscon_Mark]

Inaccurate. The outback does not have those rims, they are LegacyGT rims only.

Good deal though.

And yes, they are heavier than most, but not made out of lead :lol: