My chiropractor has a 2011 forester that’s been maintained at subie dealer since new. 130k, good shape. He neglected to check the oil and seized the engine on Sunday. He knows I’m a closet subaru fanboy and that I have wrx, so he asks my opinion. I tell him honestly that in his shoes i’d buy something new because he doesn’t need downtime and he’s been thinking about it for a bit. Half joking half seriously I offered to buy the forester if the dealer tells him $500 for trade in. He called me a bit ago and the dealer told him significantly less than $1000 will be their offer but they are confirming the numbers Friday.
so i may have a 2011 forester in need of a longblock coming my way. I’m having some conflicting info about interchange. Some stuff says 09-13, some says 11/12, some goes newer. All i presently know is 2.5 na automatic. I’m also finding low mile 2015 engines from lkq for sub $700 and wondering if a newer engine is just sensors and ancillaries away from going into the 2011. What better place than grm to ask?
plan would likely be fix, drive for a month to make sure all is well, then flip to see how much $ i can make because my work trailer died a horrible tongue snapping death today and it’s going to cost me 3 grand to replace.
My wife's 2010 still had the timing belt but they made the change to chain in 2011 sometime, just to bookend that you can't go older and it be the same. Not sure when it changed again but there were a lot of oil issues with the early chain ones and some extension on warranty for it too.
I'd be a player for purchase, as is or fixed. My wife still laments getting rid of hers periodically.
How much are wrecked WRX's of that era going for? I would be tempted to make my own XT if the shell is only $500.
Whether it's an EJ25 or Fx25 will determine swappability.
If it were me, I'd just grab an engine from LKQ and run it. The warranty is nice if it turns out to be a dud.
Knurled. said:
Whether it's an EJ25 or Fx25 will determine swappability.
If it were me, I'd just grab an engine from LKQ and run it. The warranty is nice if it turns out to be a dud.
I gather we’ll find that out Friday because it’s up at Ganley and he told me to just go pick it up if I want it. It’s outside their extended warranty period or they’re blaming him(rightfully) for not checking his oil for 7500 miles.
had the same thoughts about wrx’ing it but that’s not really an option. If it were a boxy forester I would totally do that.
Found a yard that looks to specialize in low miles subaru wrecks and they have a plethora of 2013-14 cars with under 30k miles with prices from 800-950 on the engines.
Must stop looking at turbo parts.
This weeks upcoming IAA has a 2010 Forester. It has the perfect hit for you, side and rear but it has 219k miles!
https://www.iaai.com/Vehicle?itemID=25368190&RowNumber=338
My guess is it will still take $600 to buy this. Sure there is some recoup but you might just be better off with a $700 LKQ motor or similar.
Unfortunately, I will not be able to get over to see it this Monday due to work/business needs.
If it was 119k i’d be bidding on it. I don’t have it in me to put a 219k engine in a 133k mile car. Sounds way better to say “engine has 23k!” Or just not say anything and know I hooked someone up with a better engine than they’re expecting.
FWIW, the one I replaced the rod bearings in had something like 55k. The driver neglected to check the oil until it started rattling.
The funny thing is, it ran and sounded fine until we put it on a 2000rpm free-rev as part of the decarbonizing process that we recommend as regular maintenance. Then we found out that the driver had put four quarts of oil in it just before bringing it to us for service. Oops.
All of the rings were stuck in the pistons and all of the oil returns were plugged. Crank was fine, rods were fine, all damage was limited to a single rod bearing.
2013 was the start of the FB25. It’s all canbus, so forget swapping anything but that particular engine. A guy on the Foz forums tried, and three years later, is still at a roadblock. I’d swap in a long block and either keep it, or sell it.
Hey all. Just finished this swap, used 2013 legacy into a 2011 forester. I swapped everything from old engine to the new but having problems. It will start and idle for around 3 min then start running really rough and quit. I pull batter terminals, wait 30 min and try again and same thing. Also the throttle has no response at all. Any advice? Thanks.
In reply to Sfors :
Not sure if u r still looking for info but I've been researching the same potential swap and found a lot of good info here. https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/subaru-fb25-engine-interchange/135572/page1/
