mattlong

Thanks for adding that link. Knew it had to be on here somewhere. Think colour coded the way forward. Painted mine red to match the brake calipers but was way too much.

Stumbled across a great way to refurbish or create an individual look on your Subaru Grille badge when playing around with my 1998 classic today. This is probably an old trick to some but I couldn't find a reference to it here so thought i'd post it. My front grille badge has suffered a massive stone chip so I've decided to replace it. Got around to removing it today and suddenly remembered something I had read in a Ford magazine many years ago. It was a bit of a craze in the 1990's to colour your ford badges in different colours so I decided to see if the same method would work on the classic scoob badge. All you need to do is this: Carefully remove the badge from the grille. It's held in with a kind of double sided sticky tape stuff so be careful not to crack your badge as you lever it out of it's recess. Then carefully sand the back of the badge with fine grit sand paper. (Don't use a dremel multi-tool as I did to start, it melted the plastic!) As you sand you will notice that you can start to see light through the badge as you sand down. At this stage switch to wet and dry paper with plenty of fresh water. You will find that the chrome effect stars stay in place but the black background has turned transparent. Once you are happy with transparency then wash and dry the badge before brushing or spraying on the colour(s) of choice. Hey presto! one customised badge! You could experiment by sanding the stars out as well and spraying them one colour, before sanding again to add the backing colour. It's up to you! Bet some of you try it!

Major screw up at work has meant i'm unable to make it. Absolutely gutted! Hope you all have a great time and make jake's day. So sorry for having to bail at the last minute. So gutted!!

Will add my limited edition 1998 wrc scalextric car to the fleet too. Been my pride and joy since I was 15. Never raced or rallied. Haha. Pics to follow.

Can't wait for this. It's going to be awesome. Going to spend saturday getting the green machine polished up. Will happily be the one to give him a spin in a classic

Fantastic idea. Can't believe how everyone rallying around for this. It's amazing! Definately count me in with my classic turbo 2000!

The comment left by stum450n is spot on.....sounds like a fiesta! Like the nasty old pushrod engine on a cold day. Definately tappets I would have thought.

Actually I find the scoob not that bad on fuel, considering what it is and what it's capable of. First thing I noticed about my classic was the fact that the fuel tank seems so small so I guess it is in the mind because you are visiting the fuel station quite often. Secondly, lets not forget these are relatively heavy family sized cars with permanent four wheel drive. The drag and mass of the vehicle isn't going to help the fuel economy. Put alongside other "4x4" vehicles the mpg isn't that different. Thirdly, you drive it like a nutter, it's going to cost you! just done a 60 mile round trip with the windows open and the fuel guage has barely moved. Be gentle with the throttle and don't rev above 3000rpm and it does okay. Finally, who buys a Subaru Impreza if they worry about fuel economy? Worried about fuel economy.....buy a diesel. Want a fast family car that has puts a massive smile on your face every day......buy a subaru and accept that its going to cost more to run than your average ford mondeo. I'm certainly not going to let the rise in fuel prices spoil my enjoyment.

I was polishing my green classic turbo 2000 in the glorious sunshine yesterday and suddenly noticed what a lovely colour it can be. Not really green but almost with a turquoise/blue shimmer to it. Made me think and it seems to me that the green classics are very unappreciated. Everyone lusts after the blues, silvers, blacks and whites and completely disregard the simple green. Mark my words, one day the other colours of classics will be gone. Either rusted, rolled or modified to death. Then the simple greens that have been cherished, respected and used carefully will have their moment. Seen it too often with cars such as the mk1 and 2 escorts. You couldnt sell a 4door shell 10 years ago as it wasn't as popular as a 2 door. Now you struggle to find an affordable 4 door as everyone finally wants them due to the 2 door shortage. I'm hanging on to my green classic with pride. Makes me happy now and one day will be a sought after machine...I hope. How about posting here your photos of green scoobys and showing off what is essentially a very underated colour on a very amazing car. To get the ball rolling, my classic turbo 2000:

I'm a driving instructor and I have an Impreza Turbo........... ......my learners have to drive this though.... Would you trust a learner with your subaru? haha

Welcome to the forum! lovely looking blobeye. Not too far from you, just up the heads of the valleys road in brynmawr.

welcome to the club too! Glad you like my scoob, thanks for the comments! I'm insured with admiral on a multi car policy with my wife's car. Worked out at about £500 for the scoob with us both driving (I'm 28, she is 29) worth a look online.

Now a paid up member!

Admiral multicar policy is the best I found. Im 28, the wife is 29. I've 9years no claims, wife none. I've never crashed, she has and for us both to drive my 1998 classic scoob and her renault modus thing it costs £1000 a year. That's even with them both kept on the street! (I found that telling them it was on the street made the insurance CHEAPER than saying it's in the garage. Logic please?!) Get your quote online and then when they ring you (usually next day) haggle like crazy. Excesses not too bad (£150 theft excess) courtesy car, protected no claims, legal cover etc etc. The multi car bit is great because as somebody already said your cars can start on different dates at no extra cost. They just work out your premium based on the first car to come to policy being 365days of cover and whatever cars come after based on how many days cover they require within those 365days. As for no claims bonus, I did question the salesman about whether my 9 years ncb could be applied to both cars, not just the scoob, and he did say it's something they can do in certain circumstances. Think the fact my wife had a claim against her meant we couldn't. Always worth asking! I'm usually a fan of direct line but after being a "valued customer" for four years they wanted £800 just for the diesel modus! A £300 rise over last year! Good luck.....it's a minefield out there and I'm sure they just pluck numbers out of the air!

Thanks for doing that link for me. I didn't know how to do that. I probably should have posted it in "how to" part.

Thanks for your comments. Did post a thread but doesn't seem to be as popular as you'd think! haha

Doesn't sound right to me, mate. How much oil and over how many miles? If it's a lot of oil then surely you should see it go somewhere? Either blue smoke, in the coolant water or simply on the garage floor. Is it a high mileage engine? Look on the bright side, with so much oil going through the engine it probably saves you changing it at servicing time!

Do them one at a time and run on the spare tyre in the meantime?

Thanks for your comments and extra tips. Wasn't too worried about dismounting the tyre and removing the valve in my case as the tyres were brand new. They should last a good number of years with the mileage my subaru does. When they do need changing I will re-sand the rims with the tyres off and touch up the paint. Let's be honest, these wheels are 13years old and all I wanted to achieve was to smarten them up in a low-cost and satisfying way. Anyone wanting to do a concours finish job should do this with tyres off and valve out. And yes, definately sand, spray and lacquer well the inside of the alloy. I hope nobody thought to only do the face! haha. Good tip about the Rain-X. Might try that. Found that Resin Polish does the job but always open to new ideas. Thanks!

Hi there! After posting some pictures of the wheels I refurbished on my 1998 classic turbo 2000 some people suggested I posted a thread on how to do it.......so here it is. The alloys on my recently purchased Subaru were looking incredibly sad, as the following pictures show. Didn't fancy sending them away to be refurbished as it would prove inconvenient and possibly expensive. I like a bit of DIY and I am pretty nifty with a rattle can so thought i'd give it a go myself. This also meant I could do one or two wheels at a time, limiting the inconvenience. As you can see, in dire need of a bit of tlc. Tools I used were very basic: A good selection of wet and dry paper ranging from around 280 to 1200 grit. Bought 20 sheets for about a tenner on ebay. A wire brush. An electric multi tool with a selection of grinding and sanding bits. Picked this up from Aldi's for about £15. An electric drill with an appropriate attachment will do just the same. Started by removing the wheel and giving it a good scrub with an alloy wheel acid. Next was to remove the balancing weights (clip on ones leave terrible corrosion behind) and begin sanding. Started by grinding with the multi tool and attacking any flaking, corroded areas with the wire brush. Make sure that any corroded areas are sanded back to shiny new alloy. The kerbed areas and scratches around the rim were sanded out using a grinding bit on the multi tool. Just take your time and keep grinding back until it's smooth. Start rubbing down all over with rough wet and dry paper, gradually working your way to the finest grit. Found that a spray bottle of water was great for wetting parts of the alloy as you rub with wet and dry. Here is what mine looked like during and after prep. Once you are happy with the wheel and there are no marks or scratches that you can feel with your finger, wash and dry the alloy ready for spraying. If you are doing this with the tyre on then ensure you masking tape the edges well. Nothing worse than removing the tape to find overspray making the tire look like a 50p piece! Don't forget to mask the tire valve aswell! I gave mine about 3 coats each of grey primer, allowing to dry and sanding with 1200 grit between coats. Something I learnt early on was that any flaws in the grey primer coat will look many times worse when you apply the silver paint so make sure you sand out any imperfections before painting. I used E-TECH alloy paint that I bought on ebay. Worked out at about £10 for a tin of paint and a tin of lacquer. The tin of paint should cover 2 wheels. Gave each wheel about 3 coats of paint, again sanding with 1200 grit in between coats. Take your time! Found the best method was to spray the inside of the wheel first, then the insides of the spokes, the rim and finally the face. Keep shaking the can between coats and squirt in side to side bursts from a distance of about 15cm. The lacquer tin says to leave for 24 hours before applying but I feel that a laquer coat earlier than that is best as it gives the lacquer a more tacky surface to cling to. If in doubt follow the instructions on the tin. Gave each wheel a total of 3 lacquer coats to get a perfect shine. Once dried and hardened (lacquer takes a while to really harden off) I gave them a quick coat of Autoglym Resin Polish and mounted back the car. Once they were all on I went to have the wheels rebalanced (don't forget that you've removed the weights) Finished mine off with a new set of nuts and locking nuts. Total cost was about £20 in paint, £10 for wet and dry, £15 for the multi tool and £1.50 for the wire brush. Took about 2 hours prepping each wheel and a couple of days gradually building up the paint and lacquer. Hope this has been usefull to anyone who, like me, is a bit handy at DIY and wants a low-cost and satisfying way to smarten up their aged scoob. Thanks for reading! Matt

Hi there! Will happily put up a "how you did it" thread if people are interested. Will put it up shortly. Thanks for everyone's positive feedback. Matt

Hi there. Thanks for your comments. Painted them firstly with a couple of coats of grey primer then a few coats of "E-tech" alloy wheel silver paint and lacquer which I bought off e-bay. A tin of paint and a tin of lacquer was about £10.

Hi there! Just finished refurbishing the alloys on my 1998 classic turbo 2000. What do you think? I'm pretty pleased with my efforts so wanted to post here.