gav888

Hi

Need advise please,
Im seriously thinking of getting a MY99/00 sport over a MY95/96 turbo, cos the sport is newer (better front end) and also has lower mileage and cheaper running cost compared with the turbo, but i do like the power of the turbo!! . Im not that fast a driver, dont really hammer my 325, so dont think i need the power of the turbo, and really only use it for getting to and from work and the odd fast drive on the weekend. BUT i do need a car that will corner well, (got beat by a galaxy last night on the bends in the wet , dodgy tyres on mine though, feels like driving on ice!!)

what im asking is, first of all, am i mad not to get a turbo, i can afford to run one (small ish) my car does 25MPG and the ins is only £150 higher a year, but worried about the high mileage or that the car older etc, (example, MY96/97 turbo for about £7000 will have over 90,000mls but a MY00 sport will have about 40,000mls), and also would like a house next year!! (depending on house prices etc)

And also what cars can you keep up with in a sport, im not talking about the rally monsters (they will out do most cars), just talking about normal cars like VR6 or GTI6 or Golf GTI etc.

Thanks for the advise in advance guys n girls!!!

chrisp

Personally I wouldnt buy an impreza unless it was turbocharged. The sports have the extra weight of the AWD but only 125bhp. With that sort of power I would look at a FWD car IMHO. You could for example get a V6 Mondeo Ghia X/ST24/ST200 with all the extra for that sort of money.

Dave East

Hi gav888!

I've got a Sport - and it's great! Ok, so it's not going to win many drag races, but get it in some bends and it will embarrass some seriously tasty exotica! (e.g. out corner Porshe 911 in the bend in the wet, but get swallowed, chewed up, crunched and spat out on the next straight!)

The Sport is a good option, especially as it's low milage. I currently get around 25-29mpg (roughly 250-300 miles per tank, which is about 50litres). As for keeping up with other cars, it certainly will not be left for dead by many other 2.0l cars. Add in the nature of real life driving i.e. bends, corners and greasy roads, and the Sport can hold its own with most things.

Unfortunatley, yes the Turbo blows the Sport away - no contest. But the Sport is a great car in it's own right. Coupled with the fantastic Scooby handling and gorgeous sounding engine I would say that if a turbo is unfeasable then the Sport is a great second choice!

If you want any more of my ramblings on the Sport drop me an e-mail.

All the best, Dave.

UKScoobGS

Gav,
If you look at for sale section im selling my 97 UK saloon for trade price £5500, this car has FSSH you could not find better.
Just bought a bugeye.

ps Sport is a good car but whats the point, my uk scoob does 30mpg on motorways and has been a great car.
Cheers
Gordon

Nexuas

Cough Cough, don't think so? Ask the three sports that I know went on the midwales run at the weekend, they all seamed to keep up fine. Speak to TSL and they will tell you that a sport does not have to be an underdog to a turbo.

As an idea, mine is an auto and so has a second or so slower 0-60 time. It is about the same if not slightly faster than a Mark 1 Golf GTI. I assume it was standard, but from a standing start, we where fairly equal up to 80MPH, and then we had a roundabout, I was able to brake MUCH later, and exited the roundabout about 4 car lengths in front, and belive me he was still trying.

Horses for courses. If you are a good driver, you can get as much out of a sport as a poor/average driver in a turbo.

There are small power gains to be made by some slight modding, a induction kit and aftermarket back box can give you about 131BHP

welshy28

Get a Turbo mate, you will only regret it.

talizman

iTrader: (1)

I thought the earlier Sports had 150 bhp?

matty01

nexuas, how can a sport with nigh on 100 bhp less keep up with a turbo ,bends excepted?,just doesn't add up unless you're pootling about.

hades

Round a circuit, you can probably get a lot more. Driver ability on twisty roads and circuits is a lot more important than a few bhp. Anyway, to be honest, you can't use all 280bhp from a WRX/STi/modded UK scoob for sustained periods on public roads, probably not even all 215bhp from a UK car. You may find that on some cross country runs the sports are more fun, in a strange kind of way, as you can drive them pretty much flat out. BUT for example, there are A road gaps where I can safely overtake, which you wouldn't consider in a sport. In a straight line, sports feel pretty underwhelming (in an average 1.8 - 2.0 repmobile kind of way), and the chassis comes alive better with more power. All IMHO. Horses for courses.

logiclee

No 125bhp as far as I'm aware. Only the latest Jap spec VVT non turbos are 150bhp.

I agree the Sport is a good car, my boss had one before he had a go in my Series McRae, he is now on his second Turbo.

Sport's do feel well built and handle well but on a B road run to one of our suppliers with me and my boss in his sport we could only just keep up with our I.T. guys Focus Zetec 2.0ESP. The Focus was just as quick through the bends and quicker on the straights. The 4X4 doesn't let you carry that much more entry speed into a bend and the sport doesn't have the ability to blast out of the bends like a Turbo, you just get to put the power on that bit earlier than the 2WD cars.

So thats the sort of performance your looking at. The only time your going to be quicker is if you loon about in the wet.

My personal opinion echo's what has been said already earlier in thread. If you decide not to go for the Turbo I would look at something like an ST24 V6 Mondeo for your £7000.

Cheers
Lee

Bonehead

At the end of the day what are you going to be happier with?

The newer Sport looks slightly better (I prefer the later classics)and will be a bit easier on the wallet but, the turbo has the bo**ocks that cant be beat.

Ask yourself, what are you going to be prefer driving everyday.

Buy what makes you happy - simple as that

Just dont listen to Welshy!

I know him.....

Tony

LB4

I agree with Hades that a sport will be fun more of the time in everyday driving, as you can use all/most its performance for much longer periods.
I find i am driving my turbo around off boost for probably something like 75% plus of the time.
If you must have an Impreza but don't want/can't afford a Turbo then go for it.

Gary

Silver Scooby Sport

iTrader: (15)

Try here

http://www.imprezasport.net/

Sports site..........

I am on my second sport and its pretty damn good ......
If someone wants to give me some extra cash,
I'll buy a turbo then lol

I've had a classic on a Y plate now i have a Bugeye and what a difference in the two.........
Test driven both yet by chance ???? ( Turbo & Sport )
Simon

[Edited by Silver Scooby Sport - 12/2/2003 11:06:34 PM]

Silver Scooby Sport

iTrader: (15)

Just an after thought, with the Turbo being such the performance car it is having driven a couple of WRX's and the new STI 8 myself.... it is quite an eye opener to say the least, to get some experiance of the Impreza the Sport is not a bad starting block, it gets you used to the handling and driving charactoristics
( spelling ? ).......
I am sure some of you guys will agree...... if you can pick a good one up after 12 months upgradeing to a Turbo you should be able to get a good deal ??

Simon

[Edited by Silver Scooby Sport - 12/2/2003 11:13:54 PM]

gav888

thanks for the advise everyone,

I wasnt gonna change my bm, but its not what i thought, you read all about how great the bmw E36 325 is, how well it handles etc, i dont think so, maybe its just mine, but it dont handle!!! So te problem i have is, i love the look of the newer scoobys, MY97/98 on, and the sport has that look. but the turbo hs the power i like, i have driven a MY95 uk turbo about 2yrs ago, seats didnt support me, but the grip was out of this world!!

Idealy, i would like a MY98 scooby, with the sti spoilers and 17" wheels, but cannot afford that, so trying to get as close to that as poss, the turbo has it all, but looks older, the sport has the looks but not there performance!!! aaarrrhhh!!

How much does it cost to change the MY96 to look like a MY98???

Im gonna look at a few scoobys this weekend hopefully and test drive a sport and turbo and just put my mind to rest......

One of the main things about the turbo that puts me off (and it shouldnt) is reliability, my last 3 cars have had problems, and that really jars me off, i dont like a car to have aby niggles or problems.

I guess, if someone said that nothing goes wrong with these cars appart from general service stuff, i wouldnt worry???

Aaarrrhhh, some one shot me for gods sake!!!

Sorry, being a real pain, i tend to do ALOT of research when buying something for this much money!!

scoobimax

Hi, we have both in the family - a MY96 (pre face lift classic) Sport wagon. Had that for about fours or so. This was my first sccoby and what a refreshing drive. Handling towered above 'normal' cars. Performance not bad if you rev high enough. Then about 18 months ago added a MY99 Turbo saloon to the fold alongside the sport.

Wow!!!! - the step up from the sport was like the step up form 'normal' car to the sport when we first got it. The only problem is that that step up quickly becomes the 'norm' and you feel you need a bit extra.

Conclusion you won't regret the sport, but once you get used to it and if you then test drive a Turbo you WILL want one, believe me.

Depending on age there shouldn't be a massive difference in insurance too. Perhaps £150 ish between the two for fully comp protected NCB cover on both cars. Can't see me moving from scoobies for a while yet!!

Hope that helps.

Cheers.

Max

PS should proof read before submitting, save me editing so soon!
[Edited by scoobimax - 12/5/2003 12:43:11 AM]

[Edited by scoobimax - 12/5/2003 12:44:47 AM]

smb1

Will probably let my98 Turbo classic go fer a small premium over £7k.....tee hee...make us an offer!

pjmc

I am the same as Scoobymax, ive had a MY97 sports wagon for 3 years and always thought it was a great car and in July got me a MY99 turbo saloon....the difference in performance is awsome.. but that said i wont trade my sport in for anything as the all-round package you get is,in my opinion far better then anything else out there when you think about the handling ability ect, and the power is more than enough to keep most car's at bay. Get a sport then use it as a spring-board to a turbo that way you will appreciate both.

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

The sport is a great car. It goes very well. It's performace isn't far off my puma which has the same power and only 2 wheel drive The handling is excellent too. You can mod them up nicely and if you aren't really that interested in the performance side but want a brisk, safe, nice car then for the money you can't beat the sport.

Paul

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

Oh and go and test drive one

chrisp

Just DONT ( trust me on this ) test drive a JDM classic WRX or STI .

Jamesemt

If you buy a sport, you may wonder what it would have been like with a Turbo...

St Andy

sports are total ****, get a turbo

scooby-tc

iTrader: (2)

If you do decide to buy a sport please dont try to make it look like a turbo because bottom line is its never going to be anything like a turbo.Putting turbo bonnets ans big spoilers on a sport is the kind of thing max power saxo/nova brigade do.Sports are best left the way they were intended IMO and dont whatever you do get a pre 99 sport unless u like lada interiors and more plastic than a kinder surprise factory id defo go the turbo route of if not as the others have suggested a more powerful fwd car such as focus
Imagine how u would feel being left at the lights by a Montego countryman estate
<preparing for a slating>

[Edited by scooby-tc - 12/5/2003 4:11:48 PM]

scoobynutta555

Amen, brother.

matty01

Just to echo what's allready been said,if you decide not to go for the turbo and aren't stuck on having an impreza then i'd go for a quicker car than the sport for my money.BUT my advice is ..go for the turbo impreza.. mine still makes me smile everytime i drive it (and i've had it a year now)...,the only other vehicle that did that was the fireblade
Life's too short,get the turbo,NOW,THAT'S AN ORDER ,there you've got no excuses now,you won't regret it mate
...edited to say ...and the montego countryman from the lights scenario would break your heart if it ever happened.Look here http://www.syclone.freeserve.co.uk/rivals.htm
and find the impreza(ss1/4 14.3 @95mph) [although a wrx 222bhp is very easily acheived from a uk car] and see what 'company' you keep on the list and scroll down all the cars that are slower and then tell me you don't want

[Edited by matty01 - 12/5/2003 5:39:25 PM]

BR1CKY

my95 wrx turbo wagon,the best thing going,graet fun turbos i would be lost with out mine.

Italian Jobber

Ah ha, the old sport/turbo question???

Fortunatly I have both, a 03WRX and a 2001 Sport Special.

I have driven both considerably and can say that the turbo only really outperforms my sport on long stretches of open road where the turbo can really kick in. Around town the sport is a more refined drive.
If I were in your boots and not wanting the woosh bang etc I'd go for a sport special (turbo spec without the turbo, ideal!!) Another big advantage is the sport does not attract the same crowds of wana-be boy racers and thieving gits as the turbo definatly does!!!

BR1CKY

there is just something about the turbo,idont think i would feel right in a sport unless it had a scoop on it lol.

gav888

Thanks again

One thing that has kinda put a stop on the sport thing is this post:

"Sport's do feel well built and handle well but on a B road run to one of our suppliers with me and my boss in his sport we could only just keep up with our I.T. guys Focus Zetec 2.0ESP. The Focus was just as quick through the bends and quicker on the straights. The 4X4 doesn't let you carry that much more entry speed into a bend and the sport doesn't have the ability to blast out of the bends like a Turbo, you just get to put the power on that bit earlier than the 2WD cars".

Im not a fan of the focus, unless its an RS, but is this dry and/or wet roads for this post?? i should hope its dry!! as
i though 4WD ruled in the wet??

So I have been doing loads of thinking, and made my mind up on a turbo, (shock horror) you only live once, and no regrets etc,

BUT THEN!!! one thing that has come to light about the turbo, is the servicing, didnt realise it was ever 6months i had read in a parkers guide that its every 15,000mls??? how wrong am i!!

So the 6monthly service, is it just oil and filter, and does it costs about £100??, if so i can just live with that. And the cam belt and major is a 90,000 i think!! so will get one thats already had this done!! but whens the next major after 90,000???

I can also live with 25MPG, and i can live with the ins £760 comp. and tyres every years or so (do 8,000mls a yr) and pads and dics etc

Anything else???