Hello,

Never owned a subaru but admired them greatly since I new what a car was.

I'm now 29 and hate my finance car so looking at importing a JDM WRX. It'd preferably be an 03 blob ej20.

As title suggests, never had one. What should I look out for? I'm in Scotland if it matters.

Cheers.

 

Rust, check when it was imported. Longer in UK more likely will have rust. Rear top struts start going first. Full history would be best. But for me rust would be main thing.

 

Ace, thanks. The one I've seen is a fresh import. Pics of underside are very clean and its had fresh underseal since it arrived. Anything in terms of servicing on that engine that should have been done? The one I've seen is on 76k miles.

 

Cambelt, go by mileage or age if you can.

 

Cambelt should have been done at around 50 or 60000 miles, but definitely worth checking, especially tensioner etc. Oil change every 5000 miles. Check for rust under arch rims and up in rear strut turrets with a torch, and around the tailgate , inside and out. Service history would be ideal. Visible fluids nice and clean. 4 good tyres, not ditchfinders or mismatched. Great car, sees 270 or 280 with a remap, easy 300 miles plus to the tank ( that's v good for an impreza!) As said above, rear struts prone to knocking at that mileage.
Personally, I would have at least the bumpers off , if you get it, because the pressed steel that the bumper bars, chassis subframes and crossmembers are made from is very susceptible to rust.

 

Like @hedgecutter rust hides in so many places so once you buy bumpers and side skirts off. Not sure about 300 miles to a tank though, how conservative are you driving Motorway probably city no loooooooool.

 

I normally got 260 miles out of a tank in my old blob wagon. But i once did 358 miles in France on a long run! Lucky to do 200 currently.

 

With these cars you just want to get on the loud pedal lol

 

The JDM WRX is designed to run on 100 octane fuel and has different cams with variable intake that allows it to pull timing and make 250bhp compared to 227bhp UK cars. I presume it also comes without the uppipe CAT? It will need to be remapped for UK fuel. If it's mapped for 95/97 RON, it will loose a chunk of power. So needs to be mapped and run on 99 RON to make the most of the engine. You also need a mapper who is aware that it has variable intake timing. UK WRXs can make maybe 280bhp with a bigger fuel pump, improved breathing and a boost increase, so a JDM should make closer to 300bhp, with similar mods.

They also come with 16" wheels rather than 17" on the UK models. It's possible that they don't have 4-pot brakes either but I can't find confirmation of this. The saloons have shorter gearing but the wagons are the same as all UK WRXs.

Both my WRXs wagons with PPP (~250+bhp) would always return 28mpg from a full tank with mix driving (B roads, A roads, Mway and occasional hoon) although I don't live in a city admittedly. I used to drive from Bristol to Redcar every week for work - 270 miles of almost all fast motorway cruise and I used fill up when I left, fill up again on the return leg and then fill up once more when I got home.