This Subaru Justy, as with most cars that sell in the very-low-four-figure range, has had an unknown number of previous owners. It’s not worth the trouble to find out. That simple fact, combined with its low price, means the Justy had problems that were ignored because they’re not worth the cost to repair, and has problems that were repaired poorly.

The first red flag I ignored was that this guy had put 12,000 miles on the Justy between when he bought it and when he sold it. The second through whatever number flags that should’ve raised when I was looking at the car were:

• an oil leak claimed to be from the oil pan (new gasket included in the sale)
• definitely worn out motor mounts
• lots of slop in the steering
• fuel smell when he first fired it up
• his unconfident claim of getting 30 mpg
• a possible exhaust leak
• a clutch pedal that engages very close to the floor
• 4WD didn’t engage, claimed to be a pinched wire

Not all of these turned out to be problems, but I likely could’ve pushed the purchase price further down quite a bit if I had been more aggressive. Let’s face it: I’m a weenie. I had driven 3 hours to look at a car I was buying for $1,300. I had a tow dolly and a wad of cash; I wasn’t coming home empty-handed. Which is how I ended up with a 23-year-old forgotten car with issues. But I digress.

I hopped on Amazon and RockAuto, shopping for parts. I shopped Dusty’s Justys (which, appropriately, also offers Daihatsu and Yugo parts) and various OE Subaru parts websites. Some were not available. Some were on get-these-parts-the-hell-out-of-my-warehouse super closeout. Some were only available from the OEM, with the appropriate sky-high dealer price.

This Justy had what looked a new set of spark plug wires, so upon examination, I was surprised to find that the spark plugs and distributor cap were both worn out. The middle cylinder’s spark plug (this is a 3-pot, remember) was also coated in black soot, indicating possibly a bad injector. This jives with the car’s poor gas mileage (about 20 mpg) and the fuel smell from the exhaust. It’s running rich. I installed new ignition parts hoping that the problem was ignition. The ignition system showed plenty of neglect, including loose distributor bolts. I set the timing as part of the process.
A bit later I checked the replacement plug on cylinder No. 2. It came out just as black as the one preceding it. I had to order an injector.

 The upper torque mount had seen better days. Though this is a transverse-mounted inline engine, it has a dog bone-style upper mount just like its boxer-powered brethren. Thankfully, this didn’t require a parts purchase.

I didn’t want to spend $80 for a new mount, so a bit of 3M Window Weld and some cure time took care of the clunk whenever I engaged a gear.
There are still plenty of small issues to tackle with this car, but it’s still taken me to work and back mostly reliably. The gas mileage is no better than my WRX, so it’s still not yet fulfilling its purpose, and it does require quite a bit of tinkering before it’ll be a really decent daily driver. I haven’t even tackled all the problems I mentioned at the top of this post. At least it doesn’t drink premium fuel.