What killed Subaru, at least in the UK, was the total dishonesty of dealers.

I mean, come on.......

Owner: My performance car has blown it's engine!"

Dealer/Importer: "Oh really, Sir? Then you must have been driving it too hard...."

What a fkucking joke!

Thats why there are less and less Subaru dealers about now, Look how many have shut down over the last couple of years!!!

That's certainly part of it.

Dealer I knew basically told me he could no longer afford to be a dealer, IM wanted so much corporate stuff etc, and he wasn't selling enough cars to cover it, so dropped them.

Then you have issues getting hold of parts, warranty issues etc, I have still not seen 1 new "2015" STI on the road and they have been around about a year now, shows how popular a car they are..... :(

I think in today's day and age a "brand new" sti isn't much of a contender when it comes to buying a performance vehicle around the 30k mark as I think anyone with that sort of cash who could afford to run something decent would be looking at the second hand market for much quicker cars.

I think if someone wanted to buy new they certainly would be getting an overall more revised package if you started looking at your golf R's, focus RS's and audi s3's when comparing them to their counterparts from 10 years ago.

That being said and the main reason I like my wide track sti and can afford to keep it is the maintenance cost's are quite low in comparison and the second hand parts market is massive. But this is down to the network of subaru specialists within the u.k and not the dealers.

I think there will always be a good demand for used wrx's and sti's regardless of what's currently being released by subaru, but with them falling behind in the game there might not be so many used ones to buy if people don't want to separate with their cash on a new model.

The new sti almost didn't make it to the u.k and if it doesn't happen next time round then an import might be the only option in a few years to come but that would make the parts market for these imports potentially go south if there aren't a lot of these motors around in a few years.