New Member

[grasslander]

Just thought Id say hello and intro myself.
Some of this was posted over at NASIOC forum but I've added a bit more here about my decsion to buy the Baja. Maybe a little long.

Bought a 05 Regal pearl blue NA with a 5 speed.

I'm an over 50 guy who loves bicycling, motorcycling, and has gotta carry an occasional bale or two of hay. Bought this little car that thinks it's a truck to compliment our Trailblazer LT. Traded a Chevy Silverado for the Trailblazer and a Baja. Trailblazer does the towing and long family trips. The Baja does light hauling, sales territory duty, and handles my bicycling habit. I have never owned a Subaru but have friends who swear by their Outbacks. I have been interested in Subaru for sometime and always wondered what they would be like to own. We bought the Baja 'cause it was the right machine at the right time! Raised the household mpg about 3-4 overall with our choices.

Why the Baja after a Silverado?

First, I loved our Silverado. Say what you want about GM, no denying they build one heck of a truck. My Z71 had 130k and all I ever had to do to it was replace the U-joints at 125K. I may very well own another GM pickup one day. The big debate was trade it or keep it for another 70K. Considering how much real pickup hauling I was doing, I felt gas mileage and and some way to haul my MTB and dirty gear and an ocasional trash can was the real need.

I looked at Chevy crew cab 1/2T and the Ford F150 Super Crew. Great vehicles but my wife refused to drive these huge monsters to work.

Checked out the Ford Sportrac. Pretty close to what I needed. I didn't think it that it offered enough extra cab or bed to justify the mpg hit.

We checked out the Toyota Double Cab 4WD. Nice truck that she loved but I was worried about the V6 real towing performance and the cost to maintain at the Toyota dealer.

We looked at the Honda Ridgeline offering. I gotta tell you we both thought it was fugly. 33K for a "truck"! 21 mpg Hiway?. We both agreed a Ford Super Crew would be a better choice for the money and would actually tow something. It (Honda) may be a better choice than an Chevy Avalanche if you are looking that way. I really don't think the Honda or the Baja are much of a tow choice. I know, they can do it. But so can a Ford Taurus if you like trany replacements. Where's the frame?

After looking all the choices over we decided the Trailblazer LT offered the best family of 3 package, with an ok towing ability (that in line 6 is pretty gutsy) and get 19 mpg real workd commuting.

So here comes the Baja. Real world 25mpg AWD hiway (76 mph) and pretty much 20 overall. Just enough box for my dirty stuff. Easy to hose out. The blue compliments the Trailblazer's Silver Birch color. High reliablity rating. I see an awful lot of high mileage Subaru vehicles out there. My personal vehicle has to go the distance. I travel as a multi-state technical sales rep (36-40K year) and need a year round reliable vehicle and economy! +/- list said Baja!

Subaru... listen up. You were ahead of the game with this car/truck. Look at the pump prices. I don't think it's a spike, I think it's a trend. I believe the huge family size pickups and SUV's are going to be a real live future albatross. Your offering pulled a traditional GM/Ford truck owner to the Baja. Not Honda, not Toyota. Heck didn't even look at Nissan (I always saw "cheap" over the years) and Dodge screwed me years ago. Don't kill it yet. Give it a little more time and maybe take an ad in the AARP magazine and Mountain Bike Action. You might be suprised at the result. I think it has apeal for the young and muture. When my brother saw and drove my new Baja. He said ,"I've never heard of these. This is neat. Where'd you get it".

[Atomic Baja]

You make some good points. I came close to picking the Ridgeline; ugly but I sure liked the trunk in the bed idea! The looks are growing on me too. It did test drive nice. The $33k version is fully loaded; I don't think you could get any other full size similarly loaded for that. I know red-necks will be against what is a primarily front-wheel drive pick-up!

The Baja is way rad; I get comments everywhere I go and it's pretty fun embarrasing the ocassional 325i preppy/Earnhardt wannabee!

Now I'm looking at some of the mods at cobbtuning.com so I can take on others!!! Geez Subaru, put the STI engine in the Baja and spend just 1/4 of the advertising you're spending on the fugly Tribeca and you'll clean up!!!

[cliffhanger]

actually, there's not much difference in our engines and the sti engines... the sti comes with sodium filled valves and a different ecu, that's about it for engine... it also has a slightly larger tmic, turbo, and also has waterspray. much better suspension and brakes, but that does not contribute to power. bigger scoop and better exhaust. there are a few of us around that make a considerable amount more hp than the sti (in between 40-200 hp) and in the coming years you can definitely expect more. with the stock engines being basically the same, they also have the same limitations => if you have the same mods as an sti, you should go almost as fast as that sti; more mods and we can easily surpass the sti's. good luck modding, cobb tuning is def a good route to go!