1993 Subaru Justy GL from North America

Summary:

A low power, highly economical, very small and affordable vehicle

Faults:

Keep in mind that I wasn't exactly gentle with this vehicle.

Had to replace the spark plug wires and spark plugs around 45,000 miles.

Had to get new tires around 47,000 miles. The tires are incredible hard to find. I believe they were 13s and might have had some other unique measurement for width or something.

Engine started smoking around 65,000 miles. I had to replace the valve cover gasket. After that it was fine for a while, but began smoking again about 10,000 miles later.

Had to replace the spark plug wires again at around 60,000 miles.

At 91,000 miles the clutch died. The whole death process only took about a week. The vehicle would only be worth around $250 but the replacement clutch would cost $900 so I let the Justy go to that junkyard in the sky.

General Comments:

I was really hard on this vehicle since it was the first vehicle I owned. I am amazed it lasted as long as it did. Three people learned to drive stick on this vehicle as well so that clutch had some beatings.

The vehicle had a surprising amount of power for only being a 3 cylinder. When more people were riding with me the horsepower did go down quite a bit.

It handled better then any other car I have driven in the snow. The ability to switch it into 4 wheel drive was excellent along with its narrow tires.

It had excellent gas mileage of course.

It isn't very comfortable, but it was very reliable, had excellent gas mileage.

You could probably pick one up for much less than $1,000 and it would be fairly reliable and excellent in the snow.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 3rd April, 2003

16th Mar 2008, 17:14

A clutch for 900 dollars is way out of line. The parts are only 125 for the complete set.

If you do it yourself its only about 2 hours, and even if a shop took 4 hours it couldn't cost more than 250 for labor.

A bad clutch is no reason to get rid of it...it's a normal part to replace, no big deal.

Keep it!