My First Impreza Experience
 

Hello all

I'm new to the forum, joined a week or two ago and been lurking as I wanted to make this my first post.

About 18 months ago I made the decision to start a YouTube channel on cars, as obviously there weren't enough of those. I began covering a lot of Lotus-related content, then branched out. Being born in the late 80s means I'm the Gran Turismo generation and of course I've always had a soft spot for JDM stuff.
Until very recently though, I hadn't actually had the chance to drive hardly any Japanese cars, let alone some of the really iconic stuff. But I've been slowly fixing that and keeping my eye open for what could potentially be a great first Jap car.

A good friend of mine had a Bug Eye and I'd been pestering him to let me review it for ages. He'd had some bad luck with it and spent quite a bit maintaining it, and needed to sell it as it wasn't suited to his daily commute anymore. I persuaded him to let me bag it for a review and see if I could help him advertise it - my only previous Subaru experience being a non-turbo Legacy auto, which was on its last legs.

I had no idea what to expect, but here's the review I made of my first ever Impreza experience:


...and I liked the car so much, I bought it :)

JayEmm

Well done for buying an Impreza. Great cars. And if looked after bullet proof.

Just watching video, Headers :facepalm2:

Could you elaborate? I've no doubt made mistakes so would appreciate being filled in so that I can rectify in future videos.

Just watched it good video. Its nice to watch someone drive an Impreza having no past experience and falling for it.

UK term Exhaust manifold, American term headers.

Also you said something about Subaru kept on churning out 2.0 turbo boxer engines with low power, when hot hatch's starting putting big BHP down, which is correct, but after 2007 Subaru started making 2.5 boxer engines in there WRX hatch models. Just in case you didn't know. Still under powered :confused:

With chocolate pistons.

Ah I've seen conflicting information on when to use headers or not, I'll try and stick to Manifold in future. The Americans love a Brit anyway.

I genuinely didn't think I would like the car, thought it would be a bit wallowy and not very mechanically engaging, how wrong I was.

I did know about the 2.5s and yes probably should have mentioned that, didn't seem especially important to me as you point out the overall power figures from 2000 or so to 2018 haven't changed dramatically.

I actually have a bit of a soft spot for the hatches, well out of my price range, but shame about the horror stories!

Yeah not a fan of the hatches, prefer the Saloon models. (Saloon that's another one)

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sco...429b8bf984.jpg

You were saying really good things about the gear box, has your mate uprated it in any way? as they normally get quite worn over the years, and don't feel amazing. I've bought a prodrive short shirt gear stick and new gear linkage.

Have you thought about reviewing a classic Impreza next and comparing?

I'd love to try more Impreza models - and of course the red rivals - as I'm thoroughly enjoying my JDM journey.

This car had a replacement gearbox fitted, second hand I think but it replaced a worn and knackered one. I think the weighted shift knob helps a lot too although I'm trying to work out how to get the boot/gaiter to stay up.

Too be a fair test you need to test drive the 1996-2000 UK 2000 Turbo. Although the JDM version WRX or STI is a much better car, more hardcore than the UK models.

Your gear stick maybe after market, it looked quite tall on the video.

My main advise is regular oil changes, and if remapped on super unleaded stick to that. When i bought my first JDM WRX import, i ran it on standard unleaded, not knowing it should be run on super. Once read on forums stuck to super.

To be honest I would only ever feed a car like this Super anyway, but it was remapped with the advice to use V-Power only. I checked with the mapper (Andy Carr) and he said Tesco 99 would also be fine, as that is what is locally available to me.

Ah Andy Carr, my mate just had his car mapped by him, wasn't overly Impressed. When your handing over £250 you expect abit of feedback, but didn't seem interested.

Bob Rawle sounds like the man to go to.

So are you leaving Impreza as is or fitted a big rear Spoiler on the back :thumb:

Big rear wing was put on before delivery :)

Cough Spoiler :thumb:

Wing is another American term :facepalm2:

It's a must. Now you need an STI bonnet scoop lol

Haha I am doing my absolute best to resist falling in the mod trap, but I may not succeed.

I have a few small issues that need tending to on it, so going to get those done then just try and enjoy it for a bit!

Good luck with that. It seems to go hand in hand with Subaru ownership. Not sure why. But once you start that's it.

Gets a :thumb: from me, very well done.

Enjoy the scoob and lets have more of what you think/do with it over time.



Only one criticism..................ditch the shirt :lol1:

Haha cheers, my eye melting shirts in videos are my signature.

I started wearing them a while ago and they got so many comments I decided to keep upping the ante.

Keep the shirt. As you said bet you will get more comments on YouTube about shirts than cars lol

Genuinely enjoyed that, and your comments echo a LOT of what my friends have said when they've driven mine.

Only thing I would say would be that the video was too long, my attention span wavered at 10 mins, and I feel it could have been condensed a little.

Definitely a good perspective on ownership/drive etc.

Ricky

Thanks for your comments, glad you liked it. Runtime is one of those no win scenarios on YouTube - I try and get my videos between 10-15 minutes, 12 is usually the aim but it really depends.

As you can imagine the minute I cut something out, you can bet someone will ask why I didn't cover X topic in the video! That's life.

JM

Was only joking Jay...................you should some of mine :cool:

Normally I'm the same.