Poor Guy

im going to try and persuade my old man to trade in our GX for a WRX because he's really killing it. It handles great but theres not much power so hes always booting it through corners and generally riding it pretty hard. his philosaphy being its an impreza so itll do what the WRX on top gear did.

now there seems to have been a large drop in the price of 2002 WRXs since we were looking. wait, that was in 2002 duuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhh. must be the release of the mkIII stylie.

so my question is;
will the WRX be just as reliable as the GX?

oh and if driven below boost range will there be similar MPG? (mother has to drive it to work and is scared of turbos, to which my dad said "well dont go above 3.5krpm" and she went in a tizz silly woman, rev limiter maybe needed)


cheers

Peanuts

iTrader: (15)

dont know about the reliability issues but I would guess that things like compression would differ.
maybe not.
If your ol` lady is gets a good alarm with *valet mode* installed I think this acts as a limiter.
daft tho`.

OllyK

Dunno if this will help but...

No reason why a WRX should be un-reliable if it is looked after; don't thrash it when cold, let the turbo cool before turning it off and get it serviced regularly.

The bigger issue will be the cost of running it. The insurance will be more, MPG - I have an MY00 and most of my mileage is to and from work at circa 50-60mph with the odd swift get away at a round about etc and I am lucky to get low 20's. Push on a bit and that can drop considerably.

As for keeping the revs below 3000 or so (turbo starts to wind up at about 3100 in mine), the car struggles to pull the skin off a rice pudding at that and much below 2000 and it is starting to labour so you don't have much of a rev range to play with.

The fact that you are looking at a Turbo Charged car means there is inherantly more complexity and so more to go wrong. One of the big issues can (I repeat CAN) be Det/pinking leading to blown engines, there is a thread running on this at the moment (this seems to be mainly an MY99/00 issue however).

I am not trying to disuade you particularly, I love my MY00 turbo, but go in to it with your eyes open. Have a good scan through this BBS and see what sorts of issues arise and also comparisons between turbos and non turbos.

HTH

Poor Guy

hmmmmmmmmmmmm blown engine doesnt sound so good.

cooling the turbo. whats this about?

OllyK

If you have been out on a run and have been on boost, i.e. Turbo working hard, then switch the engine straight off, the turbo is so damn hot it fries the oil in it. Done repeatedly the oil turns to sludge, clogs things up, knackers the turbo bearings and in turn requires a new turbo.

There are a number of solutions. Keep the car off boost for the last couple of miles before you park up. By a turbo timer which keeps the car ticking over when you take the keys out for a couple of mins before turning it off automatically (this options scares the cr4p out of me). Finally just sit where you have parked up for a couple of mins before turning off. I usually go for the first option.

IN THE STICKS

cooling the engine ......after a blast keep the engine running before turning it off ,this cools the oil around the turbo stopping it 'cooking' ....or somthing like that anyway

Dave

OllyK

Nope blown engine is not good, but n/a or injection cars are not immune either. Crap fuel and thrash them and they can pink or just if the timing has been badly set up.

IN THE STICKS

Ollyk ...beat me to it ...with a better explaination too

Poor Guy

and what say you mr in the sticks?

OllyK

IN THE STICKS - think you got the point across just fine and in fraction of the number of words!

Suppose I could have said

Turbo...whiiiizzzz...hot...stop...oil boil...bang but they may be taking the pi$$

IN THE STICKS

LOL @OllyK

Poor Guy

so who here has bought a WRX and found problems with it.

alwong

I've not had any problems with my 01 WRX but i don't run it in boost when the engine is cold and I always leave it running for a minute before turning the engine off. I guess its like any car. You can be lucky with some and have problems with others, regradless how you treat it!!!

OllyK

I have a MY00 UK turbo - UK equivalent of a WRX but not as grunty. As I understand the WRX was only available as a JDM import until 2001 (Waits to get shot down in flames).

So far I have not had any problems, but not had it long. MAF sensors playing seem to be an issue on 99/00 models but other than that there don't seem to be any major problems that re-occur.

It is like anything, if you are aware of the issues and take care then no reason why you should have problems. Be aware you may get Det and consider a Knocklink, not too expensive to buy and easy to install. Take care of your Turbo - warm up and cool down periods etc and get it serviced regularly and you should be fine.

There are no certainties with cars, choose any make and model and you will always be able to find somebody that has had some kind of major problem, but with engineering standards today, they are thankfully reasonably few and far between.

The biggest issue you have to consider is the cost. Not just the additional purchase costs, but the ongoing costs:
1) Insurance
2) Fuel bills
3) Regular servicing - every 10K miles or so depending on version
4) Expensive 60K service with the CAM belts etc needing doing
etc.

But as pay back you get loads of smiles per mile.

My suggestion is read the posts on here in General and do some research, loads of info posted and that's what I did before mine and decided for the AWD and Turbo Performance etc I was prepared to put up with poor MPG, rattles, plasticy interior etc.

If after what you have read you are still interested go and test drive and I promise you, that'll seal it for you.