Introducing the Forever Forester

There aren’t very many cars that I have owned, sold, and miss. Off the top of my head, I can think of two: a red NA6 named Andromeda that I regret selling to this day, and my shitbox green Forester, Inara, the green bean Subaru that caused me a lot of headache. I’ve owned nearly 20 cars so far in my life, but I’ve also come to appreciate the learning curve that has come with owning each and every one of them.

Casper is my forever car. He will be with me til the absolute end, come hell or high water.

And I hope to bring this Forester on that same great journey.

Meet Bell, my new 2000 Subaru Forester S. She joined the Push to Start family on April 6th, 2025. I drove up to Seattle to pick her up from a kind gentleman who moved up there from Portland for a girl (his now fiancé). The ad caught my attention back in February, as it was nearly everything I was looking for from a keeper Fozzy, with some notable hesitations – which stopped me from jumping on it at first… But this Forester called to me, so I saved it in my Marketplace search, and come April when I was actively looking again and she was still available… Well, let’s get to that.

On the plus side: it was an S (the high trim, with an LSD and rear disc brakes, heated seats, heated and power side mirrors, fun interior wood trim, special confetti seat colors for the red exterior, two-tone paint) ; manual transmission ; red ; the SOHC EJ25 ; pre-facelift first gen.

On the down side: 278000+ miles ; various dents and dings including a little smush into a guard rail ; bad hatch interior. And then a variety of little fixes: the dome light triggers are funky, the hatch will cause the door light to flicker when you’re going over bumps, the tires are dated 2018 and starting to dry-rot, missing a couple random interior pieces and things, the radio was only mounted by one screw and a “custom” bracket, the speakers are non-existent (literally), a previous owner must have had a dog or two cuz the hatch area is lowkey ruined, hatch seal is torn in a couple places… Yeah.

But then I ran a carfax.

2 previous owners. Over 60 documented maintenance items dating back to 2006. Meticulous care. Zero recorded accidents (besides the dents and dings from the ad, which the previous owner told me were caused by him hitting snow/ice and hydroplaning into a guard rail). So that 278k+ miles wasn’t so much of a negative to me.

Also, the original owners may have been a lesbian couple, which makes me laugh thinking about.

She smelled yucky and this is after cleaning the vents out (I removed and deep cleaned them instead).

Anyway, we’ve already been together a couple weeks and I’ve already fixed/replaced/upgraded a handful of things. I’m grateful that Subarus are so plentiful up here in the PNW as my local Pick N Pull has like 8 at the current moment. I’ve already replaced and fixed the radio. The overhead clock was no longer functional – I had to resolder three of the internal resisters and chips back together but now it is working again. The overhead glasses holder was completely missing, but a quick trip to the junkyard remedied that. The passenger door switches were reversed, but a simple inspection turned out somebody in the past had just removed it and swapped the plugs by accident. Easy fix. I have also pulled the door pins and cleaned them, and cleaned up the hatch door to (hopefully) help the hatch trigger function better. I have also pulled out the dent and adjusted the front fender again so it lines up better after the PO’s little accident. Part of his little bonk broke the passenger side mirror, but my Pick N Pull had a red facelift with matching red mirrors, so I yoinked those for Bell and her factory black mirrors are now matching paint red. I have also gained a trunk mat, but have yet to find a cargo cover (hopefully in tan to match though!).

She has also received her first little exterior deep clean (there was sooooo much lichen/moss growing in the nooks & crannies and window seals, and the fuel door + filler area was disgusting). I also claybar’d all of her except the roof (I’m not that tall, okay), and she will be getting a good polish and wax in the next coming days.

I have since removed the roof topper, roof bars, and bicycle rack. She will be getting different ones down the line (I would have kept the roof bars except that the first few days of ownership we bonked our heads on the bars like 18 times so they just had to go). I have also added a yellow tint to her fog lights and found the OEM fog light grates too! I had them on Inara and thought they were a great OEM+ option.