Quote:
Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr
Subarus are cool until you have to replace its timing belt, then you'd start hating it.
|
Actually the timing belt service is not that hard to do if you are a fairly good DIY person. I suspect most of us here on this site are that way just because of the nature of the site and the mods that have to be done arent commercially available. I have done several of them both for myself and others and not found them to be too bad. Time consuming to be sure, working carefully and not getting in a hurry I can knock one out in a couple of days. The hardest part is getting the new belt timed correctly but after you have done it a couple of times you learn the tricks and it gets easier. I will have to do my WRX sometime this year and I just did my 07 wagon about 3 months ago. The biggest issue is the expense of the parts and getting high quality parts so when the job is done the repair lasts the full service interval. For the WRX if you use OEM spec parts you are looking at nearly $500 in parts alone because its recommended to do water pump and thermostat at the same time as well as all idler pulleys in addition to the timing belt itself. If you gamble and change only the belt there is a good chance something else will fail and you'll have to go back in it and since its an interference engine, that means you would be going much further into it than you would really want to. So better to spend the money up front on disaster prevention then later on disaster recovery.