1993 Subaru Loyale from North America - Comments

The exhaust system rotted out at 60,000 miles.

The car has been through 6 (six) starters.

The head gaskets leaked A LOT of oil by 60,000 miles. They have since been replaced.

The car now burns about 1 litre of oil every 1000 miles.

If it were not for this consistent starter problem, then I would say that the car is reliable. The worst part of that problem is that it is intermittent - so of course it never happens when a real mechanic is around.

I am pretty disappointed in both the lack of power in the engine (expect to go up hills no faster than 45mph) and the oil leakage and burning from an engine with well under 100,000 miles on it. I also gets rather poor gas mileage - 19mpg around town and 21mpg on the highway. It has been this way since we bought it at 34,000 miles.

The 4wd system is hard to beat. I believe that this is one of the last Subarus with 4wd on demand, rather than All Wheel Drive.

I was having the same problem with gas mileage. My car has 197,000 miles on it, and I was getting around 19 mpg out of my 1993 Loyale with a 3-speed auto. I had the engine rebuilt... head gasket, timing belts replaced, valve job, new pistons... and I also had a 5-speed manual put in the car. It all cost about $1100 and I did most of the work with a good friend of mine who works on nothing but Subarus. I am now averaging 25.5 mpg city/ 29 mph highway. I absolutely love the gas mileage. Even when I'm hauling around 3 football buddies of mine who are all well over 200 lbs, I still average very good gas mileage. I plan on keeping this car for a very, very, VERY long time. And oh yeah, you have to love those tanked up front and back bumpers. I had to pay $600 for a Dodge Dakota rear bumper because I ran into it and did quite a number on his chrome bumper. Amazingly, it did absolutely nothing to my car. A VW Beetle rear-ended me about 4 months ago and cracked her radiator. Once again, did nothing to my car. What a tank.

My 1993 Subaru Loyale Wagon also had starter problems with which I'm sure I drove my mechanics mad. Finally, they solved the problem by locating the problem in the ignition switch. Since that has been replaced I have had no more annoying 'click, click, click' with the starter not turning over. Maybe this is the problem in the above Subaru Loyale.

1993 Subaru Loyale Wagon 1.8l FWD.

I bought this car for $150 with serious valve train noise. After replacing lifters and generally just scratching my head a lot, I finally realized I just need to replace the "mickey mouse shaped" oil pump seal. Went ahead and put in a high volume oil pump as well since I was already in there although the factory one was still working great. Problem gone. Drove the car for 3000-4000 miles before It just stopped shifting. Seems the governor went out which eventually resulted in a transmission rebuild (although I don't really think it needed it) and a new differential. The differential for the 3 speed auto apparently is extremely difficult to find as the entire housing was warped and it took about a month to find one in a California salvage yard. I'm in Texas. Cost of this repair $1500. From there it has gone to a 16yo who has thoroughly abused this car and it just keeps going as much as she hates it. I've also replaced a half axle on the passenger side and wheel bearings on the drivers side as well as a brake job. It's a decent little car and for the mechanics out there, this car is surprisingly easy to work on. It's very user friendly (and even has a lot of SAE nuts and bolts!) although you need small hands to get into some places. BTW, did I mention this car has 182,000 miles and is still going strong (or as strong as a 1.8 will go anyway).

I bought my 92 Loyale Wagon off the showroom floor in Va Beach Va. It had starter problems in the first 16,000 miles. It also had transmission problems stranding me out of town at about 35,000 miles. Both fixed under warranty, but still costing me several hundreds of dollars in rental cars, hotel rooms, transportation back to pick it up. It did pretty well until 68,000 miles after the expense of transporting it to my new home in Hawaii. Had a regular mechanic and regular servicing. Since arrival had to replace the boots, rotted out, the newly installed timing belt fell off (it has been replaced 3 times so far) apparently no one knows how to do the job right. Governor on the transmission had to be replaced, new brakes front and back, fuel system regulator failed, the car has no power no matter what is done to it to climb hills anymore and makes horrible noise. No diagnostic equipment shows what is really wrong with it and I have been taken to the cleaners by mechanics to the tune of $4,000 on repairs that are not improving the performance. To add insult to injury the Subaru Dealership does not want to have anything to do with it. There answer was that it would take at least 2 months to even get an appointment to diagnose the problem. The car is now parked under my house until such time as my nerves and my pocket book feel strong enough to attempt to deal with it again. Total mileage now right around 74,000 miles really pitiful for a Subaru. In my opinion the only people that should have a car like this are mechanics that can get a deal on parts and do all of their own labor. I now refer to my Subaru as the Demon car and am now driving a Toyota Corolla, which will hopefully live up to reputation. Subaru the company has been no help to me through all of this, it would appear that repeat customer good will is not important to them. If there are any competent Subaru mechanics on the Big Island of Hawaii I could really use your help.