Customer Reviews

How to Keep Your Subaru Alive: 1975 To 1988 : A Manual of Step by Step Procedures for the Complete Idiot (Idiot book auto series)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Walks you thru repairs every step of the way. The author is very thorough. This book has saved me a lot in repair bills for the 3 Subaru's I've owned. It's common for a dealer to charge $1300 to change the timing belts, I did the job on my car and the belts totaled less than $30.

I got my Subaru GL used about 3 years ago. It needed a bit of work. After the dealer persuaded my to let him replace all of the gaskets in the engine, I didn't have much money left for any other maintenance. Thankfully, I found How to Keep Your Subaru Alive. Using this great resource as a guide, I've done all kinds of repair and maintenance on my car. Now if only the publisher would update it so I can work on my Dad's '93 Legacy... Oh, well.

I never really knew a thing about cars, and received this as a gift 8 years ago. Motivated by limited cash and that nagging sense of being taken advantage of at car repair places, I started making my own repairs and doing my own maintenance. My 84 GL is, now, in way better shape than my dogeared, oil-stained copy of this book, and I feel much more in control
Owens rules--the book is exhaustive and methodical and, at the same time, entertaining. The advice is wise (like that of a cool older brother, in one reviewer's words), the directions precise, the illustrations great (especially the one with the dogbone, the pie, and the toilet).
Thanks, Larry & Joe.

Being a previous VW Bug owner and having gotten the original "VW Idiot's Guide" all greasy and dirty, I love this book. (It was fascinating to learn that Fuji (Subaru) built their motor based on the original Porsche/VW design but added water cooling!).It puts you in touch with your car...gives you confidence that you can become a hobbiest/mechanic... and you can easily figure out what maintenance you can do at home with minimum tools and which maintenance you should let some real mechanic take on. Best of all: Save money! Do maintence yourself! Spot problems before they amount to big money! As they say in the original VW book: "Know your ass....(donkey)" and it will treat you well!

This is one of the single best repair books ever written. I am a rotten mechanic. This gave me enough confidacne to do some work. Plus, the idiot part gave me a lot of knoweldge that has transfered to differing situations. I read the first edition more than 10 years ago and this is still my favorite. Now I just need one to cover my 83 mustang.

This little book is fantastic. It not only describes the maintenance and repair procedures in a way that anyone can understand and perform, there is also a nice little section on how cars work, the history of the Subaru and what to look for when buying a used car. This book is worth it's weight in gold.

I did almost all of my own maintenance on my '91 Loyale for 10 years (until I totalled it by hitting a deer at 60mph) using this book. It has very detailed info and the writing style has none of the dryness you'd expect in an auto repair book. It's almost a shame to get it dirty! It has a lot of great info. If I had anything to add, there could be more ingenuity in adapting or making some of the tools that the author says you need to buy. For example, I ground a notch in a piece of scrap steel to screw in the front brake calipers. When I broke off a tap in threaded hole, I used a dremel with a grinding bit and ground it out. I didn't have to resort to the author's suggestion of bringing it to a place that does electrostatic discharge machining. I also rigged up a homemade tool to hold the cam sprocket to change the cam belts.
You'll also want to supplement this book with the Clymer, Haynes, and Chilton manuals. As several other readers have pointed out, it's dated.

All previous reviews I agree with 100%. PUBLISHER "You can't treat us like this! in the name of decency, give us an updated version to include the 90's Subaru's.
(for goodness sakes! too)