LOYALE SAFETY

cale wrote:
> Hi-
> I am looking into buying a 1993 loyale, and I was wondering how they
> hold up in a crash. Thanks for your help.

I had a '90 Loyale for some years, and weathered one moderately severe
accident well. The car is fairly tough, handles well. Mine was a
sedan, had plenty of trunk space and got decent gas mileage.

The Loyales are not Subaru's best car, though, to put it mildly. The
2WD models had no real advantage over any middle-of-the-road 2WD sedan
or wagon. The 4WD models were at least Subarus <wry grin>, but they
suffered from lack of power (engine was rated at 1.8 liter/87 HP),
boring design, limited features, and (worst) engine problems. Mine
required about $2,500 worth of engine work at around 110,000 miles to
fix broken/deteriorating valve lifters and head gasket stuff. I'm a
farenatic about regular oil changes and regular maintenance (anyone who
drives off-road where AAA doesn't come had better be careful about that)
and had owned the car since it was at 7K miles, so I'm pretty sure
nothing I did or didn't do led to the problem.

Perhaps some of those problems were fixed by 1993, but I'd take a good,
HARD look at this deal and see whether you might not do better for
yourself with a different car.

That's rather sad, because the predecessors to the Loyale, the 1980s-era
Subaru GL line, was an excellent car. I drove one for years (my first
Subaru, first car after college), took it into the Canadian Northwest
Territories and Yukon once for a memorable road trip, took it onto sandy
beaches, dunes, jeep trails in National forests, the works. It came
through like a champ. I had to rebuild the automatic transmission at
130,000 miles, as did other owners who had automatics, but that was
really the only weak point on these cars. Most owners got the stick
shifts, which were rumored to be indestructable.

I finally replaced it only because a drunk plowed into it while parked
by a road at 2:30 AM one morning. Otherwise, I'd probably still have
it, possibly with a new engine by now.

After my husband was in an accident with my 1998 Subaru Outback Sport a
couple of months ago and it was totalled (the usual end for this car;
they don't break), we had to go car shopping. I saw a bunch of older,
high-mileage Subarus still available, some of them quite cheap. I
decided to get a newer car rather than putting my money into rebuilding
an engine and fixing problems to get a reliable vehicle, but you appear
to have picked the second route. So why not take a look at some of
the other, better Subarus?


--
Catherine (Hampton) Jefferson <ariel DeleteThis @spambouncer.org>
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