vaughant

Hi guy`s a newbie here!! Right I test drove a WRX Estate yesterday and was SO impressed with it, what a great car!! This has convinced me that this will be my next motor to spend up to about £3k ish on. I`m not new to cars ( i`ve had at least 50!!) and have bought a few imports from Southampton so know the score, but i was wondering what to look for in a Scooby, general faults etc. I was all set to hand over £2400 yesterday for this one, but it tapped a bit from cold and seemed smoky under boost when cold? I noticed it particularly when pulling upto the roundabout, steamy smoke went past me but it had bags of power, drove and handled superbly!! I`m really after one of these, but forearmed, forewarned!! It looks like there`s quite a few on here for sale, so i hope i can get one soon.

dj219957

Dont expect much for 3 k. Expect to have to shell out a load of dosh in the first few months if ya do.
Of course you could buy my modded 95 wrx wagon with td05, z4ecu and new api engine etc etc for 5k if ya want!

vaughant

Well that`s surprised me a bit as there seems to be a large number on here for around that sort of price, surely members on here wouldn`t sell shed`s ? Yours sounds lovely but that`s a very high price your asking, there was a very similar sounding one in the for sale section for £3.5k when i was looking earlier. Also i found a UK spec one on ebay, 98 in silver buy it now for £3295. Like i said i`m quite happy to pop down to Southampton to pick one up, although private would suit me due to the test drive aspect. Any advice on what to look for would be greatly appreciated as from what i`ve heard their generally v.reliable. Parts/mot work etc. is no problem even a mint mechanical requiring a bit of bodywork would be fine.

dj219957

IMO the motors on ebay are not the best examples whenever i look.
"This car is 300 bhp ...it has a filter and exhaust ..yeh right!

Theres alway plenty of wrx wagons ....."280 bhp" bull **** ..more like 220 ps.

"It has never been thrashed" ..what so youve spoken the guy in japan and asked him have you?


I wouldnt use ebay as the bench mark if i were you.

Yeh, mine is not the cheapest but it had 4k spent on the engine, exhaust and other bits last year alone! I have the recepts. Plus it has the saloon turbo and ecu now and proven 260.9 bhp

There really IS plenty of junk about. Cheapest is not the always the best. All said there are bargins to be found and prices really have fallen off latley.

vaughant

I know what you mean fella, it`s just all i can really warrant spending is around that sort of mark. I`m a bit too old to thrash my car about, so i`m not too bothered about engine mods which i know cost lot`s of cash, i`ve been there before!! I`m not bothered if it`s UK or Jap, or 93 or 99, justa nice scoob should keep me happy. Thanks for the reply mate, vaughan.

dj219957

no probs - p.s i spent the 4 k on a rebuild and mods not just mods incase that wasnt clear.
If your not bothered about performance too much then i would look for a standard uk car with history. They are still about if you look hard enough. Or if you go for a jap car then make sure it is a fresh import. you can be sure it hasnt been run on the wrong fuel then (they need optimax minimum). Either that or look for one where the owner specifies its been run on the correct fuel.
Imprezas are still loosing value at the mo lots cos there are so many comin over from japan that people can be picky and find the right one.
Best bit of advise i can give is to take a mate with you who knows cars a bit too. That way you will have 2 pairs of eyes, cos once you drive a scoob the fun factor and perfornce they give takes away your common sense and you could end up buying the first one you see which is a dog.

s70rjw

iTrader: (2)

I don't want to be the bearer of bad news but for that money you're looking as basket cases.You won't get a decent UK car for £3k. You may be lucky but I'd put a lot aside for unexpected bills and servicing on top of your purchase price

dj219957

Agree - Some poeple think they can pick one up for 3k and expect a decent motor (not directed at original poster of thread)
Have a look on piston heads. Theres some nice enthusist owned ones on there) www.pistonheads.co.uk

Andy

scoobydood

I bought a '96 UK Wagon with over 90k on the clock. It had a decat and ScoobyECU (boost upped to 1.1bar). Approx 270bhp. The ECU had been in the car for a couple of years already. I then did another +/- 23k in the car over 14 months and had no real expenses except for servicing.

Car was fantastic but regular oil changes with top oils and of course the fuel consumption all added up. I have since sold it and drive a diesel!

Will no doubt return the to scoooby fold again. Most likely in a new WRX in 2006/07

vaughant

hi guy`s thanks once again for the responses. It does seem a very broad statement that " you won`t get a decent one for £3k", what are the things most likely to go wrong then, engine/turbo/box etc? I wouldn`t really excpect any Scoob not too have had a little bump at some point in it`s life so i`m thinking there must be some mech issues with these that aren`t very well publicised? Like i said, i don`t excpect perfection, but i don`t think i`ve ever seen one go at auction for much more than 2K ( around the 10yr old mark, no SVA then). A mate of mine run`s a business that import`s them locally and he basically said there good car`s, but in my experience forum users always know the in`s and out`s!! Also i think the current drop in prices could be due to rising fuel/insurance cost`s etc. Also theft of these seems far more common now.

SCOOBYD00

Wagons... you can pickup STi wagons v3/v4 for around 5k-6k. Fully loaded and total sleepers... best buy IMHO..