I have a freind who owns a '00 2.5, he is having problems with his sheet metal being to flimsy. It has less than 8000 miles on it and is already full of dents. He says he gets them from just leaning on it. Mine is a '99 and holding up beautifuly, so I don't understand his problem, he is trading it in because he is even afraid to open the hood or the trunk due to the flimsy metal. Is anybody else out there experiencing anything like this? Thanks!

Kind of. Subies as a whole are pretty flimsy. I have not expieranced anything too bad with mine yet though, but I know a friend that leaned on his and it bendt it in, he pushed it back out with his hand through the trunk though.

Yea, I wouldn't lean on it..

<FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Well, the way I look at it is this. You can either have a sub 3k pounds car with thinner sheet metal, or you can have a 4k pounds car with 1/4" thick steel panels for the body that don't dent. I'll take the car that weighs 1500 pounds lighter and gets 10 miles more to the gallon http://www.i-club.com/ubb-files/smilies/wink.gif. Tell him to keep is ashe off of the car http://www.i-club.com/ubb-files/smilies/biggrin.gif.

Brian
AIM: captaindamorgan ICQ: 84483950
http://ravensblade.cjb.net
Conjunction Junction, what's your function?
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Yeah I'll take a lighter car too. Though I did have a mishap at the dealer while test driving some WRXs and RSs. I pushed on the rear quarter panel of the RS to bounce the suspension... ooops. I put a dent in it. It was completely subconsious, I do that to all the cars. I felt like a complete a$$. I have a fair amount of body experience, and offered to fix it. They let me and you can't tell it was ever dented. But I hated that.

Needless to say, I push on the plastic bumpers now to bounce the suspension. http://www.i-club.com/ubb-files/smilies/biggrin.gif

I think my 99 obs is flimsy. A friend leaned on it yesterday and I cringed. Last night I had a DREAM about dents and scanning for them - only to find a big hole in my bumper. I'm dreaming about dents! sheesh.

I often here folks complaining about the paint or thin sheetmetal on the 2.5rs. I have owned 12+ cars (many different brands and styles,American,Japanese,European)in my many years and I just don't see a great deal of difference between our cars and most others. Maybe the high end of the market such as BMW,Lexus,Acura ect... has better quality, but comparing Subaru with like competitors I see about the same quality. In fact, compared to most american cars I see the sheetmetal and paint are much better. Considering the average age of members on the i-club that own a RS or WRX(which is young due to the sporty nature of the car)maybe a lot of them just haven't had many previous cars to compare it to. In the end it's all about weight vs. horsepower

Thanks yall, but his car also has a tedency to moan and groan when going over the slightest bumps in the road. It seems his car is just not built the same way my '99 is. I think there is something wrong with his car but can't put my finger on it yet. I have had mine out mudding and tearing around on dirt roads and haven't heard my do a quarter the stuff his does on smooth roads.

You are correct about the moans and groans, but the problem turned out to be just the sunroof and it was a fairly simple fix. It now is as quite as could be expected for a 20k sports sedan.