• 152,000 highway miles
• Only thing wrong is that the clock doesn’t work (for unknown reasons).


2001 Subaru Forester
不知道这车有timing belt吗? [ 本帖最后由 老牛 于 2008-2-2 10:30 AM 编辑 ]

Clock does not matter. Mileage is a little high, but it really depends on maintenance

For timing belt, I am not sure. You can check its maintenance schedule to find out

Thank you for your advice.

Yes, Subaru flat-4 engines feature timing belt.

High mileage on Japanese engine doesn't matter provided it is well-maintained and has good compression. Japanese engines are built with tighter tolerance thus last a lot longer.

This is an all-wheel drive vehicle with more moving parts in the drivetrain. More parts to maintain thus more expensive to repair. e.g. rear cv boots.

Some owner also complain about engine lifter noise.

谢谢你的很多建议！呵呵，那车感觉保养不好，就放弃了。

Mazdas are always overlooked and underated. I would buy 626 over Accord/ Camry; a lot cheaper. If you can drive standard shift, you have lot more choices.

I heard that 626 has a lot of problems. But millenia is a good car and underated.
In fact I want to choose American cars if years and milage are taken into account.

The only problem I know about 626 is that the automatic transmission used in certain model yr had inherited problem and was recalled. Standard transmission had no problem.
If you happen to come upon Ford taurus (96-00?, with 3-liter sohc v-6 vulcan engine), be sure to check the cooling system. Ford used a cheap batch of water pumps and coolant reservoir tanks to cut production cost. This is a well-known inherited problem. The fins on the stock water pump disintegrated due to cavitation (ask fluid mechanics guys if you don't know) and blocked the heater core. As a result there would be no heat inside the cabin and the engine would eventually overheat. The stock coolant tank would develop cracks as well. Aside from these, Taurus is a good choice for the $. You can buy one (96-00) for < $1500 with around 100K miles and all the power options. The vulcan engine is durable. Just make sure the cooling system problem has been taken care. Oh, also the stock tension pulleys for the serpentine belt may be noisy, but can be easily replaced with simple hand tools.

Oh yeah, I like Millenia with Miller-cycle engine!