demon_design

O.K just sold my car so have arounf £4.5K cash and want a scooby, whats the best to go for

UK
Import

What extras should I look for or try to avoid

and who is selling one :-)

Cheers Chris

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Does that £4.5k include your budget for insurance and/or servicing?

Depending on your circumstances, they could easily account for most of £4.5k in your first year alone, never mind buying the car.

mannyfold

an import is likely to be harder on the wallet but easier on the mind...

higher insurance need for o.b. possability of delays on some parts etc...

BUT once the above notions are over come then it is easy to appriciate the small yet satisfying extras both in the cabin and under the bonnet,

go forth seek, try, evaluate, then buy an import!

(or not)...the choice is yours.

ps mine's an import.

demon_design

insurance and parts dont worry me as coming from a skyline :-).

is the import really that much better than a uk model, how about resale value in the furture.

£4.5K is for the car insurance and serviceing will find some more cash for :-)

Shimy Type R

To be honest mate, if your buying a scoob for 4.5k you dont need to worry to much about loosing money when you come to sell it. And yeah the imports are better than a uk just for the extras and more power.

At 4.5k they wont be droping much in price for the for seeable future.

I buy and sell cars for a living and after selling 14 scoobys their the best used car seller ive ever had!

The only thing to worry about when spending that kind of money is whether or not the engines going to give way soon!!....

I hope this helps mate, and just in case, ive got a WRX scooby for sale with a brand new API engine in it, so no need to worry about forking out 2k for a rebuild in the next 1000 miles.

Send me a private message if your interested mate.

Cheers Shimy.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

You may well find that your choice is made for you by what's actually available. As with any car, buy the wrong one and it'll cost you big time - so look around and buy on condition rather than age or spec. You should be able to get a reasonably tidy early WRX or Turbo 2000 (UK), but although the WRX is more powerful, I wouldn't overlook a good UK car if you come across one within budget.

You'll be looking at specialist servicing and parts in either case, there's no warranty issue and depreciation will have slowed right down anyway, so from that point of view the traditional downsides of import ownership don't really apply. You will need to run octane booster in any Japanese spec import, so factor in the cost and hassle.

My advice? Buy the car with the best combination of mileage, condition and history you can find for the money, and don't worry about whether it's a UK or import.

mannyfold

strange i was thinking of the skyline as a posability in a few years as a (dare i say upgrade) just out of intrest why go the other way?

Keef69

Never do understand this! Mine, STI 3, has been run on Texaco SUL for 3 years and, since I got it, Optimax with no booster. I know Catwoman has run hers, MY96 WRX, for 3 years on normal unleaded and done the Gumball rally, reaching 140mph many times for sustained periods, with no problems at all. My opinion is, if you redline it all the time, it will go bang, as with most cars. But near the redline, you have lost all the torque anyway, so for acceleration, you are better changing up a gear well before the redline.

Go for an import, but make sure it has been looked after, oil changes/services etc.

demon_design

cheers for the advice guys :-)

Shimy says you pm box is full

Feffers

Hello mate,

I have been in exactly the same boat the last couple of weeks. I have just bought a MY96 WRX import for 5k, its done 50k miles and is in overall good condition. There are stacks of them out there so dont be tempted to get the first one you see and try and get a decent warranty as well. Infact if you do a search on my name you will see all the advice that i got back on this same subject.

There were a number of extra costs that I had to account for though which were...

500 quid tracker to keep the insurers happy. (on top of the 1500 quid premium...swines!)
500 quid on a service and cambelt change (which i recommend on an import as chances are theyll be no history).
60 quid Underseal (most new imports wont have this)

Unless your remapping the ecu as well (600ish quid) you will need to run an import on Shell optimax and Octane booster such as Nitrous Formula. (This is just what I have been told by numerous scooby owners. I have no first hand experience of this!!) Apparently a knocklink would be a good idea too.
Im a complete newbie to the wonderful world of scoobs and the above is what I have found in my very brief period of ownership.

Cheers

punkie

Just a matter of time before it let's go bud !!

Shimy Type R

Hi Demon,


Ive deleted some of my messages so you can send me a pm now mate.

Cheers Shimy.

Shimy Type R

sent you another pm demon.