Hi All

I think the big end has gone on MY93 Wrx. I have been told that it could cost between £2 to £3k to repair, but the car is is probably only worth £4,500 when repaired plus, possibly up to a month off road. My dilema is, is it really worth spending out or would it be better to sell for £2,000 needing repair? Or do any of you know where I could buy an engine?

Can anyone recommend a decent mechanic or garage in the Bournemouth/Dorchester area?

There we go questions over.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated - serious or funny, as I need cheering up.


Steve

Mate - you are not alone. My big ends have gone (and possibly a piston now as well) - gawd that sounds sore doesnt it LOL:D

mine is 94 WRX STI and I rarely use the car, owned it only a year and drove only 3K miles and this happens. I think you need to first work out, can you properly afford to repair it without selling a kidney, or sell it on 'as is' at a ridiculous price.

My theory is that I enjoy the driving of the car, love the performance, love the fuel economy - cause in reality it aint that bad, love the looks, love the police attention LOL!!

Do you want to still drive the car for enjoyment and get that little buzz after giving it some? If answer is yes, then repair the car - get more fun out of it and enjoy it (it aint forever so best get the most out of it now). If the answer is no, then either do the sale as is, or repair and sell. But I reckon you'll end up more pi$$ed off with this option.

Its a downer, but its one that can be repaired - just imagine your buying 10 * £300 Magnex exhaust all at once.......there doesnt that put it into perspective LOL!!!

Take care mate,
Marky-S
Fellow 'my big ends dropped off' impreza owner:D

The way i see it is you own a very good car that is pretty quick looks good and keeps you happy..?? Well mine does...

This is the first car i have had that ive not got bored of after a few months... It always gets admiring looks e.t.c and has alot of tuning/styling potential.

So if you get it repaired you may aswell keep it at least you have a nearly new spanking engine..!!! either way its going to cost you money...

If you sell it with the engine knackered you will probably only get around £3.5K for it in which case you will have lost out a fair bit from the price you bought it for.... If you spend the £2K fixing it at least you only loose out that much, and like i said the engine will be nearly new....

Dan:D

try http://www.gradea-subaru.co.uk/, they may have an engine you could buy. For the value of the car its probably worth taking a risk on a cheap breakers engine rather than paying for a full rebuild which is going to cost a fair amount.

How's your car getting on John?:)

great thanks Bob.

We took it out last Sunday and finished building the engine on Friday, fired it up at 2pm then did the final build up and checks by 5pm.

So far i have covered 400 miles and everything is going as expected, i did a few blueprinting mods and used a few uprated parts during the build so its a really smooth engine now, everything in the bottom end is balanced properly to under 1 gramme.

600 miles to go then its time to load it up and do some datalogging to check everything is safe before i am happy to start driving it hard again.

you can see the stripdown/rebuild pictures here

Ere.....I'm currently lookin 2 buy a wrx...and this business about the imports just going BANG,.....scares da $hit out of me.......don't wanna spend all my savings on me dream moter and then havin it go pop!.....why the hell do i hear about this kinda stuff all 2 often?

its not only wrx's that go bang! my uk97 has gone bang also! well not really bangas was only the bottom end! just bring on the new improved P1 set up!
steve(another fellow my big ends fallen off)

you have to remember my engine had done a lot of work on track and failed during a competition when it would have been highly stressed. As of yet i am not sure why it failed, i intend to find out though. In the most part, if you service these cars properly, use good quality oil and fuel you should have a very reliable car.

PS the crank, big end bearings and rods on the P1 are identical to a UK turbo and an STi, the only diference between a UK turbo and a P1/STi bottom end is the pistons, which are forged instead of cast.

the engine has only done 17k so will be better thana 54k for sure!
thanx anyway!

Thanks Marky-S , Dan and John Felsted.
I will repair and keep Scoob – missing it already.
I wonder if it would be a good idea to put in an sti engine?

Steve

Simoniz - Don't be put off.
I've had Scoob for 3 years and covered 65k miles (Total mileage 105k) and have pushed the car hard, so maybe something had to go bang. I will still buy another one next year hopefully.
Steve