Jonesy, I'd stay away from the 2002-2003-2004 Exploders. Their transmissions have a bad rap.
And I was very open with the Subaru dealer about the transmission.
It would have cost me $2k to fix it, again. I got $2900 for the trade in. Kelly Blue Book listed the trade in around $5k. So fixed or not, it didn't impact me at all.
The next guy can buy it cheap and fix it.