It’s one of those things you imagine will never turn out too well. This semi-beater ’96 Legacy was driven on the ice some three months ago, as a guy went fishing. Despite his claims that the ice was strong enough, the Legacy went through the ice, head-first. The driver only had time to turn off the engine and get his dogs out of the trunk, as the Legacy soon fell completely through and sank to the bottom of the (admittedly characteristically shallow, four-meter-deep) Finnish lake.

Three months later, the Subaru was located and dragged out. Would it be a total loss?

The Subaru was then delivered into the hands of the guy telling the tale on the Finnish Offipalsta offroad forum (thread in Finnish).

After finding a live burbot from between the bumper and the bottom tray – the fish had let out its spawn on the alternator – they drained out the oil and water in the engine. For the first minute, all that came out was water.

The fuel tank contained 70% of water, but “luckily only 15 litres of fuel, so it didn’t go to waste.” Out of curiosity, they replaced the plugs and poured some fresh fuel into the tank. What would happen after three months spent in the bottom of the lake?

The thing started first try, Laakista käyntiin. I can imagine the shouts and hollers heard in the garage. How can it be?

The past weekend the guys drove 20km with it. “Still some water in the fuel, kinda lacks power.” Most of the electrics are working, certainly everything they’ve tried out so far; the wipers, headlights and all seem to function and the guy cleaned the ECU with brake cleaner beforehand. The car has no airbags to fizzle out, so I would imagine that once they sort out the still-watery fuel, it’ll be a rough but ready rescued runner.

Of course, even non-submerged Subarus do not exactly have a rust-free reputation over here, but since most of them already look like they’ve spent time in water up to the beltline, how much worse can this one turn out to be? The guy’s even considering holding onto it.
“It passed MOT inspection a week before going underwater, so there can’t be much wrong with it, can there?”

Source: Offipalsta.com (in Finnish)