The Subaru Saga

About a week ago my dad bought us a 1998 Subaru off of Ebay. The trick was that it was in St. Louis. On Tuesday Marc flew out to St. Louis to pick it up. Marc was picked up at the airport by a mechanic/salesman who was dressed as a mechanic. He was then taken to a small used car lot in an industrial part of town. The plan was to drive to my sister Rachael's house in Omaha, spend the night, and come home. Everything appeared fine until the first stop for gas, apparently the car had not been driven for awhile and started smoking. The check engine came on about 2.5 hours away from Omaha. A cop had pulled Marc over for a headlight being out. At this time it was very obvious that there was a problem due to the smoke pouring out of the hood. Marc decided to stop and spend the night at a motel instead of risking getting stranded. In the morning Marc took the car to AutoZone where they read the check engine light. This wasn't too informative, so Marc took the car to Midas where they were sympathetic toward his story. They looked over the car, gave him a list of problems, topped off his fluids and told him he would probably make it. (This was all free, very nice people at the Midas in St. Joseph, Missouri). The car did fine again until he was almost at Rachael's when it began to smoke once more. He finally made it to Omaha where he switched cars for Janell's Christmas present. This leg of the journey was much smoother. Janell's car is almost new and pretty nice. Marc didn't like driving such a feminine car, but whatever. He spent the night in Cheyenne. While driving across Wyoming the winds were really bad and the licence plate was ripped from the back of the car. It ripped right off of the bolts. This was a plate from our Pathfinder, so we will need a replacement. He lost the plate around 11:00 and got home around 6:30, he wasn't bothered at all by police until the turnoff to Pinecrest Canyon (2 miles from home). The cop took some time getting the story straight and called Rachael (the car is in her name), he finally let Marc go without a ticket. Whew! It was a long few days for both of us. I'm glad he is home and we'll see when we finally get the Subaru.