Deep Singh

D'ont agree. A percentage is a percentage. The Evo has a more reliable engine. Not saying it does'nt have its own probs, but its engine is far less likely to go bang.

scoobydood

Sorry when did we start talking percentages here? Where is the official % quoted and where did that figure come from. What we were talking about is simply "hearing" about engine failures. If there are 20x the number of Scoobs on the road then you would expect to hear 20x the problems (reliability being equal). Unfortunately non of us have any real official figures. All's that we do have is JD Powers reliability surveys saying Subaru is fantastic. Who knows about Mitsubishi? We would be better off seeing comparisons made in Japan where there is large numbers of both these cars. Hey maybe the Evo engine is 10x better but we just don't have enough info in the UK to make this judgement.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong?

Deep Singh

Yes I'll try.
If you want to compare a to b then we must talk about percentages, d'ont quite understand your point.
We will never get to a point when the number of Evos=Scoobs because Evos made in FAR less numbers. So according to your logic we can never make a comparison
As for official figures we will never have these from any car manafacturer,so according to you again we c'ant start to hypothesise.
Why make the comparison in Japan when we drive on UK roads,weather and fuel?

Do we have 100% evidence based double blinded randomised controlled studies to say the Scoob engine goes bang more than an Evo, of course we d'ont. But one cannot be blind to what goes on around. API David has himself rebuilt over 500 engines, this will be the same sort of rate for RCM, Scoobyclinic etc. Most main dealers say they rebuild an engine at the rate of about 2 a month. Ring yourself and find out. This runs into thousands and thousands, do the maths.

Ring up a few Evo tuners/dealers and see how many Evo6s they've had to rebuild, very few indeed.

Its there in front of your face, if you d'ont want to see it thats your perogative and I respect it.

Not trying to have a dig, I enjoy the debate

Deep

scoobydood

Deep - no problem. I look at it this way. If there are say 100 000 Subaru's in the country and there is say a 2% failure rate then you are looking at 2000 rebuilds. With that many being done it would not be hard to read about it/hear about it on the web.

Now say there are 10 000 Evo's - at a 2% failure rate - that would equate to only 200 rebuilds. You are far less likely to hear about such a small number when spread over several dealers.

That's my point. Obviously I have no idea how many Subaru's there are in the country or how many Evo's or the engine failure rate - just trying to illustrate my point that big numbers can give people the perception that there are loads of failures out there.

Another way of looking at it - take the number of members and posts made to Scoobynet and compare that to the Evo register. There is a huge volume of Subaru related posts so it is far more likely you will hear about engine failures on Scoobynet just due to the shere volume of posts/owners.

And in Summary Deep - I am not suggesting the Subaru engine is any way more (or even as) reliable as the Evo. I haven't a clue. But just trying to be realistic.

Deep Singh

I do take your point mate, clock into lancerreg and sometimes there are only about 3 people browsing, on Scoobynet there are always loads. I agree that this could really skew the figures and paint the wrong picture. But let me put the converse to your arguement above though....

Subadoo company sells loads of cars a year lets say 100000. As we scan through the owner websites we read case after case of engine failure. Independant specialists say they have rebuilt hundreds/thousands, maindealers say they rebuild them about 2 a month. If you hang out with Subadoo owners one meets a couple with failures at meets. If you scan the classifieds it seems like out of twenty you look at a couple have had rebuilds. It starts to paint a picture....

Now Mitsooriti company only sells 10000 cars a year, but its difficult to find a rebuilt engine either from the dealers or the specialists or in the classifieds( and I 've looked!)

Now you could say the stats are skewed because Subadoo sells ten times as many cars as Mitsooriti, I would suggest a different picture is emerging. Which of us is right cannot be proved given our limited info, but you know what I think.

Cheers, Deep

dwx

I'm in the US and we have a fair number of WRXs around here at this point since the car has been available for almost five years now. The EVO has been available for a couple years as has the 2.5L based STI. I don't know if it's something in the oil or gas that causes big end failures in the UK, but it's something that rarely happens here. Almost all of the failures of US WRX engines that I've seen are detonation induced piston failures, in modified cars. Now keep in mind the WRX here is 227hp stock and runs a 7200 rpm redline, but many of them have been modified, including mine. Mine has seen a VF29 fitted and ran at ~300bhp for quite some time. The engine now is mildly modified (catless exhaust, intake, etc) and is still running as strong as when I picked it up in 2001. It has 86k miles or 138k km on it. I look at all the engine rebuild threads and whatnot on here and it just baffles me sometimes.

As for WRX engines versus Mitsu engines, the Mitsu engines are a little more friendly to modifications and can resist detonation better than the Subaru engines. The 4G63 has been used in the Eclipse here since 1990. I hear of plenty of failures in those engines for a variety of reasons. I know of three EVOs locally that within 10-15k miles of ownership spun bearings under high RPM use. That may be what kills the Subaru engines as well, if you are running a 8000 rpm redline it's going to put a tremendous amount of stress on things. One EVO owner in the US went through at least two engines doing track work due to spun bearings. Jeff Sponaugle (pdx-tuning) lost two V7 STI blocks due to spun bearings doing track days while running a 8500 rpm redline.

Maybe try staying off the rev limiter a little bit more.

dij

another interesting thing is how soobroo have updated designs along the way,changed various components,decreased power output etc,and all to try and combat the (cough) reliability issue surrounding the engine,yet people still seem to have failures.Its as if they got worse as time went on.

IMO,There is an issue surrounding the life expectancy of a turbo charged subaru engine,you dont have to agree but it will always come up.
I dont beleive that the n/a engines have a problem.
IMO,ofcourse and once again,I dont have official figures etc.

I know that evos do have there problems,but they seem to be clutch/transmission related and very rarely engine problems.

nzkenny

I think you should compare the EVO to the STI not the wrx , this is what seems the norm in most road tests comparos etc. I have always bought STI's as they are so strong standard, and worth the xtra cost. For specs check out www.wrxsticlub.co.nz project rex link. How much would it cost to upgrade a standard rex to a standard STI?