Subaru oil leaker

Look Ma, it's a Justy! My-oh-my! 

I thought all the "old-cars" had been crushed during the “cash for clunkers” project, so I pondered about other nifty cars that might show up at my shop’s front door. Here is a short story about one such cash4clunkers escapee; a fine running 1994 Subaru Justy.

Now this example of auto-technology was one that Subaru wished we’d all have simply forgotten, yet all THREE CYLINDERS ran great and it was worth a little restoration. 

A guy, the owner who shall go nameless uses this little car as his daily work commuter.

WHY IS IT HERE? Reasons for this visit were Simple Routine Maintenance. A timing belt, front crank seal, a look at the oil spraying on the engine, gee! Oh yes, the infamous distributor body seal was a leaker as well.

Let’s repeat this guy’s tale for the NEED for ROUTINE MAINTENANCE

After

Before

 "As I pull to a stop in rush hour traffic, (Think Lots OF OTHER CARs in a congested intersection), clouds of smoke unfurl from beneath the hood. The other drivers around me always look over in my direction. The smoke envelopes the front of the Justy, and I'm pretty sure most of the other drivers are betting when the FIRE will begin on my Subbie!"

 No idea how long this "smoking issue" had been going on, but it had become embarrassing and a worry to this guy, the Justys' owner. Many worn out seals, leaking oil, had all makings for a rolling Justy fire-bomb waiting to happen. You know anticipation, just like when the lunch-truck shows up, but that's fairly predictable.

What will show up next I wonder; perhaps a Yugo or as Carl said a GEO?

Tune-Ups - REQUIRED!

The photo included in my post is to visually stress the importance of routine maintenance. A simple spark plug change with estimated cost of $145.00 would have saved this person an additional $1100.00 on the replacement cost of two damaged catalytic converters.

The owners manual gives a mileage interval to replace a normal wearing part. There's good reason too, the spark plugs pictured here aren't just normally worn, they are actually worn away.

Much more material is gone than what I would expect to find at the correct replacement mileage.

That brown coloring is was un-burned gasoline, money just being tossed blown out the tailpipe as the SUV went down the road.

The CHECK ENGINE or SERVICE ENGINE SOON lamp had been flickering away for hundreds of miles.

BTW.. Why do they call those warning lights, "idiot lights" anyway?