All relevant points in new cars and in Japan anything rusty is an MOT fail and replaced. 90% of UK MY00-07 underside rustbuckets have completely ineffectual C frames from factory spec after a worst case of 14 years. All this boo hooing about not knowing whether to remove it bla bla bla.... chances are you don't have one worth a w@nk anyway, the fact that it's there doesn't make you safe or more worthy than someone who has removed it. Don't be deluded I removed mine and the car drove better lighter and the sky didn't fall in. I replaced it with a full Summit subframe kit, but this is 100% about chassis stiffening and zero % about safety. If you want to be sanctimonious or just be 'safe' (debatable) pay the price of a new one, nothing reconditioned, pikey second hand or powdercoated for **** sake. If not shut the **** up about speculative safety, insurance and Subaru didn't specd 1000's of pounds researching this that and the other... that is all xxx

P.S. I don't have one on my S202 either
Not aimed at Legacy above btw

 

Completely agree with you 53, hence the 'slightly twingier neck' comment.

If it is there for crash reasons, then it'll be tuned to play a part on a very specific speed into a very specific block of concrete, thats how this ncap bolix works and is the route of its issues....... 5mph each side of that and it will do nothing or everything.

This thread seems like alot of chat with no substance overthinking something very insignificant.

 

Have you seen one off the car? They're not that stiff so it's probably the fact of losing 15kg/20kg that the car feels better

 

Yes I removed mine to fit the roll bar.
If you can feel 15kg of difference in your car I'm amazed.
My car feels no different to me with a 70kg passenger or a full tank of fuel.

 

I certainly can, after Ive dropped a mate off after a night out I can feel the weight difference.

 

Yes me too, car always acts differently with different weights. Noticed the difference when I ran without spare wheel and brace etc for a couple of days.

 

Not saying that you can't feel a difference but the last time I had my car corner weighted the car nearly weighed 1480kg
The C frame being around 14kg would give a weight saving of less than 1%

Same going for 1 passenger is only around a 5% increase in weight.

3 or more people in the car I can feel a difference.