Are there any significant differences between the standard UK MY98 and MY99 cars?

I'm thinking of power/tunability/ecu/interior spec - I know there's a subtle body style change.

 

Brakes and phase 2 engine are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Check one of the FAQs (e.g. the one on the SIDC site) for details.

 

MY99 has:

Facelift bumper (one vent under the front indicator instead of two)
Different front grill (bottom lip sticks out)
4 pot brakes (instead of two pots)
Phase 2 engine (215bhp instead of 208bhp)
Standard cat1 Sigma alarm
Vented rear disks
Blue/black interior (instead of black/grey)
Bigger (sti4) rear spoiler (instead of the flat one) - 4 door only
'Crystal' style headlights and front foglights

Other than that, the interior dash is basically the same, as is the bonnet style.

I hope this helps
Andy

 

Lovely, just what I was looking for. Thanks very much.

Looks like it's a MY99 onwards I'm after then.

 

I agree, I think the slight premium for the MY99 car over the MY98 is worth the money!

 

does a 99 suffer from piston slap or is that just the slightly different (than the original) 97/98 with the small turbo?

 

I haven't heard of piston slap in a UK MY99/00 engine, although I could be wrong!

Certainly not to the same extent as the late MY97 and MY98 cars!

You will get clutch judder, but "they all do that sir!!"

 

I have owned both a UK99 and a UK00 (well the latter was a compnay car, but you know what I mean).

IMHO and that of many others on here the UK 99 is the one to have from the standard UK cars as it not only has all the later extras (except for map lights and variable intermittent wipe), but has better wheels as standard and best of all has a different ECU which gives significantly better mid-range performance than the later cars.

My wife now drives the MY99 and the rare occasions when I get to drive it reminds me of just how good it is.

Go for the MY99 if you can.

Regards,

tiggers

 

MY00 has:

Colour coded mirrors and door handles
Graphite colour centre dash
Variable speed intermitant wipe
Map lights
6 spoke 16" alloys, instead of the 5 spoke alloys.
Slightly different ECU (overfuels more, robbing the car of power!! )

I've just bought a MY00, and having owned a MY97 and MY99 previously, I think the above covers the differences

 

The difference in wheels in purely cosmetic. I personally prefer the 6 to the 5 spokes. That said I didn't like them enough to resist a set of 18"s.

With regard to the ECU an Ecutek TEK1 conversion doesn't cost much an will pull the MY00 ECU in line with (if not slightly above) the MY99 unit. Again I couldn't resist the TEK2.5.

After weighing up the differences I, as you can probably tell, spent my money on a Deep (MY00 only I think) Blue Mica MY00.

 

http://www.scoobynet.co.uk/bbs/thread.asp?threadid=196845

 

What month did the switch to MY99 production begin? Reason I ask is I've seen a 98S Wagon that the independant selling it reckons it's a MY98 when I called them, but from driving past looks like it might actually be a 99.

How can I tell for sure from the engine and/or vin number?