Andrew and I drove his WRX down to Rockville, CT to meet with William and pick up the Impreza L on Friday night. The ride down was uneventful and we made rather decent time. The drive back, however, was foreshadowing things to come.

Rewind a few days…

When I had originally test driven the car I red flagged a few things that would need to be looked at immediately after purchasing. First, there was a vibration above 65 MPH similar to an unbalanced wheel. No big deal, the wheels were a little beat up, and a remount and balance should fix everything. There was also quite a bit of oil sludge completely coating the underside of the motor that appeared to be leaking from the timing chain cover gasket. It was either splattering from a blown oil filter or the newly installed cam seals had started leaking. Again, an annoyance, but not a big deal.

Fast forward to Friday…

After exchanging paperwork with William I pulled out of the parking lot in the Impreza L with Andrew and Brian chasing me in their respective WRXs. FRS radios were fired up and we kept each other awake with the usual mindless banter. After getting onto the Mass Pike, however, I announced that the car felt a little weird and, since I needed fuel, we’d be stopping. I washed the windows, filled the tank with 87 and checked the wheels. The right rear wheel had lugs that were falling off. Andrew and Brian chuckled, fetched the tire iron and torqued everything down for the ride home. The rest of the ride was surprisingly smooth with the exception of the incredibly soft 5Zigen lowered springs on the car.

The car sat all day Saturday, we took Andrew’s WRX to the Ice Racing trophy presentation, had a party afterwards and took the Impreza L up to the Exeter meet on Sunday. We drove over to Kris’ afterwards, I checked the oil and…it was down two quarts.

After hanging until early evening, Kris and I went out to oil up the Impreza L for the drive home. Pop the hood, grab the seven ten cap and…it wouldn’t come off. It had been torqued down with an oil filter wrench so hard that we couldn’t move it with our bare hands. After many obsceneties were uttered and John and Jeremy came out to make fun of us we finally disassembed the oil filler tube, removed it from the motor, whacked it with a persuader, sprayed it with WD40 and went to town. Much fighting and it still wouldn’t budge.

Finally Kris got the idea to wedge the cap under the tire and make friendly with physics. He tried and failed, went inside for more tools and gave me a shot at it. Ten minutes and a cracked knuckle later, I finally dislodged the seven ten cap from the oil filler tube and reinstalled it. I laugh, or else I’ll cry.

Oil was topped off, the car was driven home and, so far, has not leaked a considerable amount of oil. Even after the drive to and from work and school there was very little oil on the outside of the filter. The seals are obviously shot but that will be fixed at the next oil change and service in a few miles. Only time will tell for sure…