Most of the time, when Tyler Hoover of Hoovies Garage on YouTube finds a cheap hooptie that drains his bank account, we sit back and laugh. This time around, the Subaru Baja XT 2.5 Turbo he picked up at auction sight unseen turned out to have issues that aren't even remotely funny.
It started typically enough, with Hoovie excitedly showing off his latest $9,000 purchase. But, in fairness, the auction detailer did a fantastic job of making this Baja's two-tone color scheme shine like it was brand new.
It all went downhill from there. There was suspicion afoot from the very first look. Bits and pieces of metal and rubber were falling at Hoovie's feet like a blood sacrifice to the gods of rust. It was time to call Hoovie's trust mechanic, the Car Wizard.
Hoovie jokingly offered to trade his Baja for a Scion TC that Dave the Car Wizard had in his shop. As it turned out, not shaking Hoovie's hand was the smartest thing he'd done all day.
Even attempting to get the car hoisted into the air on a lift was enough to make the deeply rusted sub-frame nearly split in two. Only after mounting the lift point somewhere it no doubt was never intended to go did the car make it into the air.
The findings quickly went from funny to scary and even drifted into the downright angering territory. To think that such an unsavable rust bucket was legitimately put up for auction is sickening. All without so much as attempting to fix very clear structural damage to the frame and the suspension to boot. It's a truly sickening discovery.
As Dave and Hoovie poke the car's underside, their look of abject horror is more than justified. The pair even bolt from underneath the car when a wayward creaking convinced the two the car was ready to split in half. Hoovie promptly rescinded his offer to trade the Baja for Dave's Scion. It's probably best to just pull the motor and leave the rest of the car to its rusty grave.
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