New Shoes for the Subaru

Since purchasing the Subaru Impreza Outback Sport I have wanted to upgrade the wheels. As my good friend George put it ‘[the current wheels] look like a family car.’ Believe it or not the factory aluminum wheels for the Impreza are hard to find. I called many junkyards but they pretty much laughed at me. I looked on the various forums but that didn’t turn up any active sales. I then hit up Craigslist and found what I thought was an option. A used car dealership in Fayetteville had a 2002 Impreza Outback Sport with the factory aluminum rims.  I emailed the original poster asking if they would be willing to swap rims if I paid them extra. The response was flat ‘no.’ With my possibilities running dry I decided to place a wanted ad on Craigslist. To my surprise someone responded several days later from Bryant Arkansas saying they had exactly what I wanted. Long story short Dustin had purchased an Impreza WRX in 2004 and replaced the factory wheels with aftermarket ones. The originals had been sitting in his storage unit for 6 years collecting dust. He sent me photos and the rims were in excellent shape. Plus, the factory tires were still mounted and they had more tread than my existing tires. We settled on a price and I made arrangements to pick them up. Come to find out Dustin is a fellow geek (with good taste in cars I might add) and also into the outdoors. I suppose if we lived closer we would be good MTB buds. You can check out his work here. Brown’s Tire in Springdale balanced and mounted them. The new wheels are 8.25 lbs lighter per wheel (yes I weighed them). Now I have a full set of wheels ready to go in case of a flat or when I need new tires!