It is your choice on what you want to get but you asked for our thoughts. I think you have a great vehicle for rough road travel. The independent suspension and smaller (lighter) tire and wheel package will do well over rough roads (until you start talking about prerunner sized bumps). The car is going to have far less unsprung wight than a solid axle rig. The Subarus are built to take a beating, that cassis is the basis for a lot of rally cars. I don't follow the reasoning being getting a rattle in the dash on a car vs a truck, an interior is the same. Just like dirt bikes or any other motor vehicle. You need to set the suspension up for what you want to do with it. The Subaru has road suspension on it now. Change a few parts and you will have a rough road machine. If you think your car makes a lot of creaks and groans, wait till you drive an old pickup or samurai. :eek1 I can't think of any other vehicle that I would pick to drive down a rough road, other than maybe a small 2wd pickup that is setup with pre runner style suspension. A short wheelbase rig like a Samuari/tracker/wrangler is gonna rattle your brain. Find a shop that specializes in rally suspension in Subarus, tell them what you want to do and maybe they will take you out in one of their cars and show you how much better proper suspension is.
If the road is really *that* bad, you should try to find an alternate route. Barring that, drive slower. The solid axle rigs are not really any better at handling the rough stuff, the main advantages of solid (or ibeam) is more articulation/travel and taking 'hits' where you actually run the suspension into something.
I don't get it, you live in Arizona, why do you even own a car? The weather never gets bad enough there to warrant needing one. I realize you don't enjoy riding to work but do you really enjoy driving? Get a v-strom ride every day, the end.
The thoughts are appreciated. I'll be weighing out my options. The suspension setup on the subaru is a good thought, but since I've been planning on getting a small truck (pickup) i figured what the hell, use it for work duties and save the subaru for everything else. And no, I still won't be taking to strom to work on a regular basis. I own a car because AC is nice to have when its 110* out. And don't forget monsoon storms. That hve the side effect of making it very humid too. So yeah, believe it or not, just because we don't get snow does not mean it's perfect riding weather all the time. No I don't enjoy driving either, but at least i can just hop into my car.. without gear, with my coffee and listen to tunes or morning news on the way.
Pickups are nice to have. I like having my 2wd ranger, great little utility vehicle. I'd love to get my hands on an old 2wd Toyota but they all dissolved in this part of the country. The ranger does not handle rough rods well because the suspension is all stock and the rear end is too light. A couple hundred pounds in sand bags makes it handle better. The wheel/tire package I run on it makes a huge difference. My summer wheels and tires are a lot heavier than my winter setup. With the winter setup on there, it responds to bumps much better and handles much better. The summer setup is probably 10-15 pounds per wheel heavier. That makes a huge difference. The heavy cast iron front suspension beams probably does not help at all either. Lightening the unsprung weight of the vehicle is one of the first things to look at.
Slower? No, hammer down! Skip across the tops of those bumps, the faster you go, the smoother it gets. Like a motocross racer through a whoops section!
Yeah, right now i trailer the dirtbike behind the subaru, and im tired of trailering. There's still a good amount of the toyota pickups around here! A little expensive but then again they last forever. That's pretty much everyone's strategy here! Just as an insight to this road: it was orginally paved sometime in the late 50's. It got chipsealed once in the 70's. Since then, it's cold patches and potholes and most of them in the bottom of the little wash hills.
I saw this pic in another thread: I would love to get my hands on one of them, I would pay stupid money for it if it were relatively rust free.
Set your search parameters to southern AZ and southern CA and im sure you'll find a bunch. But wait till I find one first
Doesn't matter what kind of car/truck you get. Old cars need work. IMO a solid axle truck would squeak more than your prez. I have a 06 Nissan Frontier 4wd Nismo. I just finished putting in new U joints, and rebuilt the front suspension. It only has 60K on it.
Toyotas are too pricey used, IMO. Nissans are cheaper, and good trucks too: Either way, stick with a 4 cyl and manual trans for fuel economy and cheap operation. I owned a late '70s Datsun (pre-Nissan name change) and an 80s Toyota. Both were good, can't compare them as the Datsun was old when I bought it, and the Toyota was new. Both basic and reliable.
I can't believe Pittsburgh is not on that list. We must not have enough population. Edit, just looked it up, yup, only 300,000 people here. I guarantee Pittsburgh would be near the top, if not the top of that list.
I agree. There must be a minimum population to make the list. After the snow, salt and freeze cycles we experience every winter here in Syracuse-I would put our potholes at the top of the list. Bob
