peteclem

Hi guys n gals,

Ok, the time has come in my young life where i can finally afford to buy (and insure) and lovely Subaru Impreza...woohoo - i cant wait.

I'm looking in the second hand market, circa £10k and wondered what sort of things i should be looking for before i buy. I have recently looked at a standard V reg (2000) 2.0 Turbo, that looked very nice in blue. No obvious problems, paintwork good etc, but it has had 4 owners in the past 4 years. This does seem quite high, and i wondered if there were any standard problems that occur with this car.

Cheers for any info/advice you can offer on this topic. As much as i want to rush in and buy the first scooby i see, i really should make sure that i'm not throwing my cash away (if thats possible buying an impreza!)

Cheers again,

Pete

easyrider

First off it is generally accepted that it is best to have full history.97/98 cars suffered(but not exclusively) with piston slap,which you will know if its got it by starting it from cold,its not really a problem,especially if you cant hear it knocking after a couple of mins after starting/driving-so if you are going to look at a car,insist that it hasnt been started for at least 5 hours,if you do get there and there is any warmth in the engine then visit it again later.Check through all the gears throught the revrange,syncros can be a bit of a problem(cruntch into gear),but can quite often be cured by a simple oil change.Also check the tyres,as they can sometimes need a full set at a time.
Get a data check.
If youre not sure what you are looking for,then its probably best taking someone that does know,or get a vehicle inspection.
Generally speaking though,the age of car youre looking for,you shouldnt find many probs-especially if its std mechanically and ideally with a good history.
You will probably find that if you buy from a scooby enthuiast(sp?),that it has been well kept.

Hope this helps.

easy

SiPie

My advice ......

If you find a car that's totally bog standard then don't think great an unabused scoob.... but think

Wow... that's been running at least 300bhp for most of it's life and seen every track day possible and has been returned to standard just to con me into thinking it's never been abused and all the mods have already been sold on Scoobynet to get the owner back some of his ludicrous outlay that he's spent since he caught the modding bug

You did ask

Yass

Hi Pete,

I'm no expert as I've only had mine for about 6 months. I paid £12k for a UK W reg. I wanted to be on the safe side and I know f**k all about car mechanics so I bought from a Subaru dealer. If you're buying privately, I would say that one risk is if the car has been modified poorly. This could lead to various problems that I'm sure some of the more knowledgeable guys here could tell you about. One of my mates at work bought an import that had been modified a lot, and the engine went pop after a few months.

If you get a good one I'm sure you'll be very happy with it. I've had no problems with mine. I'm now looking to fit a full exhaust system and remap the ECU. This should take it up to around 280BHP, which is still safe according to the experts.

Happy hunting.

FishDog

Hi,

Pete it is well worth it if you are not clued up on the mechanical side of things to pay £200 for the AA or RAC or whoever to go over the car for you , they will pick up any major faults like accident damage or abuse and will provide you with a full report , They will always find somthing wrong with the car even if it is not major like worn discs etc that will give you some ammunition for use when haggling on price. They will also as part of that price do a full data check on the car. I know a couple of hundred squid may be a lot to fork out but it could cost you a lot more in repairs mate.

Best of luck

davegtt

Do na HPI check, put a deposit down on a W reg motor on saturday, sunday morning checked it out it had been written off twice can u believe it no signs of accident damage at all. ohhh well. well worth the £42 and the deposit is coming back to me via a cheque