[ninefourteener]

Greetings!

I came across this site after reading the Cobb Forums, thought I'd come check it out.

My wife and I just realized a long-time dream of finding a Tribeca that fit in our budget, after walking away nearly a dozen times from bad deals. Not only were our dreams met, they were FAR exceeded... by the folks at Larry Miller Subaru in SLC.... the best experience I've had at a dealership in years.

Nevertheless... I'm a long term car guru, both new and classics (over 30 cars in 15 years). I specialized in 2nd generation Trans Ams for several years (and 6 cars), and moved over to a new found obsession in 2002 - Porsche 914s. I've had two so far, but sold my last one about a year ago, not long after I bought my Suby, and the 2-seater didn't fit in my new family.

Since then, I've built my 06 WRX-TR: Cobb Tuned, VF39 Turbo, STI intercooler, Perrin hoses, Rota 18x8 wheels, Eibach suspension, Autometer gauges (9 of them), Subydude shifter, STI Ltd front lip, Bluetooth stereo, Rockford Fosgate speakers, Supertones.... the list goes on.

And I'm proud to say it's a 12-second daily driver, and I built it 100% in my garage with hand tools. No one has ever touched it but me.

Since my Sube-obsession began, we've been looking for a Tribeca.

Last night, we bought a 2007 7-passenger Limited. Absolutely love it. It's primarily my wife's car.... and I seriously doubt I'm going to go into a modding spree... but it's always good to have more info.

I'm a member of NASIOC, ClubWRX, STLSUBARU.COM, Cobbforums, and I'm also the co-founder/moderator of SLCSUBARU.COM.... we're still young (40 members), but we're already growing and planning our first meet. If there are any SLC area residents, I encourage you to join up and meet some other Suby enthusiasts..... and you obviously won't be the only Tribeca at the meets

I'm "ninefourteener" on all of the above sites.

I Look forward to chatting with everyone

Matt

 

[ninefourteener]

Oh yea.... pictures (after driving home 40 miles in the snow)

 

[snork]

Welcome aboard, nice to see another B9 out there. So sad you had to bring it home in the snow...already dirty

Where's "SLC"? Salt Lake City/St. Louis?

And nice WRX, I'm sure that thing hauls @ss!

 

[Magic Marker]

Welcome to the board. Agreed, what does SLC mean? At any rate, I'd love to pick up a WRX, but I'm too broke right now. I'm sure you can add some accessories to the B9. Puddle lights are the favorite here.

 

[ninefourteener]

Thanks all!!!

Yes, SLC= Salt Lake City

I'm active duty Air Force, just moved here from STL (St. Louis) a few months ago. The wife's Mazda3 was a great car.... but we bought it when we were a 3-person family.... now we're a 4 person family, and we just bought an English Mastiff for X-mas.

Couple that with frequent road trips to STL.... the excessive snow up here in Utah..... and just the desire for a bigger vehicle.... we NEEDED a Tribeca.

We A L M O S T bought a Jeep Commander... only because we couldn't find a dealer to give us a fair deal on a Tribeca..... once we found the deal.... we were all over it.

The WRX is about 385HP, (305 at the wheels).. it runs mid 12s consistently. I could have built it much faster... but it is my daily commuter car.. I figured that was plenty. Plus with the exception of the exhaust, it's all Subaru parts (mostly STI parts - Turbo, intercooler, etc)

As far as mods to the Tribeca are concerned.... My wife wants to get used to it first, then I'm going to try to recreate the "stance" that Cobb did. 20x9s, with a 2-inch drop. I've already spoken with them about the specs on that car.. still waiting on a response. I'd like to go with a gold mesh wheel, so it matches the WRX.

Thanks again all

 

[snork]

Uhh, ya...I think 305 WHP is plenty for a daily driver:lol:

Surprised you had a tough time finding a good deal on Tribeca, here in the Northeast, there are tons of good deals, although we have a much greater population than out by you all.

I didn't really consider a Commander come to think of it, although I just did a quick local search on cars.com and there are definitely some good deals to be had on those...I suppose it's probably b/c much like the B9, the Commander was/is not a big seller neither.

edit: ouch, just found a 07 Commander LTD w/ HEMI and navi, 4,264 miles for $26,995 at a local Toyota dealer, that's a helluva steal and that myGIG system would be a stepup from the merely avg navi in the B9, not to mention...Its gotta HEMI There still ain't no replacement for displacement when it comes to engine power IMHO:tup: Although WRXs do work wonders with their turbos.

 

[SimonD]

Hey, less of the price talk........! We're picking up our B9 on Friday and you're making me wince .
Gas is currently running at the equivalent of $8.0 per (US) gallon over here.

Nice pair of cars there. Our silver B9 is joining a silver '00 UK Impreza Turbo fairly standard though - just a couple of Prodrive bits. Enjoy.

 

[snork]

Yeow...I feel for you Brits/Europeans. I know we're complaining about $3 gas. And I just don't get why cars in Europe (England especially) are so expensive? I know you've got VAT and Europes taxes by engine displacement I believe, but come on...you guy pay a heck of a lot more for equivalent cars.

Jeepers...the OTR list price 34,097 GBP!?!? That's about $67k USD! Topped with $8 gas, I'd never own a car over there

 

[SimonD]

That's the main reason the Tribeca has flopped over here. Fuel comsumption is heavy and a new Road Tax category was introduced that penalises big petrol engined cars just before they brought the 800 or so Tribecas over here.
Subaru UK are discounting heavily at the moment but still can't shift them. Most people prepared to pay that kind of money want a premium badge on their SUV (BMW/Merc/Porsche), not a funny looking Subaru. They are beginning to make sense as the prices come down but I would imagine that most sales are to existing Subaru customers who realise that the Tribeca is now effectively cheaper than a Legacy/Outback.
They are not bringing the '08 model over here and I can't imagine it being re-introduced until the 3.0 version of the boxer diesel is available.
We like the car very much but have bought it in the knowledge that it will be pretty much unsellable in three or four years time. At least our one year old low mileage car has cost us only 40% of the cost of an equiavlent spec "premium" model.

 

[ninefourteener]

Uhh, ya...I think 305 WHP is plenty for a daily driver:lol:

Surprised you had a tough time finding a good deal on Tribeca, here in the Northeast, there are tons of good deals, although we have a much greater population than out by you all.

I didn't really consider a Commander come to think of it, although I just did a quick local search on cars.com and there are definitely some good deals to be had on those...I suppose it's probably b/c much like the B9, the Commander was/is not a big seller neither.

edit: ouch, just found a 07 Commander LTD w/ HEMI and navi, 4,264 miles for $26,995 at a local Toyota dealer, that's a helluva steal and that myGIG system would be a stepup from the merely avg navi in the B9, not to mention...Its gotta HEMI There still ain't no replacement for displacement when it comes to engine power IMHO:tup: Although WRXs do work wonders with their turbos.

Yea... there's plenty of deals out here on SUVs..... anything that gets worse than 30mpg is tough to sell. With that said though, we kept finding these great deals, but then getting ass-raped on the trade-in, so the final "out the door" price was damn near retail. So, we walked.... about 10-12 times in St. Louis as well as SLC.

Ironically enough, the Jeep Commander and the Tribeca are "about" the same price new..... but everyone knows how US cars depreciate.

We found a Jeep Commander (06, 25K, 6-cyl), for $20,800 out the door including taxes, tags, etc.
Retail is about $21000. We were a "little" upside down on our car... so we thought that was ok.. but we waited.

We got our 07 Tribeca limited, 19K, 3rd row, leather, moonroof, etc (no nav or DVD), for $23,900.... out the door including all taxes, tags, etc.
Retail is over $32K

Duhhh.... we jumped on it.

 

[snork]

Yeah, I hate trade-ins...it's definitely harder to negotiate fair value on a trade than new/used car shopping. Luckily for us this was the first time I've bought a car without having to trade something in and it was definitely less stressful than when dealing w/ trades.

 

[Magic Marker]

Yeah, I hate trade ins. I just sell our car on our own and go from there.

 

[ninefourteener]

^^^^

We tried that. Our car was an 06 Mazda 3S-Touring.

Nicely equipped with side curtain airbags ($1000 option), and a 5-speed automatic transmission.

KBB trade-in value was $14,700
Retail was almost $19,000
We owed $15,200

We were asking payoff only, which we thought was a good deal. It was also the cheapest of it's kind for sale in the area. And I KNOW it was the cleanest.. every car I've ever owned always is.

But.... there were 1000 other "low-end" Mazda 3s for sale (Base 3, 3I, 3S and lots of "trunk" cars), and apparently cheaper is better...... we never got a single phone call.

In fact... its still there:
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?sid=&nid=443&tab=list/view&ad=459981

Con't complain... we got a good trae AND a good price on the car.... something we hadn't been able to find.

 

[Magic Marker]

^^^^

We tried that. Our car was an 06 Mazda 3S-Touring.

Nicely equipped with side curtain airbags ($1000 option), and a 5-speed automatic transmission.

KBB trade-in value was $14,700
Retail was almost $19,000
We owed $15,200

We were asking payoff only, which we thought was a good deal. It was also the cheapest of it's kind for sale in the area. And I KNOW it was the cleanest.. every car I've ever owned always is.

But.... there were 1000 other "low-end" Mazda 3s for sale (Base 3, 3I, 3S and lots of "trunk" cars), and apparently cheaper is better...... we never got a single phone call.

In fact... its still there:
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?sid=&nid=443&tab=list/view&ad=459981

Con't complain... we got a good trae AND a good price on the car.... something we hadn't been able to find.

I love the owner description

"Owned by an ADULT, 32 year old NEUROTIC car enthusiast, driven by my 28 year old wife with our 8-month old son in the back seat"

I've found that there isn't much of a demand for Mazdas in general.

 

[snork]

Mazda 3s are quite popular, but as ninefourteener said, the demand is mostly for the cheaper models. Same thing can be said of Civics, lots of LXs but not so many EXs...unfortunately, most people shopping for used cars in this segment are looking for cheap deals, nothing fully loaded.

If I was looking for a small car again, my 2 choices would be a Civic or Mazda3...3rd option would be an Impreza but given the AWD they are generally a good bit more expensive than a comparable Civic or Mazda. And for most people in the lower price range of the shopping spectrum price is usually the deciding factor.

 

[ninefourteener]

Took this the other day. The Tribeca looks like my wrx...... with a weight problem

 

[snork]

Heh...you're probably one of the only people to have an airplane nosed Impreza and Tribeca

 

[Magic Marker]

Took this the other day. The Tribeca looks like my wrx...... with a weight problem

That is awesome picture. I'm on the look out for an 06-07 WRX b/c I love the front end. Although I wouldn't get it in the same color as our B9. I spoke to my dealer today and he said they are hard to find unmolested.

 

[ninefourteener]

Thanks!!

They are out there, you just have to look. A lot of times folks will return them to stock to trade them in... Don't be fooled.

When looking at a used WRX, the #1 thing you want to look for is the turbo heatshield.

1) If it's the factory heatshield, 99% of the time, you're ok.
2) If its aftermarket... watch out
3) If it's non-existent, watch out.

Why? The absolute most dangerous and harmful thing you can do to a WRX is to run a bellmouth Downpipe without an engine management system. The problem is that Downpipes are cheap, and EMs are not. 25,000 kids per day are installing downpipes on their WRXs for the added power, but don't have the cash or the common sense to properly manage it. Hence, overboosting, boost spiking, and premature wear, or a destroyed turbo.

the factory heat shield will not fit over a downpipe... It must be removed.

The factory heat shield is held on by about 27000 screws, and it is a ROYAL PITA to remove.... or to reinstall.

Thats why if you find #2 or #3.... it means it had a Downpipe on it...don't risk that it was done properly, and walk away.... period.

 

[Magic Marker]

ok ninefourteeer, you are now my WRX advisor! I'm going to unload a ton of questions for you now and as I find WRX's.

First, thanks for the heads up on the heatsheild. I never would have known that. I need your opinion on transmission, but first a little history.

I've never driven stick, I want to learn but I think that it will be a short lived novelty to me. Secondly, my gf doesn't drive stick or has any inclination to learn. That said, I am leaning toward an auto WRX. What do you think of them? I don't have any interest (or funds) to tune a WRX for performance. I also think I could get a better deal on an auto WRX since they would seem less popular and less likely to have been beat on. Let me know what you think.

Thanks