That connecting rod looks very interesting. Do they machine the big end and then break it in half?

Lots of main bearings for a flat 4!

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1979 240D- 316K miles - VGT Turbo, Intercooler, Stick Shift, Many Other Mods - Daily Driver

1982 300SD - 232K miles - Wife's Daily Driver

1986 560SL - Wife's red speed machine

^^^As you know, I just got one, last month, a new 2.5i Outback.

It's a certifed PZEV (Partial zero emissions vehicle) California one, cleaner than 90% of other cars out there, supposedly.

Far nicer in all respects than my old '95 2.2 Outback was.

I sure like the Diesel idea of one though. If these had been available I probably would have bought one instead of what I just got.

The boxer design of the motor does supposedly lower the center of gravity on these, and makes them more stable, and that is important as the new Outbacks are SERIOUS snow vehicles, the awd and huge 17" wheels leave you with no way to mistake that.

These Subarus are no longer niche cars. They are mainstream ones in Amrica.

Build quality and reliability are up there with Honda and Toyota, the top 3 in the USA.

I like the my new Outback a lot.

Except for the squirrelly handling at the ultimate edges (don't ask how I found that out) they are highly driveable and acceptable all around vehicles.

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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)

Ten bucks says we get it several years after the rest of the world does. I'd be all over that if they'd send it this way at a reasonable price and with decent dealer support (read: training for the service folks).

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1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)

Yep. That's how they do it.

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1983 123.133 California
- GreaseCar Veg System

What does that even mean? I've been seeing those stickers on hybrids for a while now.

My CD with the EGR disabled (I'm currently using it off-road) is also a Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle. It is producing zero emissions right now, although later when I drive it, it will produce some emissions. Partially zero. I ought to get it certified.

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1992 300D 2.5T 249k - Parked with a bad transmission
1981 300SD 142k - Daily driver

Probably due to the block more than the crank. I like it!!

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For Sale: 1982 MB 300TD
1995 Chevrolet Suburban 6.5TD

Sold: 1980 IH Scout Traveler- Nissan SD33T Diesel

Jeremy Clarkson from top gear show drove it and he didn't really like the diesel engine. Just keep in mind he's a petrol head .

link to the article

Each of the summer’s social occasions has its own code of conduct and everyone makes much effort to ensure they turn up in the correct clothes. At Royal Ascot, for instance, it is important to demonstrate that you started with nothing and have become very rich. And so you must go to www.russianbrides.com and rent yourself a 6ft hooker whom you then make taller still by kitting her out in a hat made from tinsel and old tractor tyres.

At Wimbledon you must develop phlebitis and a set of bingo wings bigger than most hang-gliders. At the Goodwood Revival you will need David Niven’s moustache. And at Glyndebourne your black tie should be aubergine.

At Silverstone it’s a gold-buttoned blazer teamed with pleated-front chinos and topped off with the branded-badge-and-tie combo. Henley requires that your Russian “wife” wear some clothes for once, and at the Chelsea Flower Show, for reasons that are entirely unclear, you must wear a suit and a straw hat.

Of course, all of this requires a wardrobe that stretches from here to the Philippines but at least a century of tradition means you won’t ever commit the mortal English sin of turning up at the wrong place in the wrong clobber. I mean, can you imagine going to Glyndebourne with bingo wings? It’d be social suicide.

Unfortunately, while the sartorial rules are clear, first impressions are actually made in the car park. And here, because there are no rules at all, it is desperately easy to make a complete tit of yourself.

A couple of years ago someone arrived at my local prep school’s sports day in a pink stretch Hummer. At first I thought they were being ironic. But the gazebo they then built in the car park suggested they weren’t. Honestly, they couldn’t have got it more wrong if they’d turned up in split-crotch scuba suits.

The first thing you have to remember is that at any of the summer events you will be parking in a field, which means you can forget any dreams you may have had of arriving in a Ferrari Scaglietti. You absolutely have to have four-wheel drive.

Once there, you will be having a picnic, which means the boot must be big enough to serve as a hole for the dogs, a kitchen, a pantry and a boot store. A drop-down flap on which aged guests can perch is also a good idea. And the car should be grey or silver. Not red. Never red. Red cars are for Lebanese teenagers on Park Lane at two in the morning.

Above all this, though - above every other consideration - your car should be good in a traffic jam. Because that, no matter where you’re going, is how you’ll spend most of the day.

A social event in what Tatler calls “the season” is invariably held in a part of the world that was designed for the ox, not half a million people in hats the size of the moon, with a boot full of vodka and bouillon.

Obviously the Range Rover is your best bet. It is the little black dress of cars, a one-size-fits-all solution to every social and practical requirement. It works in fields, there’s enough headroom for the most preposterous of hats, the tailgate splits in two and it’s just as happy in a field as it is when the B4746 is jammed up all the way from Nethercombe Bottom to Piddlecomb End. But it is very expensive: filling it with fuel costs £111, the road tax will soon cost more than a beachfront villa in Miami and few cars made today depreciate with such vim.

That’s why, when I was invited for lunch at the Cheltenham Festival recently, I chose to go in the smart man’s Range Rover. The Subaru Legacy Outback.

Now, I have written about this excellent car before, twice actually, but I have an excuse for reviewing it again because it’s now available with the world’s first flat-four diesel engine.

In a flat four, there are two cylinders on each side of a central crankcase, and the pistons move towards one another. Imagine two men boxing and you’ll see why these engines are known as boxers.

Petrol-fuelled boxers have been used before, in quirky cars such as the Citroën GS, the Alfasud, the Beetle and several Porsches. There are some notable advantages. A boxer engine is well balanced, it is easy to cool, it takes up little space in the engine bay and, because it’s flat, it can be mounted low down, giving a lower centre of gravity.

The disadvantage is that it’s expensive to make. It was for this reason that Sir Alec Issigonis abandoned his plans for a flat four in the Morris Minor and it is why most car makers today have followed suit. But not Subaru. It continues to use a boxer in the Impreza and has now built one that runs on the fuel of Lucifer.

Quite why, I don’t know, because the flat four’s main advantages – you can have a sleek front end and good handling – are largely irrelevant in a car that sounds like a canal boat and goes with the vigour of a Norfolk Broad. And they are especially irrelevant in an estate car that was designed for muddy car parks.

No matter. I set off for Cheltenham in convoy with some friends in a Range Rover. And possibly because of the fuel they’d use if they spent all morning sitting with half of Ireland in a jam, the route they chose seemed, as far as I could tell, to be made up of roads that were “unsuitable for motorists”.

We went through villages that were lost to a strange mist 400 years ago. We saw signs telling us that “there be witches”. We saw people in smocks. We went through Henry Dent-Brocklehurst’s kitchen. We drove over twigs, logs and a field full of turnips and we forded rivers that don’t even feature on Royal Geographical Society surveys. And the Subaru laughed at it all, clinging onto the Range Rover’s tail like an eager puppy out for the first time with its mum.

Of course, the Range Rover has more ground clearance and a computer program that allows it to cross the Sahara, and do a rainforest before lunch. The Subaru has no such wizardry. Just a straightforward four-wheel-drive system, and that, trust me, could take everything that Gloucestershire placed in its way.

Inside, it has five seats, a dashboard, some leather and a sat nav screen that works well. Except at night, when it stares out of the dash like a second-world-war searchlight. Oh yes, and either I’ve grown or the car’s shrunk since I last tried it out, because I can report that life for the taller driver is cramped.

Outside, it’s just very good looking in a Chelsea Flower Show suit sort of way.

In the car park at Cheltenham, it looked like it belonged. And not only because there must have been a thousand others, all slightly bent, dirty and blue-blooded. This is the car of the aristocrat. The person who uses money to buy time. Not things. It really should come as standard with a black lab in the boot.

And . . . I’m repeating myself. You probably already know that I am a huge fan of the Legacy. And what you want to know is: the new engine. Any good?

No. It’s crap. Normally, diesels are happiest at low revs in a high gear. Not the Legacy. It has the torque of a pencil sharpener, the life and soul of a corpse. You need to be in first until the whole engine has revved itself clean off its mountings, and even then when you go for second it judders and shivers in protest.

I don’t care if it uses only a gallon of fuel every 6m miles; it is just not worth the bother. And to make matters worse it’s not available with an automatic gearbox.

The Legacy with a petrol engine? Yes. Definitely. It has bingo wings, a great suit, the right moustache and a silly hat in the shape of a mad sunroof. If it could talk, you know it would sound like Edward Fox. It’s a brilliant all-rounder. But the diesel? Not in a million years.

Vital statistics

Model Subaru Legacy Outback TD RE
Engine 1998cc, flat four
Power 148bhp @ 3600rpm
Torque 258 lb ft @ 1800rpm
Transmission Five-speed manual
Fuel 47.9mpg (combined cycle)
CO2 156g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 8.8sec
Top speed 124mph
Price £23,495
Road tax band D (£145 a year)
On sale Now
Rating
Verdict Would be ideal if it wasn't a diesel

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1992 Mercedes 190D 2.5 turbo 5sp manual. EGT+boost gauges. Boost controller set to ~14.5 psi. 1 1/4 turns on full load adjustment. LPG injection. Next in the list is water injection.

Wow -- 23K GBP? If that's any sign of what the US version will cost, it won't be cheap. Damn.

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1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)

Live rates at 2008.04.23 22:14:07 UTC
23,495.00 GBP=46,485.04 USD
United Kingdom Pounds United States Dollars
1 GBP = 1.97851 USD 1 USD = 0.505431 GBP

That's too much for a car like that.

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DJ


84 300D Turbodiesel 190K with 4 speed manual sold in 03/2012

That's almost bluetec range.

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1979 240D- 316K miles - VGT Turbo, Intercooler, Stick Shift, Many Other Mods - Daily Driver

1982 300SD - 232K miles - Wife's Daily Driver

1986 560SL - Wife's red speed machine

I bet that includes VAT. Minus that and it's just about £20,000. Also keep in mind that a new E320 CDI over there costs about £39,000, or around $77,000.

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Dale

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g1...MG_2277sig.jpg

1990 300D 2.5 Turbo -155k
2000 E430 - 103k
2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee Ecodiesel 4x4 - 11k
2014 VW Passat TDI SE - 7k Bro's Diesel
2006 E320 CDI - 128k Pop's Benz

Pre-glow - A moment of silence in honor of Rudolph Diesel

That would still buy a lot of nice 123's.

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DJ


84 300D Turbodiesel 190K with 4 speed manual sold in 03/2012

Don't get too confused about the prices. If it costs £23,495 in GB then it'll cost $23,495 in the US and That much in Euros in the rest of EU.

I have a question though. How can that car with "only" 148ghp get to 60mph in 8.8 seconds?

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1992 Mercedes 190D 2.5 turbo 5sp manual. EGT+boost gauges. Boost controller set to ~14.5 psi. 1 1/4 turns on full load adjustment. LPG injection. Next in the list is water injection.

Torque, the same way the E320 bluetec can match the E350's 0-60 with less HP.