Hi! Sold my uk turbo 2000 a couple of years back and now on the look out for another Subaru. Been looking and seen a 1998 sti but it has the dreaded arch eater! Would you buy a car with this? Car has done about 110,000 miles. Priced at £3,000. Looking for opinions please. Dave

 

Thing is if you want a fully clean one you will be paying top top money. Gone are the days of picking them up for £1500 lol. Really does depend on the rest of the car really. Some on here will say even if it has 1mm of rust its worth 20p.

Look at it this way, how much is the going rate and after fixing the rust is it still worth it.

Good luck either way

 

Most classics you look at are going to have rear arch rust, keep an eye out for the pilors up the screen as they go there as well and it’s a lot harder to fix.

If car is 100 percent other then rear arches and he’s got it up for 3000, so willing to have a haggle then I’d have a go at it.
Silver is a terrible colour to paint / match tho pal so keep a decent painter in mind

 

Yeah it’s a dilemma. Had the issue with my old one and the guy I took it to get fixed bodged it I think. I see these going for 5-6k so it is cheap, but is it cheap for a reason....

 

Replacement arches can be sourced. But if the rust is also affecting the suspension turrets this is trickier to sort as I think you have to get replacement panels fabricated.

 

If it’s worth 5 or 6 mate and you can get it for less then 3 it’ll cost average a grand for rear arches doing (if your down south) 5ish If your up north
buy I just get a good painter there be a few lads on here who’ll recomend
some one deoendant on where you are

 

Not sure it’s worth 5-6 at the moment. Just that I’ve seen them advertised this age at this price. It’s showing 196k on the clock however he says the clocks were changed at 60k confirmed with the mots. It’s had head gaskets changed in 2016 but he can’t give me a reason for this.

 

Is the 196k mixture of miles n km?
Best advice mate is go see it check all usual suspects for rot, main place i check is cills that’s because they will happily go through a mot for years rotten as there hidden by a skirt! Just check jack points then I normally give them a good push on bottom of skirt your hear a crunch if it’s gone. You can’t check 100 percent with out skirt off. But it’s not a bad place to fix

Rails in middle going to bulk head
up side or window screen on pillors

mileage discrepancy is a bit of a down point but only if your buying it to sell it that’s only as if people hpi it it’ll come back as a fail on mileage.

Head gasket being done wouldn’t worry me that much espeacilly that far back they’ve all had work on them at some point.
Obvousley check engine over don’t it in it and listen for rattles pop bonnet and do it on throttle body

Check ID against logbook as well
if it ticks all boxes except for rear arches and you want a car to enjoy it could be it!

If you know what your looking at mate your be fine if you don’t take some one that does.

 

With those miles 3k an't bad, but as has been said you could find its a rot box, strut turrets will cost a aload. There's a guy on here that had his done, and has loads of details of work involved.

If i was you i'd buy it, if turns out to be too bad you can break it when fails mot.