paulone

Hi to you all im looking into buying a used subaru will have about £7k to spend or £3k plus my E36 325i modded by Hartge.
Just looking for some advice im 40 so insurance shouldnt be to bad.
Obivousley i want the most i can get for me money but are there any that should be avoided.
Also do they all need to be run on premuim fuels ??
any help and advice would be more that welcome
Paul

Gutmann pug

Hi Paul.

Have a look on the for sale section of this forum. It will give you an idea what can be had for your money. UK cars, namely UK2000's are the only official UK car in your price brkt (210bhp ish). The higher BHP cars are all imports, WRX and STi (240-280bhp).

Yes scoobs need to be run on super unleaded at least. Some Jap imports need higher fuel again so octane booster is required. Oh and they are all pretty greedy on fuel so be prepared to be on first name terms with your local Optimax dealer.

I wouldnt worry too much about modded cars, most of them will have been played with before they get to the price bracket your looking at. Its one marque where std cars are very very rare.

Hope this gets you started.


Gary

Tidgy

Uk cars will be ok to run on normal fuel but optimax is recomended. imports can be a bit of a problem if they are not mapped for uk fuel, they will run on optimax with ocatain booster (someone jump in and correct me if i'm wrong). I recomend running even a uk car on optimax, most other premium fuels are crap.

as far as buying em, look around and don't buy the first one you find. You want it to have full service history (if you get an import you wont get that though) and a wallet of receipts for work done is always a bonus, they need alot of looking after so regular oil changes is required (around every 3 k if you wanna keep it in top condition). Underlying thing when buying any car, if in doubt walk away. Check weld seams for any obvious deformation, particularly rear end, i found a few that had gone backwards through walls when i looked for mine.

If your anywhere near the midlands, scoobyclinic is a good place to look/have it serviced etc theres alot of people on here who usethem and would never use anyone else. They sell and maintain cars and what they don't know aint worth knowing.

scooby11

I was in a similar position a few months back, however the used car market seems to have slowed down at the moment. For that price range, you can get a relatively sound MY99 UK model, which although is less poweful than the Jap Import equivalent - 210bhp vs 280bhp, will be cheaper on insurance and will have clean service records hopefully.

As mentioned above, a full service history is essential - servicing every 7,500 miles or 6 months whichever occurs earlier. Don't be put off by specialist service stamps as opposed to main dealer service stamps.

The less number of previous owners the better, especially if the current owner has recently bought it - that would suggest something may be wrong with it.

My advice would be to get a professional to check it out, or take someone along if youre not too sure. Take it for a longish test drive and make sure there is no sort of knocking noise on start up (cold start preferably).

If youre not a 100% comfortable about any particular car, or if something doesnt look right, WALK AWAY. These are expensive cars once things start to go wrong.

Any questions, just post up here, and people will be glad to help out.