Thanks to all the folks - here and on my LJ - who have given me advice on my Subaru and its transmission problems. It seems I have a few options:

  • Have a new or rebuilt transmission installed. This costs ~$2,000, and most are guaranteed for 70,000 miles. However, there’s also the argument that this is just throwing good money after bad, especially since I happen to know that the Subaru also needs new struts and has a bent right front wheel.
  • Buy a used car. It would probably be no more than five years old or $10,000. We would likely go for a compact or sub-compact, and hold off on getting a hauling vehicle until our next vehicle breaks down.
  • Lease a new car. Some readers view this as a “long-term rental” and are skeptical of it, but others point out that since you’re driving a new vehicle under warranty, you won’t pay nearly as much in maintenance. Plus, it arguably costs the same over a ten-year period - and while you do call the used car your own at the end, you may not have much more car left to drive at that point.

So the plan is this:

  1. Cool down for a couple more days. I have a lot of data to process and it’s not good to do it while too emotionally wrought.
  2. Call my mechanic and ask him if a replacement is feasible and sensible. If it is, ask him about how much it would cost and if he can refer me to someone who could do it. (He might be able to himself, but I doubt it from the way he talked about it).
  3. Take the car to the dealership, tell them it was diagnosed with a major transmission issue, and get a second opinion and an estimate on replacement costs. Stress that they are NOT to fix anything without my approval. My goal in this is to find out if other ‘99 Outbacks have had similar issues and if the dealership is willing to be helpful in any way to keep us as customers. I’m distrustful of dealerships, though, so I don’t have much hope here.
  4. Get Consumer Report’s New Car Buying Guide out of the library and read up on leasing and some new car models that interest me, such as the Honda Fit.
  5. Figure out how much we car we can actually afford.
  6. Shop a lease while simultaneously shopping for a used car, so that we can get an idea of how much the two will cost us over the long-term.

In the end I am hoping to figure out what the most frugal option is - repair, buy used, or lease (notice how buying new is Right Out). I’m not convinced that conventional wisdom re: owning vs. leasing is correct (look how wrong I was about owning vs. renting), and I want to do the math myself.

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