Quote:
Originally Posted by chebb
Pretty sure there's 2 of them for sale in Manitoba currently.. that's about the biggest market I've seen here in 6 months. Should I even bother with taking it to the
Subaru dealer?
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so the way i look at it is this. i account for obvious mechanical flaws in my negotiations, and barter with the expectation that i'll need to immediately pay for replacement parts and their installation. the typical pricing of vehicles is when they are in good condition, and any obvious mechanical malady is indicative that they are not in good condition.
there's actually something about the damage on the carfax about it(rare, but hey, even clowns get a laugh every once in a while!) and it's still not 100% fixed.
on these vehicles, the shifter is part of the transmission assembly. tada san was very specific about maintaining a direct linkage from the shifter to the gears to reduce the soft feeling cables can introduce.
in this image, the little post sticking out of the top, back of the transmission is the shifter connection point
in this picture, you can see it's just a small hard rod connecting the shifter to the transmission
so if there's anything wrong, it's quite likely going to be an internal issue in the transmission itself from whatever that carfax accident documents.
by my estimate a replacement transmission is worth about [spins wheel] $1,000 US, so about $1300 canadian papers. while doing that, i'd also do a replacement clutch, and the updated throwout bearing, so that's another roughly $500($650 ca) in parts for a total of about 1500 us ($1950 ca).
add in labor that's going to be around another $1000 us ($1300 ca), and you're at a grand total of $2500 us, ($3250 ca).
is this particular car worth a $3250 premium? can they be talked down $5000 ca to make it worth your hassle of literally buying a car and then being carless for at least a week to a month while the replacement is located and installed? most likely not--most lots buy cars at auctions where more technical issues like this aren't obvious until they've already bought and delivered it to their yard, meaning their costs into the car likely doesn't grant them that much leeway.
many cars like this start to see auction cycling where people buy it because of it's rarity and low auction price, get it home, figure out that it's a dud, send it back to auction where another buys it, and continues the downward spiral until it ends up in someone's hands that is none the wiser, and they sell it to someone who is even less knowledgeable...
i think there's a reason this car was dumped by the previous owner, and despite the lack of available alternatives, unless there is a serious price cut i see no reason to pursue this particular car.