STI Hatch 08 advice
 

So i brought a sti hatch 08 prodrive in november i did not do much homework just liked the car so went for it. since then i have been searching forums and tbh u lot are scaring me lol. All this talk about engine going bang is not good i just had it serviced and its only done 37k and i don't really drive in anything but sport sharp, auto- and traction yellow.

So my question is, how likely is it to blow up and what should i do to stop it?

If i had one (and I've thought about it) i'd be taking it to a specialist to get a heath check and a remap for safety.

Then I'd be saving for a decent engine, just imagine how your car will perform with 450HP!

Regrettably they don't have a good track record. Very easy car to live with but plagued with engine failure issues.

Subaru U.K took the stance of ignoring the problem and deserting there customers. Sad state of affairs.

do you think prices will plumit on the hatch now then???

brought brought brought

ITS BOUGHT

why do people put this

Had mine mapped by Duncan aka Dynamix when I had mine for peace of mind and an extra 40bhp to boot.

Don't know we must be dumb. Hope you feel better now lol

so the prodrive map don't help it?

Oh god no!

No, as this issue is not generally known, hence the OP's worries.

Sorry but I see this soooo often.

There will only be a small percentage of failures against cars sold but will only seem common on forums as this is where people tend to go as their first port of call with any issue nowadays.

If it was a fuel problem then a remap might help, at a proper place though.

It wasn't a recall then?

I totally agree with you leemac, they only come on forums with problems so speak to the pros for advice,there are still 95% of us hatch owners that are very happy :-)

Hi. A bit of history and few tips for your hatch.
Its true a lot of hatch engines have gone pop.
My guess is that it is nearly all fuel related.
Like a great number of modern engines, to bring down emission levels, the piston bore clearance is reduced to a minute ½” thou (early engines were 2 to 3” thou). They achieved this by manufacturing the pistons from a high silicon compound (hyper eutectic). These expand almost identically to the bore..
But this alloy is very brittle and the piston are very susceptible to knocking. (they break up around the ringland)
Turbo engines are also renowned for knocking issues.
But the engine has an anti knock sensor which resets the ECU.
When I got mine back in 2008 I had it remapped by Bob Rawles.
Bob said the original mapping was running really close to the knuckle and Subaru soon brought out a remap which they thought would cure the early engine failures.
Bob also said that the ECU took about 2 tank fulls of petrol before the ECU reset itself after a change of Octane level.
This is no problem if you go from low octane to high octane. You just don’t get that extra umph while the ignition timing slowly advances up to the knocking point.
The problem is going the other way from high octane to low octane. The ignition timing is set far too advanced for the fuel and the engine will be knocking like mad under high load as the timing retards (remember two tank fulls).
One of the regular scribes on here had an engine go pop and had always filled up with Shell V power. Just out of interest, he had the fuel analysed (cos he could) and was very surprised to find he had a tank full of ordinary unleaded.
Pure speculation. But I reckon a lot of independent garages are putting ordinary unleaded through the super unleaded pumps and pocketing the 8p a litre. Where possible, I only ever fill up with Tesco (99) or Sainsburys as I don’t trust the independents. Mines done nearly 40K, Done track days, drift days, spirited driving and while I was going up and down to Glasgow I ran it constantly on unleaded. Never missed a beat and uses no oil in between services. Got a Cobra sports cat and Prodrive back box. On reflection, would probably have gone for the full cobra system, but the turbo lag is still 100000% better than standard. If you have the recaro seats, slide it right back every time you get out. Otherwise they don’t last ten minutes at the door side. Once again, I think the ringland failure issue is 100% fuel related.