- Member - eckymosis (Eddy)
Vehicle - MY05 Liberty GT (Sedan)
Color - Obsidian Black Pearl
Introduction
Where to begin? Well, I bought my pride and joy in March in excellent condition and with only 39,500km on the clock. My previous car, 1989 Honda Prelude, was on her last breath and I figured I should start planning to upgrade before I'm left with no car. The Honda died 2 days before I picked up my Subaru. The other cars I was thinking of getting were an EVO VIII or Mazda 6 MPS. Both those cars had their pro's and cons but none could trump the overall package the Lib GT had. In addition, the GT which I eventually bought was too good an offer to pass at the price they were offering and the condition it was in. It wasn't until I test drove it that it completely sold me. The ride was smooth, the power distribution was nice and linear, the handling was great and interior was superb. Needless to say, a few days later, I had finally bought my dream car.
Another thing that really appealed to me about the Subaru was their reliability history, the fact that Subaru owners are the most loyal of them all (I can see why!), and the modification potential for the car.
Stock Pictures
So these are pictures of my Liberty the day I bought it.
The Horror Show! WARNING - The following images are distrubing. They contain images of a damaged Subaru Liberty
These are pictures of my Liberty the day after I bought it!
I was unfortunate enough to have picked up my car on the day of the massive hail storm that hit Melbourne a few months back. About 3 hours after I picked it up, I went to Glen Waverley to do a few things. Next thing I know, I hear this loud thumping on the roof, ran to the outdoor parking area and looked in shock/horror as the massive hail stones began falling and hitting cars. At that point, I knew my car was going to be hit hard. Once it was all over, I got home, wiped the car down with my chamois and went into shock when I saw the extent of the damage. The bonet had over 30 dints, the roof had over 20, the left side had over 15 and the boot had 2 or so. The entire right hand side managed to survive. Luckily, I had the car insured with Justcar about 4 days before buying it so I was covered. I got quotes from 3 places and eventually had the car assessed. The assessor had told me that the car isn't a write off however, once he got all 3 quotes from the panel beaters, all 3 of them came in at over $15,000 and effectively wrote off the car. As you can imagine, it was hard news to swallow especially after searching so long for a perfect Liberty and finally owning my dream car. The assessor then recommended I go to a repairer who was one of the only workshops giving out reasonable quotes for hail damage. Luckily, the quote was reasonable (just under $13,000) and the work was done. My GT looks as good as new, I had a new bonet and boot fitted and you can't fault or notice that the work had been done. She's back to her former glory!
Modifications
When I finally got my car back from the panel beaters, I figured it was time to get to work and get my Liberty looking the way I've always wanted. The shopping spree began.
- - Ultrex Front Lip
- Ultrex Mesh Grill
I had a Panel beater, who’s a family friend, remove the badge from the original grill and whack it on to the new one. He also fitted the grill, lip and painted the grill.
- - Ultrex boot lip
The same panel beater trimmed the lip to fit perfectly on the boot, primed, sand, sprayed and fitted the boot lip for me. Looks much better than the stock spoiler.
Other pictures;
Other modifications that can’t be seen include;
- - Philips HID 6000k conversion kit (thank tangcla!)
- Clarion CENET 1251 iPod interface and 120gb iPod classic just for the car.
Next on the agenda...
The stock wheels were nice but the car had so much potential if it had a darker set of wheels with more spokes. Enter, cruisn. Cruisn was/still is selling a set of CS9 wheels. I got to his place to check out the ones he has posted in the ‘For Sale’ forum. My intention was to buy those and get them powder coated gunmetal. That wasn’t necessary. Luckily for me, he had just got a set restored and powder coated in a nice charcoal colour. So I ended up buying these instead,
This leads me to the current state of my ride as at Saturday 7th of August.
I got them fitted on Saturday and had a set of Falken FK452, 225/40/18 fitted at Bob Jane in the morning.
The Future and Beyond
Now that a lot of the cosmetic modifications are out of the way, my focus shifts to performance and handling modifications. I have the following planned
- - Respray brake callipers to a burgundy red. Given I have enough money saved in the not too distant future, upgrade to Brembo’s or something just as good. This is very doubtful though.
- Cutback exhaust system, possibly even turbo back depending on how much extra power I’ll get from it and the additional cost. I really like the sound of the Fujitsubo systems.
- Bigger top mount intercooler. Something along the lines of an AVO or Hyperflow top mount IC.
- Quad exhausts or even some nice cannons. I would love to get more sound out of the car but without being overly noisy.
- Better airfilter and hosing.
- Ecutune once all the performance mods are on. Depending on how much money I eventually save, I might just get the car tuned and get a cutback exhaust system.
- Whiteline front strut bar and rear sway bar.
- Suspension upgrade. Now this is where I need the expertise of you boys. I would like to get the car lowered slightly (not too much as I really don’t want to scrape the sh*t out of my lip). Coilovers would be ideal but just like the Brembo’s, the cost makes that plan pretty doubtful. Now the Bilsteins for sale in the ‘For Sale’ forum would be great but I’m not sure on whether the car will be sitting lower at all and whether its best I buy those, lowered springs and they have them fitted on the Liberty. Any suggestions? Will the Bilsteins really make that much of an improved difference in the ride without compromising much ride quality? If, so, I’ll put my name down for a set.
