Impreza Ownership Top Tips!
 

Post your top tips and amazing facts for impreza ownership here!

Mine are:

o My standard exhaust has lasted 10 years and 88,000 miles from new (but I wish I'd bought an better exhaust and had a remap for power and better mpg years ago...)

o Around 50k miles its worth replacing the lower 3 rubber washers on each of the 3 lower rocker cover bolts (as they harden with age and heat - they will leak at some point - better to treat them as a service item).

o The nuts on all four wheel bearings should be checked as a service item, if there is too much play the wheel bearings can fail prematurely.

o On 1998 cars its worth resetting the ECU as a service item as the ECU of that era will change the map it uses, if you have used 95 ron rather than the recommended 98 ron but does not change it back again unless the ECU is reset.

o Mine developed an intermitant warm start problem (would turn over but would not start), in the end I diagnosed that the fuel pump did not prime prior to a failure to start. This turned out to be due to two seperate faults... Mainly a faulty alarm cutting the power to the fuel pump when it got hot inside the car..., but also there is a chip in the ignition key, a code is read from it by a sensor around the ignition lock, very occasionally the code cannot be read, again the supply to fuel pump is cut (obscure fault code in ECU that can be read using a sun analyser, check engine light does not come on...)

my top tips

dont let ya woman drive ya car unless you want it coming back with chunks out your wheels like mine did ha ha

haha My lass will do the same to ours!

mine is plan what you want from it in the beginning don't waste money on things that will be changed later, found this out with cosworth ownership so won't make the same mistake with the subaru

the best top tip for subaru owners-check your oil at least once a week, its amazing how many cars i have seen over the years with very low oil level!!!

next best- if your car is mapped for v-power and NF you must use v-power and NF not 95 cos you can't be arsed to travel a few more miles to a shell station.
last week i pulled the head off an engine that had done the above to reveal half a forged piston! the other half was rattling around inside the block!