The oddest load in your 'Baru

[Subhuman]

You guys are probably going to flame me for this one.

In spite of some of the advise given from some of you here and at ScoobyMods, before moving from NY to OR this past August I towed a 5X8 U-Haul trailer more than 700 lbs over the 1,800 lb max U-Haul limit. My Thule car top box had about 170 lbs in it (70 lbs over Subaru's limit) and I had about 500 lbs plus inside the subie (not including me). So including me, I was 1,375 lbs over Subaru's maximum weight.

Am I gettin to any of you yet?

Needles to say my penance was that some time in Ohio the boot on my front right axle fell apart but I ignored the thumping sounds that gradually grew louder and louder over the next 700 plus miles (I play a good Ostrich). Finally I stopped in Iowa where Lujacks in Davenport discovered that my front right axle was broken. That cost me six hours and $250 to fix. Then in Idaho, in the hottest part of my trip, my A/C froze up. I still haven't fixed that yet.

All-in-all I had a bonding experience with my subie over the exactly 3000 miles and ever since have a huge amount of respect for Subarus.

[therevengingo]

Well in my car I've filled it to the brim with camping equipment when the ford monstrosity broke down and we had to distribute the equipment between the two subarus...and still made it up the hill at 85mph! Also I've crammed all kinds of rescue/medical equipment in the back... as well as a nearly 8 foot slide! with the tailgate closed! As well as countless 2x4s and 4'x8' sheets of plywood strapped to the roof.
Also, in my sister-in-law's 2001 impreza my brother and I crammed 2200lbs of cement inside! we drove 10mph the whole way home from home depot and bottomed out the suspension over every bump, but it made it! What a trooper! Shh, don't tell her...

[Subhuman]

I just remembered...

The oddest thing I ever hauled in my subie was my ex-wife

[FastSly]

I carried 10x 50Lbs bags of concrete mix!

[The_Lizard]

Yeah, camping gear crammed in there ... that's what I got the car for.

Somewhat less glamorous, I've been packing mine to the top with bagged trash a few times in the last several weeks. I pull up to the dumpster and start unloading, and eventually I start to wonder, dang, how many bags are in here...

[jp928]

Not in the Subie yet, but wont be long. SWMBO is into wildlife rescue stuff, so in the past I have carried some odd stuff. Once it was a Hobby - small cross between a hawk and an owl to look at - take it into bush and let it go. That was easy. Next was an echidna - football sized ant-eating marsupial with short but very sharp strong spines all over. Their defence mechanism in the wild is to dig a hole, hide the soft underparts in it, and only expose the nasty sharp parts to a predator. Guess what they do when they get out of their cage in the trunk of your car? They get down beside the spare, and hang on tight! Took me a lot of !@#$%^&*()+| , a couple of tough hessian bags and an hour to get it out..so it could be returned to the wild. Dont want to go there again. SWMBO laughed through the whole thing of course.
jp 05 OBW 5MT 2.5i

[_42]

A 13,000 watt soundsystem, 2 sets of turntables, 3 mixers, 4 crates of records, and 2 people plus luggage for a 3 day weekend. Plus it snowed and I was the only car able to get out and back for 2 days.

[FMGreen]

Not exactly an "odd" load. Plus, it happens relatively frequently. If I didn't know better, I'd figure it was designed for this purpose because it all fits so pefectly.

[The_Lizard]

Paladin, I think the Echidna in the Tire Well story has the stuff of legend...

Last night I hauled a futon in four pieces, including the mattress. It was about 4 inches too long to allow closing the hatch, but it fit and rode well.

[CPToversteer]

i don't think i've hauled anything weird in mine yet, but when i was doing the trips to Albuquerque every weekend to help fix up girlfriend's 85 yr old adobe house, the Border Patrol regularly thought the amount of stuff (tools, paint, etc) i was carrying was too much for a weekend trip and would detain me for further interrogation at the checkpoint on I-25.....