Similar to the 2008 WRX, I found this car while browsing Copart’s inventory of clean title vehicles. The only listed damage for the vehicle was “mechanical”; which is a pretty broad designation.  However, it was labeled “run & drive”.  The “run & drive designation at Copart means that the engine ran when they tested it and when put into drive it would move forward and when put into reverse it would move backward, all under its own power. The car was located up in Minneapolis so I asked my folks if they would kindly drive over and take a look see for me;  which they did.

The right front fender had a notable dent.  One of the side view mirror covers was missing.  There were numerous and sporadic small dings and paint chips, and the interior smelled of a family of chain smokers.  Perfect. I’ll take it.  I “won” the bid at $3,150 with $748 in fees, so for a total of $3,899 I earned the privilege of taking it home.  On a side not “won the bid”, “winning bid”, “won the lot” all seam like British compliments to me.  Half the time you’re the poor sucker who who paid the most amount of money for a car the general public decided they don’t want. But, that’s also how you can get ahead if you play your cards right.  So…, I guess this is where I don’t look the gift horse in the mouth.

Kelley Blue Book on the car was $7,200 so that left me with a $3k window to make the repairs

I drove over to Copart with my Dad to pick it up.  I just needed to pay for it and then drive back to my folks house.  I paid the bill, got the title and bill of sale and then waited while they retrieved the car with the front end loader.  They dropped the car off, I started it up, it idle well, so we headed out of the yard. Still idling down the driveway of Copart I gently hit the throttle but it didn’t speed up much at all but it did make a load clunking sound.  In typical fashion, I didn’t get out and check right away, I just pushed the gas pedal a little harder.  Still Clunking, still not going faster, but the clunking in going faster.

I hopped out of the car and crawled underneath.  The left front drive axle CV joint was busted.  On the Subaru awd system all four wheel are engaged below 10-15mph on the automatics.  Above that and the rear wheels disengage and it becomes fwd only.  I tried driving it again but it wasn’t going to make it; we went and got a U-haul.

Once I got it home I swapped out the drive axle and voila; it drove beautifully.  I then yanked off the dented fender and pounded it back out.  Both front wheel well liners were shot, a few front bumper brackets were broken, the fog lights were both busted, so I replaced those items and the front end of the car looked presentable again. 

As soon as the car was driveable I started using it on a daily basis. It was now cold outside and the Subaru had heated seats and awd, the Miata I’d been driving had neither.  I took the car on a few long trips, 500+ miles, and it drove really well.  Until one day it threw a couple codes for the air injection pump.  I did some research and found that this is a somewhat common issue to run into on these cars. Luckily the specific code indicated that the pump was stuck closed.  I’d reset the codes and it would run a drive fine, but eventually kick the codes again. That in combination with the fact that it would be needing a timing service in the near future I figured that I should just move on.

After factoring in all the costs (purchase, fees, U-haul, tax title & license, insurance, parts, etc) I sold the car for $5,000 and only made $140.

I wasn’t able to correct all the issues with the car and bring the value back to its full market potential but I was able to use it throughout the cold winter months and benefit from the awd and heated seats.

Deal done, onto the next one.