Came home on Saturday well chuffed that I had got just the second hand board and sail that I was looking for at a really good price. 
Got ten metres from home when the car konked out. 
Just got the quote for fixing one cooked engine - $5,900 
Let me hear ya say "aaawwwwww" 
No more gear for me 
haha, you can blame that on subaru for making boxer engines :P
Suggestion; A good percentage of that quote will be labour, engines take quite some time to rebuild, especially boxers.
Keep an eye out at your local wreckers, and you could find yourself with a 3-4k job instead. Swapping an engine over could mean 2 hours. Rebuilding could mean 2 days. However if you need the car straight away you dont have a choice.
As cisco said, imports = good option aswell.
Japanese have very strict road rules, if your car is older than 10years then you need a special permit for it to still be on the roads + safety updates etc...
Therefore large market on import cars and import parts.
Thanks for the inputs guys
The decisions are do 1) top end, 2) import replacement, or 3) top end + bottom end. Roughly $4K, $5K, $6K. 2 and 3 come with 12/20 warranties. 1) they reckon is bad if you wanna hang on to the car - bottom end will slowly go to crap. 2) you can't be sure of what you get. 3) recommended option. Labour is about 18hrs for 1) and 24 hrs for 3). I like the car and it's in good nick so I'm leaning towards 3)
Im thinking that Karma has nothing to do with it , more like neglect if its only an 04model
.
how did u cook an 04 engine without noticing that it was overheating ??wtf ?
I have the same model ...never had a problem
