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Hi Looking for advice on my Litchfield Imported Subaru Forester STI 2006. I have been trying to sell this car for over 7 Months now with it being on Autotrader for £10,000 recently lowering to £9,000 not a bean!! i have also tried Ebay but the best i got offered was 6k which is far far to cheap in my eyes or am i going mad in my old age? . Full service history to prove all this, The car has been with me 5 years and i have only upgraded things which have gone wrong for example, I upgraded to a doubled stacked Mishimoto radiator as the original had a leak, And the head gaskets where upgraded for Cosworth ones along with the race struts etc in December 2020 this was a pre-emptive measure due to mileage advised by AdgeSpeed in Manchester who really know there stuff. Like i say no expense spared the body work is immaculate and the drive is even better. Litchfield imported this car which we all know are the best in the business they safely mapped it to 330HP 420NM by basically installing a race cat and Miltek exhaust system. Anyway it is on the Trader if you want more details please advise me where i am going wrong or if anyone knows anyone who may be interested in this car.. Thanks
Last edited by ScoobyDuManny; 24 February 2023 at 01:49 AM.
It's a very niche market and with the current inflated living costs not many people are willing/able to pay the current market prices.
It looks like a nice car, good luck with the sale!
Yeah most people don't even know what this car is to be honest. I was thinking that just hard times to be spending 9k on a old car i suppose ill keep trying. Thanks
Last edited by ScoobyDuManny; 01 December 2022 at 02:54 PM.
I'd be inclined to get the MOT done now or say it will be included prior to sale. Always sounds better to someone looking for one.
FWIW i sold my older Audi mainly because it was £600 road tax and was doing little miles. I think people are making the same calculations, and December/Jan is never a good time to sell.
Yes it had 10 months MOT when i first listed it believe it or not. MOT booked in next week. Thanks for advice. And just to be clear it will come with 12 months MOT if anyone is interested on here. Thanks
Last edited by ScoobyDuManny; 01 December 2022 at 05:41 PM.
Have a chat with DCY Europe , see if they are willing to do a deal , it looks like a decent car , currently a 70 to 80 k miles fresh import new or old shape are any where from 12 to 14 k plus for some , not trying to be rude what is the actual mileage in miles ? If it’s 124 k miles it’s higher than maybe some would go , the slight negative it’s been over here for a while and I’m disappointed that litchfield did not bring it in on the lower tax bracket , im paying less than half that on mine , the cost of jdm imports has gone through the roof , as a comparison mid June 21 I bought the mrs Fsti it was under 90 k miles fresh import good nick and went for 9400 £ which was cheap , list it at maybe 10k £ and see what happens 👍
They are great cars , all they need is a good set of brake pads , a cat back exhaust , coilovers on a soft setting, a re map and maybe a fuel pump ,plus maybe a sports cat , not forgetting more security and a cat 1 and it’s all sorted , they don’t have lag , and you can get up to 36 mpg ,they have a big boot and handle very well , i just seem to be collecting them 👍😁😂
Looking at the history it was imported with 60,000km on the clock but after conversion to miles is kept 60,000km on the clock which then started reading in miles up to 124,000 so if my maths it correct its around 97,000 miles. I understand people want fresh imports due to rust and imported cars don't handle British salt to well. I believe this has been under sealed in factory and it is showing no signs of rust yet. Thanks everyone i have had a few messages of interest since posting on here. currently listed st 9k which i think is a bargin 5k under a fresh import like VXR2020 stated.
Last edited by ScoobyDuManny; 02 December 2022 at 05:49 PM.
Its £500 a year tax and i believe its the paper work of the importer not sure of full details but a bit disappointing Litchfield didn't import with lower road tax figures like i know other importers do.
Imports need an Sva report , single vehicle approval , it’s basically a technical report on the car it’s emissions weights etc , the report is for tax and the dvla etc , my three Fsti ( yes greedy and that’s how much I like Fsti ) 😁 and Gtr have all been bought in on 0 emissions so i pay around 280£ pa for tax , the gtr would have been 630£ or something , so why litchfield and some other importers use the emissions showing sva report I don’t know , the other thing the dvla do is they use the year of import for a tax bracket and charge say 530£ , it’s supposed to be year of manufacture so could be 280£ , when you ask for a refund they only back date a few years , which is crap as it’s their error 👍
My 2006 FSTi, imported new by Litchfield, showed emissions above 255g/km in the V5 hence why it was in the higher tax bracket (the cut off date is March 2006 to go into the higher category).
I suppose the emissions are shown due to the fact it had to go through an IVA test.
They can do the Iva on 0 emissions, my Fsti 55 , 56 , and 07 and 09 gtr all on o emissions , so low tax bracket , the sva build report being important part 👍
My 2006 FSTi, imported new by Litchfield, showed emissions above 255g/km in the V5 hence why it was in the higher tax bracket (the cut off date is March 2006 to go into the higher category).
I suppose the emissions are shown due to the fact it had to go through an IVA test.
Litchfield's new "unregistered" FSTi imports where initially done using an ESVA Model Report.
Was it not imported new by Litchfield then? Car won't have been undersealed from factory in Japan. One bonus yours being an '06 is that you won't have to pay Ulez! But that benefit is eaten up by the road tax. Mine is an '05 Litchfield lower tax but gets hit with ulez, I live just outside London, my parents just inside plus main shopping centre etc, none of my 3 cars or van comply with ulez ffs
For the scooby, try Eurocert if it’s a jdm import they should be able to do a certificate of conformity , send it to TFL , then ulez exempt , it won’t effect your tax bracket 👍
For the scooby, try Eurocert if it’s a jdm import they should be able to do a certificate of conformity , send it to TFL , then ulez exempt , it won’t effect your tax bracket 👍
Unfortunately not working anymore. Ask me how I know...
Yes it is £500 a year tax. You wouldn't say its over priced then?
Without wishing to sound facetious, if no one wants to buy it, then it's overpriced. Supply and demand determines the price.
This is especially true with the FSTi, as being a JDM import only model, it's price is inflated due to it's relative scarcity. If it had been a UK sold model and they were more numerous on the road (like UK Imprezas), I'd imagine there prices would be a good 20-25% less than what people are asking (and I guess paying) for currently. But whilst there is limited supply driving up price, there is also a finite demand for them (much smaller than say for an Impreza). So whilst people continue to import them, you may now be finding that all the people who really want one, already have one and demand has dropped off. I've personally always thought that they were overpriced, just looking objectively at what you get for the money compared to other cars but that the import costs and the demand was always keeping prices high, especially when the like of Litchfield were only importing the very best condition vehicles. I think they are more like £6-8k cars, than £8k-£10K+. Also the likes of TorquGT/Hurst etc are still importing high quality, low mileage models, which is skewing the price of lower grade personal imports in the country and of course many of the cars have been in the UK for years now and had multiple owners.
If you've put it on eBay with no reserve and the best offer is £6k, then that's a pretty good indication of where the market is right now for high-tax bracket, thirsty, high-mileage, old Japanese SUV, that the vast majority of the population have never seen before.....no offence intended.
Now is probably not the best time to be selling but if you need to move it on to get into something else, then it's current worth is what it is I'm afraid.
actually with our customer base we are seeing more people buy SG9 FSTi's as presumably they realise what a useable and capable car it is.........the only slight downside in terms of rarity is the mass of "Cross Sport" JDM Forester's appearing that share the looks without any of the extra capability
IMO far more usable and smile inducing than a more common Impreza STi and whilst maybe not on Impreza levels of pricing it certainly deserves to get a decent return / unlike the earlier STi badged Forester SF5 it employs pretty much every STi component & trick that the equivalent age Impreza did.......
Very difficult time to sell. I put the Mrs cooper s convertible on gumtree and Facebook and not had a sniff. Looked on autotrader and the average price for similar examples being around 4 to 4.5k with plenty up for 5 and even upwards to 8k.
I put it up for £3750 and the only contact we had was some young spunker telling us it wasn’t worth that (ours is pretty much top spec and has lsd which is a desirable option) We have dropped it a couple of times and I think the Mrs has it on Facebook now for £3000.
Bearing in mind there is another with exact same mileage in our village for £2750, but reading through their ad it has run out of mot, and think she dropped it from 5k when it had a ticket.
Also contacted a local mini specialist (my wife’s business partner bought an identical one ours from him, kept it a couple of years and sold it back to him a few months ago for £750 less than she paid him for it) to see if he was interested, but he said he wasn’t after he looked at the ad we put up. He mentioned mot history but it only had an advisory for front tyres and we had those replaced before posting the advert so I don’t think he read it and just isn’t interested in selling it this time of year.
Secondhand market is all over the place at the moment. As you've said, many cars are having to drop prices and still aren't moving. Whereas I've been keeping my eye on Lexus ISF values, for example, as a potential future purchase and they just seem to being go up, up, up. Whether they are actually selling for the asking price remains to be seem. It's almost as if sellers are getting desperate to cash in their assets for as much as possible, whereas buyers have far less to spend. Could be a potential crash in the next 6 months as sellers can no longer sit and wait for a buyer but instead need cash ASAP.
Secondhand market is all over the place at the moment. As you've said, many cars are having to drop prices and still aren't moving. Whereas I've been keeping my eye on Lexus ISF values, for example, as a potential future purchase and they just seem to being go up, up, up. Whether they are actually selling for the asking price remains to be seem. It's almost as if sellers are getting desperate to cash in their assets for as much as possible, whereas buyers have far less to spend. Could be a potential crash in the next 6 months as sellers can no longer sit and wait for a buyer but instead need cash ASAP.
Tbh to me it feels like the "everything bubble" is finally popping, which IMO can only be a good thing.
For various reasons, I wouldn't mind massively selling my own WRX and getting something with four seats, but I suspect finding a buyer would be hard work for that one too, given that energy prices are through the roof, borrowing costs are through the roof, food + general inflation through the roof etc etc.
Surely a lot of the prices people were paying for things like STIs etc were financed by debt? Maybe it's just me, but I don't think I'd be able to go through the psychological pain of saving up say 15k cash (it's hard work, at least with a family etc etc), and then spunking it on a car - I don't think I'd be able to pull the trigger unless I could fool myself that it's only "300 a month" or whatever a personal loan would work out as (haven't looked, as I don't want one of them either ). Now that the debt-taps have been turned off / down a bit, it's harder to find buyers for our niche-cars, at least for the prices people were paying when the debt-taps where on full flow.
Having said that, I've been talking the used car market down for about 15 years by now, but _now_ it feels a bit different.
Yes just had new front near side wheel bearing fitted and a Fresh 12 months MOT i hope this helps, I have a protentional buyer tomorrow wish me luck. I am now asking for 8k which for condition and history is cheap in my eyes as to find a fresh import which goes and looks like this is at least 12 to 15k.
Last edited by ScoobyDuManny; 09 December 2022 at 04:50 PM.
Yes just had new front near side wheel bearing fitted and a Fresh 12 months MOT i hope this helps, I have a protentional buyer tomorrow wish me luck. I am now asking for 8k which for condition and history is cheap in my eyes as to find a fresh import which goes and looks like this is at least 12 to 15k.
Best of luck! Fwiw, that's the kind of price I'd be happy to pay for an FSTI as well, and I'm basically a complete cheapskate, so there must be people out there who will pay that and more for a good example
01 December 2022, 02:16 PM
JDM Subaru Forester STI Cant Sell!!
). Now that the debt-taps have been turned off / down a bit, it's harder to find buyers for our niche-cars, at least for the prices people were paying when the debt-taps where on full flow.