Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

General talk about the Subaru Baja.

Moderator: mikenmel08

Post Reply
User avatar
bajaguy
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 439
Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2012 5:36 pm
Location: WA, TX

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by bajaguy »

LOVE IT!!!
Image
Nitro350Z
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:30 pm

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

^ Thanks guys!

Well, I haven't done much since last update, but here's some words and pretty pictures.

Started reminiscing about the Rocky mountain trip and I'm getting pumped for going to Banff for New Years.

Image

Also, with snowfalls on the way, I'm getting excited for the funnest time of year, drift season.

Image

And I decided to be a little artsy.

Image

Image

And The first time I've ever played with selective colour. I like it a lot, but I've got to work on it since I've seen some amazing images that play with gradients for the selective color and different composition, so far I've been filling the frame with the car a lot of the times, I kinda want to play around and become a better photographer.

Also, ideally if I could respray the car to get a luscious red like this all the time, that would be great. I've been really liking photos of 3 stage paints but a full respray is expensive and there's so much else to spend money on, and it's going to used and not a show car so the paint will see wear and tear, and, and :(

Image

Image

Confirmed it's definitely the alternator producing the whine. Unless that shifty powersteering pump can make noise while stationary :wink:

Found a surprisingly expensive ($60 for a belt? Damn) short accessory belt to isolate the two accessories to confirm without a doubt it's one or the other, I used a mechanics stethoscope to listen to both and it sounded like it was the alt but I didn't want to just throw parts at it until I was 100% sure which was making the noise. I'm going to return it in next day or two and I'll try to track down an alternator that isn't ridiculously priced to replace this one. Might just replace the bearings in this one since electrically it's fine.

Image

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6b9bDHGlWA
Nitro350Z
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:30 pm

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

Anyway, back to the Lemon Saga [smilie=copyright.gif]

This lovable hunk of junk is having even more problems! YAY! :evil:

Image

The first instance of having issues with the GPS and Nav unit happened all the way back in April, since then we've had the unit replaced twice, with it currently being on it's third Nav-unit. When they were replacing the radio they also managed to break the drivers side vent, at which point we drove around for a couple weeks with a broken center vent waiting for replacement parts to arrive. Once it arrived it was replaced and the passenger side vent was broken. Leading us for to another couple weeks driving around with our interior looking like this:

Image

Well, that was finally fixed and by that time the Nav unit was having issues yet again. GPS location problems and a high pitch whine coming from the speakers at times. Another unit was ordered and we waited. When it came in they replaced it and it was functional for a little while. Unfortunately they managed to nick the dashboard and the steering when installing the latest radio. Made an appointment for them to attempt a repair, and three weeks later it's "repaired"

Unfortunately the dashboard is textured and the steering wheel was nicked in a high traffic area, so we were left with a flat/non-textured spot on the dash and the steering wheel fix was already starting to come apart. We pushed for a replacement and now we're waiting for the parts to arrive to have the dashboard and the steering wheel replaced. We're still waiting on the floor mats from way back when, apparently that warranty claim is stuck in some sort of limbo that it's taking this long. It's tacked onto this order so hopefully it all gets resolved at the same time.

All was well, or so we thought, when the very next day the GPS problems return. Either that or I decided to visit an active runway to grab some timmies that was conveniently located there.

Image

Dealer still thinks it's the radio/nav unit so they're ordering yet another nav unit.

Image

All hail the reliable-in-comparison Subaru
Nitro350Z
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:30 pm

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

Played with a little bit of long exposure photography the other night.

Image

Image

Image

Image

I've got a perfect new non micro-scratched gauge cover lens but haven't installed it yet, any suggestions for filling in the peg holes without it looking like crap? Baja had two pegs for trip and clock, WRX only has one and its offset in different locations anyway.

Also bought an alt from an 09 for $75+tax, I love how simple it is to swap them, took all of 5 mins and that's because I misplaced the positive lead nut somewhere. Now I've got to source the bearings at my leisure and rebuild my old one.

Organized/went to a local Subaru meet and had a ton of fun. Was a little worried since the roads were clear that day and it was pretty warm the day earlier but it turns out the parking lots ended up having a big enough layer of snow to have some winter shenanigans.

Image

Image

And also found a small parking lot the other night while having to kill some time on the other side of the city.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw4swdIpM5I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDXuwfv7CG8
Nitro350Z
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:30 pm

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

For as much as we bitch about living in the frozen wasteland that is Manitoba, enduring the blazing hot mosquito filled summers, and the freeze-your-nipples-off winters, this just about makes up for it.

Image

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWvmU9f6Cn4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJXffler7_Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWOs2kWhTA8

Damn do I ever love winter. Now if only we could have snow without the extreme cold.
User avatar
alphasteel
Scoobytruck Lurker
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Jun 07, 2013 4:32 pm
Location: New York

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by alphasteel »

holy shiz dude....so jelly
Nitro350Z
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:30 pm

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

Snow's awesome when it's fresh, and it's fun in anything. Although having LSD's in front and rear plus the DCCD and a butload of torque makes it for quite a crazy ride through the powder. :D

I've been swamped with finals lately, but took some study breaks to go through some pics, play with photoshop, and insta-whoring it up.

Selective color is pretty fun to play with, I'm starting to really like it.
Image

Same with sepia tone, oh god, I'm turning hipster
Image

Through the grass
Image

Yay! Bright lights!
Image
Nitro350Z
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:30 pm

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

And here we are, the Banff 2015 NYE roadtrip. Over 4000 km and no cruise, damn my foot was sore but it was worth it.

Image

We stayed in Silvercreek Lodge in Canmore AB. Really nice place, nice and big rooms, full kitchen, laundry in room, and best of all, this was the view from the room when we arrived.

Image

The next morning we were greeted with this:

Image

I don't think I would ever get tired waking up to that. The sheer size of the mountains is just impossible to catch on camera, you really have to be there to experience it. It's crazy how scenic this area is.

Perfect timing stopping along HWY 1A on the way to Lake Louise. Probably one of my better shots.

Image

Of course we stopped at the regular sightseeing spots and took the required pictures, haha.

Image

Anyway, the two hills we managed to hit up out there were Sunshine and Lake Louise. Obvious big choices but first time actually out in the mountains to snowboard/ski in the mountains so the popular choices it is.

Image

Image

Image

Image

The mountains are crazy, especially for an amateur who hasn't snowboarded in a few years and comes from flat land. The biggest "hill" I've gone down prior was at a Manitoban hill/valley called Assessippi. These trails kicked my ass. Sore and bruised, the Kokanee Kabin was the place to go and relax.

Image

Back at the lodge during the evenings we tried out a great drinking game, seriously, all you beer bong players take note, this game is much more fun at parties. That game is Honeycomb.

Image

Object of the game is to bounce your ball into a cup. all your drinking cups are in the center (supposed to be in a Honeycomb shape, but w/e) Two cups go around the circle and if one manages to reach the other it gets stacked into that cup and whoever it landed on has to drink. This repeats until all the drinks your drinks are gone, then you're out. By the end of the game you have a huge stack for one person and a single cup for the other, this game really ramps near the end. I'd say it's actually much more fun than beer pong and it's derivatives.

Continuing on, on the days when we weren't at the hills we did manage to do some exploring. Went on an adventure through BC trying to get to Lussier Hotsprings.

Image

Of course the highway would have been the most sane path, and probably would have taken us there, but we decided to take some back roads.

Image

It started off pretty nice, coming off the highway on Settlers way in Kootenay, and it soon turned into a pure logging trail and was a blast to go down. We ended up at a bridge, and I have to repeat myself, the mountains are beautiful.

Image

The logging roads were great, nice elevation changes.

Image

Lots of twisting and turning, and when the trees cleared,

Image

you would get some amazing sights.

Image

Image

Sadly, shortly after passing this bridge, the road we wanted to continue on was unplowed and completely untouched. We weighed the risks and it wasn't worth it in case we either drove off the road, got lost, or ran into any issues. There's no reception and being completely untouched it's really doubtful that anyone would stumble across us if we did get stuck. So turned around and backtracked a bit and found a different trail to make our way down to Canal Flats.

Image

Of course the trip wouldn't be complete without an animal sighting.

Image

When we were farther I thought these were moose, they looked pretty damn huge. The road continued on and didn't dissapoint.

Image

The ice falls in the mountains always draw my eyes. Something about them.

Image

Once we got out of the wilderness, we decided to go to Fairmont instead since Canal Flats was pretty much a ghost town, and we were hungry. We found this nice little place to eat in Fairmont, their shtick is that their food is completely made from scratch. This was on the menu

Image

Ron Swanson would be proud.

Since we were already in Fairmont, it was getting late, we gave up on finding the Lussier hotsprings and just went for the convenient choice of Fairmont [s]glorified hot tub[/s] hotsprings

Image

Your hair freezing up while sitting in nice hot water is a pretty nice experience.

We had a little New Years celebration, watched the fireworks from the balcony due to everyone being too intoxicated to drive anywhere, and the girls decided to liven up the room with a heaping portion of sparkles. Damn things were a huge pain to clean up after.

Image

Another day, another adventure. Only two in the group wanted to go to skiing on the last night we had at the lodge, so the rest of us dropped them off and went on a nice drive from Lake Louise to Golden to Radium, and back to Lake Louise to pick them up again.

Image

Stopped before Golden at Kicking Horse rest area to take some pics

Image

Saw some Rams. The sign was very accurate on that day.

Image

Image

I found myself a Tunnel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaUsdNKIhRs

And compressed the 5 hours of driving into this 9.5 min film. (hopefully youtube doesn't end up muting the music, if it does it might be a bit boring. The drive between Golden and Radium was unfortunately not that scenic nor interesting)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2h5vvMVSDA

On the last day before heading back, we spent the day in Banff village, did the touristy things like souvenir shopping and whatnot, and we went to the Grizzly house, and it turns out that one of our friends that lives out there actually works there as a cook, neato.

Image

Of course we went with the exotic platter and a modified Alberta platter, so we had the pleasure of feasting on Ostrich, Frog, Elk, Rattle Snake, Wild Bore, Beef, Venison, Shark, Duck, Buffalo, and Kangaroo.

Image

Ostrich, Rattle Snake, and Kangaroo were definitely my favorites, Shark and Duck were letdowns, I had high hopes for them but they just didn't measure up.

And thus concludes my Banff trip. On the way back the gas prices were awesome, under a $1.00 for premium in Medicine Hat.

Image

The prices in Winnipeg have now caught up, but still, it was nice at the time.

Oh, and in Veloster news, we have had some issues with the service at Murray Hyundai. To the point where I have written a 1000 word (actually a little over 1000) letter/email to Hyundai Canada. I will update this thread eventually with that. For now, hopefully you have enjoyed the latest installment in the Baja adventures.
Zombaja
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 114
Joined: Wed Mar 26, 2014 7:22 am

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Zombaja »

I love how the hood turned out. Your grille mounted driving lights look awesome, but I'm already having trouble getting enough cool air into the engine on hot days climbing the Grapevine into LA. Maybe a bigger scoop (My Baja has the little turbo scoop already) might help out

The license plate just makes it. Brilliant!

there's a local guy offering projector modded headlights for the Baja, keeps the low beams and uses a smaller projector to replace the high beams. Looks pretty but with the cost of those units and additional needs for bulbs and ballasts, it's not something I'll be doing soon.
User avatar
bajaguy
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 439
Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2012 5:36 pm
Location: WA, TX

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by bajaguy »

Do you have those pics in higher quality we could see?
Image
Nitro350Z
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:30 pm

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

Thanks! Thankfully it's pretty chilly around here for the most part, haven't run into issues even on the warmest summer days so far in terms of cooling. The majority of the airflow should be coming from the lower air damn anyway I would think. I also have a fully wrapped exhaust, a turbo blanket , and a turbo heat shield to keep the hot exhaust isolated from the bay, so I guess that helps as well with keeping the under hood temps down. The hood scoop also has an open duct on the passenger side which throws fresh air right onto the turbo area as well.
bajaguy wrote:Do you have those pics in higher quality we could see?
I could go through them and do linked images to the full uploaded res, but it would probably just be easier for you to remove the last 'l' from the file names on the url. Just right click, open in new tab, and remove the 'l' and you should be all set.

ie. http://i.imgur.com/xxxxxxxl.jpg ---> http://i.imgur.com/xxxxxxx.jpg

That will go to the full res. image. Should work for all the images I post, I usually just link the imgur large thumb image to not break tables and make scrolling easier.
Nitro350Z
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:30 pm

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

Two more dashcam vids I forgot to post earlier

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiDRUJAZMpI
Conditions were slippery coming into the mountains, saw a few drivers in the ditch already, and this guy looked it he might be joining them. Managed to recover from sliding around. The perspective on the dashcam sorta downplays the action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxmAve-zb-g
When in doubt, make your own turning lane I guess?

In addition, I have nothing but glowing praise for Subaru's best AWD system, ie. Mechanical LSD's in front and rear combined with the 6 speed trick DCCD and the DCCDpro controller, paired with some amazing winter tires and an incredible suspension setup. This combo is near unstoppable and the acceleration and stability in slippery conditions you get when cranking up the aggressiveness of the controller is surreal. I don't think I've ever experienced such joy as when you press the accelerator and feel as the car plants down and just finds grip that shouldn't be there. It's magnificent.

And an update with the Veloster!

Image
Image

Lets see, where did we let off? Oh yeah, Current unresolved issues are that the Navigation is still non-functional. That means we haven't had a properly working nav unit since April of 2014. The floor mats that have lost the embroidered patch back in June 2014 and were promised by Murray Hyundai to be replaced, have not yet been replaced. And the Dashboard and Steering wheel that the service department has managed to damage, and then did an unsatisfactory repair on, is still an ongoing issue.

Last contact with the dealer was back in Nov. 2014, at which point they told us they will be ordering a new dashboard and steering wheel to replace the damaged ones, as well as the proper floormats for the car, and yet another nav. unit to replace the still non-functional one in the car. (4th radio that has been in the car so far) We have been used to the really slow service at Murray so a month or two of wait time before repairs is not out of the ordinary for them. Last week, we finally decided to stop by the dealer to figure out what is happening with the work order, since we haven't heard anything back since early Nov/ late Oct. Well, we were in for a nice surprise.

Turns out, their service manager has denied the order for the dashboard and steering wheel, as well as the floormats, and that the radio had not been ordered either because it was all part of the same invoice. This decision was made a few weeks after our visit in Nov. 2014. They have simply neglected to contact us about this. I really doubt they would have ever contacted us had we not stopped by the showroom last week. Furthermore, the stated reason for not replacing the dashboard is because the service department is unable to replace a dashboard without introducing new squeaks and rattles. The service writer also joked about ordering the center vents as a preemptive measure since they have already broken those vents twice while servicing the nav unit previously. The floormats are being denied because the embroidered patch (that fell off) is missing (That's kinda the reason why they need to be replaced, no?) After discussion with management, they won't budge with the replacement for the dash and steering wheel, having stated that they can try to repair it again, but if it's still unsatisfactory (which it probably will since matching the texture on the dashboard is going to be near impossible) that we will "just have to live with the damage" that they caused to our interior.

During this visit, they also redid the invoice and now finally a new nav unit has been ordered, cue another month or two of waiting.

Isn't one of the definitions of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? I have my doubts that another nav unit will resolve the recurring issues we've been having.
User avatar
bajaguy
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 439
Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2012 5:36 pm
Location: WA, TX

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by bajaguy »

That sounds terrible. Sorry about all the trouble. Glad I own a Subaru. You should ask for a new car if they can't get the thing worked out.
Image
Nitro350Z
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:30 pm

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by Nitro350Z »

bajaguy wrote:That sounds terrible. Sorry about all the trouble. Glad I own a Subaru. You should ask for a new car if they can't get the thing worked out.
Yeah, this Hyundai has been a headache from the start. I really think we should have gone for the BRZ even if it would have cost just a little bit more. Or barring that the base Impreza would have come out to about the same after financing, but no fun gadgets and turbo. In hindsight the gadgets don't really matter since we haven't been able to use them due to the various issues that have arisen.

Really really sucks that Canada doesn't have a nice lemon law. I think I've heard that in most of the US it's a 3 strike system, where if they can't repair the same problem after 3 attempts it's an automatic lemon and the manufacturer is forced to buyback if you decide? I might be misinformed since it's not relevant to Canada anyway so I haven't really bothered to fact check that info.
User avatar
bajaguy
Scoobytruck Master
Posts: 439
Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2012 5:36 pm
Location: WA, TX

Re: Baja WRX - Car? Truck? Turbo!

Post by bajaguy »

Image
Post Reply