No worries, the Miata is still okay. The little car can't quite handle winter and is being taken care of by our friend Clayton in East Wenatchee for the winter.
Smerf, the Taurus, handles much better once we acquired studded snow tires. We took a trip to Spokane the day after we moved in on a mission to find some used rims and snow tires in decent shape. We lucked out and found some incredible tires, like new, and rims from a guy who sells them at his house (he gets the rims and tires off cars before they get sent to the crusher). He lives on South Hill. We bought them for $290! What a deal! New we'd have had to pay about $1000, which was hard considering we had other large investments we needed to make. We put the mounted tires in my car and began driving slowly home. It was snowing and the roads were incredibly slick. We were hoping our $300 investment wouldn't be in vain...hoping we would not crash the car before getting the tires on. As we crept down South Hill, my all seasons began slipping and the car decided to slide. Simon decided to turn to try to get on a side road. He turned, but the cars inertia slid sideways into the turn and we came precariously close to hitting a fire-hydrant. After that heart stopping moment, we knew it was imperative to get the snow tires on the car before driving the 40 miles home. We called Les Schwab and they said they were open for another hour and because my other tires are from them, they'd put the snows on for us at no charge (would have cost if they needed to be mounted). It took us 40 minutes to go 8 miles to the Les Schwab. They are awesome and I plan on continuing to buy tires from them because of how incredible their customer service representatives have been even when they didn't have any obligation. A couple days later the Les Schwab in Deer Park balanced them for us. I appreciate their incredible service.
And now, Simon will proceed with the introduction!
Now that it is officially registered, insured, and road-ready without any disasters, I can introduce you to.... Well we don't know his/her name yet. We are kicking around Lil'Rusty (don't worry dad, not actually based on any truthful rust), Da suubs, Suubydoo, etc. but haven't yet found or decided what name fits quite right.
We are now the proud owners (well I am proud, Heather, probably not) of a 1993 Subaru Impreza.
(It is a deep maroon, not pink as it appears in the picture)
Some facts:
-Supposed to get 22/29 mpg
-All wheel drive
-1.8L 4 cyl, automatic transmission (BOOO, except there is a button called 'manual' which allows you to use the shifter to run through all four gears and locks it in where you choose, I think)
-Sunroof (now siliconed shut and the switch is removed, but you can slide back the headliner to have a nice glass panel overhead, and by nice glass I mean a little clouded but some light comes through)
-No ABS, which is taking a bit of getting used to for me. Heather was practicing today with it and she does very well, as apparently she always tries to pump the brakes on her car when the abs kicks in anyway. It has a strange tendency to have the back slip out a little under heavy braking on ice, but it can be controlled quite well and you can fairly easily figure out which tires are locking up when they do.
One the way home from Spokane with it I encountered a deer on the main road while going 60, and it does brake decently enough! I also left a bit of a flat spot on one of the tires but it has worn back out now. Heather smelled rubber for quite some time after the deer. When she first saw the deer she mistook it for a dog walking into the road, following behind in our other car. We picked up the car from a Russian family in Medical Lake, about and hour and a half away from home. We forgot to call my family when we got home that night and the next day Simon took my phone so I couldn't call to say we'd gotten it alright. Mom was afraid we'd met the Craigslist mafia! She reached Simon at work to see that we were alive. (Simon's edit. As you can see, Heather has gotten a hold of this email before it is sent and is adding her narrative. I am not responsible for random content in the most strange places)
Our special edition has absolutely no rust on the chassis or rockers. There are a few spots the size of your palm which have a bit of surface rust on the flat main part of the hood toward the front (strangest place I've ever seen rust, maybe started by rock chips?) which they have sprayed over with gray rust stop paint stuff.
The interior is in pretty good condition. It could use a good cleaning,
but the carpets are in good shape, and it doesn't smell awful. A little
bit of staining on the rear seats but nothing too gross. One thing I do
like is how well fit all the panels still are: the door closing feels
solid, the interior panels don't rattle, there aren't any switches
falling out or broken or loose. All important electronics work (radio
maybe, but still unsure) and the headlights are incredible, particularly
on the brights.
(Note: Simon brought a fire extinguisher along for the trip home...just in case-- )
It is on good quality unstudded snow tires. They will get us through this winter and then probably be ready for retirement. At 14" though, tires are quite cheap for it.
As for driving, it feels powerful enough, though is a little underpowered at 60 going uphill (it has to down shift). It feels a little less powerful than the miata usually.The ride is pretty good, firm but comfortable, and the handling seems great (don't know about dry pavement, but on ice it's quite fun). It doesn't get pushed around by the uneven ice as much as the taurus does, and you can feel what it is doing much more. Sort of somewhere between the corsica and mom's miata, feeling like an extremely small car but feeling solid and confident.
Well, dad said not to get a car with over 200,000 miles. So we didn't. It had 199,993 when we got it. It is now over 200k, but I felt that a Subaru with 200k was equivalent to another car with 170 as they seem to get easily up to 250 and many are for sale in the 275-300 range.
It starts right up even in bitter cold, which was a relief (it is FI) and the transmission feels really solid. I have been impressed with the AWD as we can come to a complete stop on our driveway or other mid-steep hills that are ice sheets and it gets going with hardly any slipping.
It does leak a little oil (none drops when sitting there, it just has the old oil coating in the lower/rear of the engine. Not as bad as the B. Maybe someday that will need looking at, but it doesn't smoke at all so I'm not too stressed about it. Given the condition of the body/frame, the transmission feel, and suspension condition (rubber not cracking, even the CV boots intact), I figured it would be worth it even if I have to do some engine work over the summer.
There is a little bit of a rattle in the exaust at a narrow RPM range, which he said the mechanic told him is the catalytic convertor. Also, the airbag light is on. And it is a salvage title (California in 2000). I was quite concerned about all that for getting it registered, but checked and re-checked with the DMV and as long as we don't live in Spokane county or Seattle, there are NEVER any safety or emissions checks. That alone makes me very happy to live here. We don't even need to have brakes to still have it road legal! So it is now registered (120$) and it is on the road and treating us well. For $1100 it doesn't seem like a bad deal, even if some things end up needing work.
It will be nice to have something we don't worry about running off the road or smacking a deer, denting or even totaling as the cost of replacement is near our normal insurance deductible. Insurance is 202 for 6 months for liability, and the maita is now in storage mode for insurance also.
Work is good too. I'm being trained in Chewelah for actual work things, and have been there for the last two days. It has been very good, but seeing as it is not a car nor is it realated to automotive or flying things, you are unlikely to hear about it in near as much detail as here.
Friday we had all the ER bays full and they had overflowed into radiology to get another 2 beds for people. It was quite busy and it was neat to be a part of it. Just car accidents, drugs, falling out of bed, etc, nothing too dramatic. I still don't have any patient interaction as I am awaiting my Washington medical assistant license so I can legally draw. I will end up being a class G Med assistant license since I will need to be able to do arterial draws down there, which is also pretty neat to get a higher license than I would expect to if I were up at Colville only. I have my certifying exam next Saturday in Spokane.
Also included, a picture of the custom rally road on which we live!
It is on good quality unstudded snow tires. They will get us through this winter and then probably be ready for retirement. At 14" though, tires are quite cheap for it.
As for driving, it feels powerful enough, though is a little underpowered at 60 going uphill (it has to down shift). It feels a little less powerful than the miata usually.The ride is pretty good, firm but comfortable, and the handling seems great (don't know about dry pavement, but on ice it's quite fun). It doesn't get pushed around by the uneven ice as much as the taurus does, and you can feel what it is doing much more. Sort of somewhere between the corsica and mom's miata, feeling like an extremely small car but feeling solid and confident.
Well, dad said not to get a car with over 200,000 miles. So we didn't. It had 199,993 when we got it. It is now over 200k, but I felt that a Subaru with 200k was equivalent to another car with 170 as they seem to get easily up to 250 and many are for sale in the 275-300 range.
It starts right up even in bitter cold, which was a relief (it is FI) and the transmission feels really solid. I have been impressed with the AWD as we can come to a complete stop on our driveway or other mid-steep hills that are ice sheets and it gets going with hardly any slipping.
It does leak a little oil (none drops when sitting there, it just has the old oil coating in the lower/rear of the engine. Not as bad as the B. Maybe someday that will need looking at, but it doesn't smoke at all so I'm not too stressed about it. Given the condition of the body/frame, the transmission feel, and suspension condition (rubber not cracking, even the CV boots intact), I figured it would be worth it even if I have to do some engine work over the summer.
There is a little bit of a rattle in the exaust at a narrow RPM range, which he said the mechanic told him is the catalytic convertor. Also, the airbag light is on. And it is a salvage title (California in 2000). I was quite concerned about all that for getting it registered, but checked and re-checked with the DMV and as long as we don't live in Spokane county or Seattle, there are NEVER any safety or emissions checks. That alone makes me very happy to live here. We don't even need to have brakes to still have it road legal! So it is now registered (120$) and it is on the road and treating us well. For $1100 it doesn't seem like a bad deal, even if some things end up needing work.
It will be nice to have something we don't worry about running off the road or smacking a deer, denting or even totaling as the cost of replacement is near our normal insurance deductible. Insurance is 202 for 6 months for liability, and the maita is now in storage mode for insurance also.
Work is good too. I'm being trained in Chewelah for actual work things, and have been there for the last two days. It has been very good, but seeing as it is not a car nor is it realated to automotive or flying things, you are unlikely to hear about it in near as much detail as here.
Friday we had all the ER bays full and they had overflowed into radiology to get another 2 beds for people. It was quite busy and it was neat to be a part of it. Just car accidents, drugs, falling out of bed, etc, nothing too dramatic. I still don't have any patient interaction as I am awaiting my Washington medical assistant license so I can legally draw. I will end up being a class G Med assistant license since I will need to be able to do arterial draws down there, which is also pretty neat to get a higher license than I would expect to if I were up at Colville only. I have my certifying exam next Saturday in Spokane.
Also included, a picture of the custom rally road on which we live!
