A group of us have been waking up a 2006 Sub'y Forester over the last month or so, and I have been actually learning quite a bit about these things.

This car has been sitting for a year, and they don't like that at all. Like most cars who have suffered that indignity, there are little niggles here, intermittent faults there, rather reminds me of an old man waking up from a nap (ask me how I know); yawn, groans, pops, bangs, a breaking of wind and a belch, then things start lining up as much as mileage and wear permit.

Driving it now in local service and we're getting used to each other, and fixing the little this-that-n-t'others that pop up as it finds it's sea-legs again.

Truth be told its a simple enough car such that it really isn't much of a different exercise from waking an old classic; technically closer to my Triumphs than it is to my wife's Leg Outback with the touchscreens and cameras and such. I'm actually rather amazed at the speed of encroachment of the tech over the last 20 years.

I much prefer the lack of tech; like many people I'm a bit of a Luddite, buying older cars on purpose to avoid the inherent inability to repair the new throw-away-when-expired ones. There are lots of folks where I live who are driving old cars and light trucks from the 80's up to the mid-"noughties" or so. It's an interesting revolt against technology and the modern school-run gocery-getter that is merely another form of white-goods.