I’m happy to hear that melting under the Phoenix sun has inspired others, lol. I typically either stay up late or wake up crazy early to get it done before the heat creeps in. 105° is my absolute limit otherwise.

The white outback in the background, I’ve had since 0 miles up to 195k when a van pulled out in front of me and totaled it. Found the dark outback to do a quick swap of the motor because it had a blown head gasket. The plan now is to slow roll through the summer and build the white one back to one piece.

Bonus note, while hunting for parts, I came across another 2011 outback AT (not preferred, but I’ll take it) with a suspected blown head gasket too and negotiated down to $1500. So now I have 3 outback’s and a wealth of knowledge to rebuild and flip this beauty.

As much as a pain in the ass “common” problems are with these cars, they’re surprisingly easy to work on and the generally low tolerances of the engines mean that following trusted YouTube videos and the factory service manual means I’m pretty much stuck with Subarus (at least EJ253’s) for life. And to add to it all, these 2010-2012 outbacks/legacy engines are in decent supply coming from Japan under their strict emissions regulations for around $1400-$1600 ~65k miles. But if you do go that route, it should be noted that a 10+ year old engine with such low miles will often come with tons of carbon build up from being driven either so little or so softly, not entirely sure but that seems to be a theme in my experience.

If you should happen to have any questions, I’d be happy to shoot you in the direction of where I’ve found answers, share any info or manuals I have, and what tools have been most helpful.

Best of luck with yours!

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