I see Motorpoint are advertising a new STI at £20,999, seems a great deal, has anybody used this company and are the cars UK spec.

 

Yes they are the same as the uk cars with 3 year warrantys

 

Are you sure about that juggers ? when i looked at motorpoint the subaru's where imported from Malta, but having said that i have used them myself i brought a clio 172 sport which was a good price, only downside was when I came to sell most UK dealers were taking the ****, even though the Clio was sourced from europe and had a full UK warrentee. In the end I sold it to a UK subaru importer in cambridge and got a far price, and brought a UK Spec Subaru from them.

 

No they are not UK cars, i looked at getting one. The cars are shipped in from abroad and you are usually the second owner. The warranty that you get is not from Subaru its Motorpoints own warranty. My local Subaru dealer said this is fine unless you get a recall on the motor, in which case yours wont be recalled. There is also a place at Acrington called Alliance thats selling them at the same price, he told me they came with Subaru warranty but again this is apparently untrue.

 

If losing huge wads of cash is your concern I'd seriously consider buying a low milage 6 month old one from someone privately...they already lost the most massive amount of cash on them - ask me how I know!!..(not as bitter as that sounds I'm just saying this is one way to go!)

For the record : From NEW in the first 2 years based on around 24000miles including the cost of depreciation,fuel, ins, tryres and servicing these things could cost you upto £1.50 per mile to run...An import would work out about upto £1.20 per mile

They become roughly equal by about year 5.

 

The import is worth less when you sell it remember, but if you plan on keeping it for a while its not a problem.

 

As I seem to recall, the most important aspect is where they source the car. It's not whether it's from Europe, but whether it's from within the EU.

I know of one poor sod a couple of years back that bought one sourced from a non EU country, and he was facing a 3k bill for an engine rebuild on a 3 month old car.

That said, do your homework, and you should be fine.

Josh L

 

Let's try and post some facts rather than rumour.

I purchased an STI from Motorpoint in April this year. The cars are EU imports to basically UK spec, mine came from Malta.

The advertised price is not what you end up paying, by the time you've added a decent alarm, registration fee, road tax, tracker etc you end up about £900 more than the ticket price.

They are covered by Subaru warranty but the car does have to be registered with IM before they will do any warranty work. Motorpoint do this for you but it takes a few weeks and if you have a problem before the car is registered with IM they will not authorise any warranty work. In my case the car developed a minor(but irritating) problem and the Subaru dealer was very helpfull but it may be a different story if the engine blew up before IM had registered the car on their system.

You are not the 1st owner of the car. Motorpoint register it a few days before you collect it. This makes it much easier for them as they don't have to mess about waiting for your insurance certificate.

I found Motorpoint very easy to deal with, much easier than conventional dealerships and they gave me a better px price than the Subaru dealer offered.

They were very good when IM wouldn't authorise the required warranty work until they had processed the relevant paperwork. Motorpoint told me to get the work done and they would pay for it. The car was still driveable so I waited.

Would I buy another car from Motorpoint? Yes, taking the px into account I saved about £7K and there's no way an import will be worth £7K less than a UK car at 2 or 3 years old when I come to sell it and I can put up with the minor inconveniences for that sort of saving.

 

Well the EU MY05 (UK spec with better seats) I got from Alliance does come with a subaru warranty albeit backed by the CYPRUS dealer (actually better than uk warranty as it covers transmission fotr 5 years). The car was registered with IM in the UK for warranty purposes the only difference is that Cyprus have to authorise any warranty work. Oh and you have to buy your own locking wheel nuts (£25) and have cat1 alarm fitted. Service intervals may be more frequent but is that so bad?

 

I got my 06WRX from all brands new in Hull and i am the first registered owner (although it was a bit of a pain to do as far as i can gather) and it is an import from Malta. Also any Subaru sold in the EU has a pan-european warranty so it is covered in the UK once registered as previously stated. If its not too far to go you could try the same place, its worth a call at least. Where are you from?

 

Why are service intervals more frequent if its the same car as the UK?

 

It's all about the jap spec cars

 

Although the EU cars are the same as UK ones supplying country sets the service intervals to reflect climate etc and as its the supplying country that honours the warranty you have to stick to their service schedule (unless they permit you to follow the UK service intervals. Basically mine works out at 6 monthly services.

 

Bought a Pug 106 GTi from them a few years ago. I was told it was a UK car, it was not. It was also the old revision of the GTi, whereas all the UK car on that plate were the newer version.

I missed out on a leather interior, some exterior styling, brake pad warning indicators and a few other items that I forget about. They also said that the car came with locking wheel nuts....it did not as the useless sods lost the keys and drilled them off (they refused compensation).

Initally its history seemed fine, but after an engine failure various things crawled out of the woodwork that showed I had basically been missold the car. I sued, they choose to settle out of court.

They are the facts of the case, my opinion is that they are a useless bunch of t0ssers that refuse to return calls, give you the run around, and I will never set foot onto any of their showrooms again.

Btw, yes, I do feel better after saying that

P.S. if your budget will stretch to it, buy a JDM Impreza

 

I would recommend Alliance in Acrington or Litchfields in Tewkesbury over motorpoint any day. Both these companies have lots of knowledge in UK Spec EU imports.

They both have good reputations ...... unlike motorpoint.

You may pay a little more but its worth it and still a big saving over UK.

 

mate of mine is selling his sti10 for £20k with 3k's worth of mods

pm me if your interested

 

With my Cyprus car its 9000 or annually instead of 10000 or annually.

 

Is there such a thing as the STi 10??,thought nine was the last one??,

prob i am wrong, can't keep up with all the variants and new models these days,lol.

Mac

 

current is 10 mate, the blob eye was 8 and 9, although there was pretty much bugger all diff between the 2 lol

 

Ok mate, cheers

its murder all these models etc, why don't they just either keep it to a few mainstream models or get them all available to buy here.

JDM,Spec C, S202,3 and 4,now A line etc, just cant keep up LOL.

Mac.

 

Josh - all Subarus sold in Europe thro authorised Subaru dealers come with a 3yr europe wide warranty with cross-border validity - whether the source country is in the EU doesn't matter. Subaru Europe confirmed this to me last year. Probably too late for the poor sod you mention !!!

 

Thanks for all the advice. Might well have a look at Alliance or Litchfields. Do Alliance have a web address.
Can I ask what to expect for my STI Type UK 3years old with 28,000 miles.

 

Are you sure? My service booklet says 5000Km then 12 months/15,000km then 18months then 24months/30,000km then 30months etc....

 

Thought it was 4k worth of mods Tidg


Yep there sure is, and its MARV StiX who is selling on Midland scoobies

 

The service book covers all models sold by Subaru Cyprus and allows for extra services (I had this confirmed by Subaru cyprus)- the actual schedule is given in the handbook

www.alliancecarimports.co.uk

 

I bought a WRX wagon from motorpoint last year.

They are fine to deal with. Not much of a bedside manner when you go to pick it up, but simply businesslike.

Make sure before you set off that all the documents (Owners manual, two sets of keys and fobs and service book is all there) V5 will follow in the post with you as second owner.

Remember you will pay for road tax,(£190) Preparation fee (£68) and registration fee(£38) Locking wheel nuts (£25), Cat 1 Alarm (£350) and labour on your first 1000 mile service (£80) on top of their headline price. You also will not get the three year Subaru recovery service.

Service intervals are almost the same as UK cars. i.e 1000, 9000, 19000, 28000, 38000, etc etc. you don't have to keep to the Cyprus/Maltese service intervals as we are not driving in those conditions.

Just keep reminding yourself of the huge wedge you are saving. Much better than £3,000 of fuel vouchers that will probably be a right pain to use.

 

Yep just checked so its 9000k etc

 

ahh righto, wasn't eaxaclty sure, but hey well worth a gander and bag a bargin

 

MY01 is a 7, MY02 is an 8, MY03 is a 9, MY04 is a 10, MY05 is an 11, MY06 is a 12, so up to 12 if you have a JDM version, if you have a UK its just a type UK, no numbering otherwise you would have a 4 hence the reasoning they stopped numbering them after the version 6 due to the confusion it would cause to other parts of the world

Tony