Well from my own personal experience I owned a MY00 from new up until a few months ago and I wonder how the Impreza was ever voted 1st in the JD power survey.

First of all the build quality is not what I expected of a 21 grand car. First of all the clutch juddered when cold even after I had a new clutch fitted under warranty. Next it needed a new alarm fitted (admittedly not Subaru's fault as it is a Sigma alarm). The drivers side electric window was making a horrible clonking noise and it turned out all the bolts holding the electric window mechanism in had worked loose. Paint quality was crap and even though I was super careful it still had loads of stone chips and scratches (my fault for buying DBM I suppose)

Apart from that the interior had so many rattles that it sounded like a 10 year old Ford Escort.

Once the dealer I bought the car from had my money (seems that selling subarus is such a drag and they only like you if you buy a lotus) They treated me like complete ****. I did however start using Cheam Motors and they were excellent.

Poor fuel economy, high servicing costs, stupid insurance means it fully deserves it's 52nd place...

Edited to say I had forgotten about it being a Hesitating pile of sh!te too!


[Edited by JoeyDeacon - 5/1/2002 12:08:04 PM]

 

I was as surprised as RoShamBo, regarding how far it had slipped. And although a fall could definitely be predicted following the constant dealer issues that seem have arised over the last 12 months or so, 52nd does seem a long long way down if compiled in the same way to previous years!

Edited due to grammar being of a similar standard as Subaru build quality

[Edited by Disco - 5/1/2002 12:12:55 PM]

 

I hope this gives Subaru Dealerships a large hot poker up the arris. Since buying the Scoob, I have been disgusted with the service I receive and I brought the car for this wonderful service that they all have splattered over their shop windows. The car isn't all that great either, not happy at all.
Sort you self out Subaru.

[Edited by HELLOM8 - 5/1/2002 12:35:52 PM]

 

All I can say is there are a lot of disgruntled Impreza owners in the UK. The Impreza came 52nd in the league table, though Legacy and Forester scored better with 13th= and 15th overall.

Obviously something is behind this, anybody got any clues?

 

**** service perhaps ??? not getting a decent courtesy car ??? list is long me thinks ??

 

How do you go from 1st/2nd consistantly to 52nd in one year ?
Sure I can believe/expect a small drop but not this dramatic.
Makes me wonder how its all compiled & the validity of it all.

Ro.

 

One word.

Complacency.

Steve

 

I'm sorry but you can't criticise JD Power for the results if they are not to your liking, as they rely on responces from owners to compile the survey. They must have received 50+ responces to include the a model in the survey.

I asked the question because for three years a Subaru topped the charts 1998+1999 Impreza and 2000 Legacy, now there isn't one in the top ten. They haven't changed the survey method, but the result sure has changed, so something isn't pleasing people the onwers. By the way the age of cars for this survey is for those registered between Sept 1999- Aug 2000.

 

I'd say the original results were due to the fact the car was bought by enthusiasts who were fiercly brand loyal and didn't mind the odd bad service day. Todays average owner (who doesn't post on this board) is becoming more Mr. Repomobile and the results are more indicitive of the true qualities of the car.
Chuck

 

Yeah what Chuck said

 

Yeah what chuck said too...

 

Last years JD Power showed the Impreza slipping as well, which was probably not surprising as it covered the '98 piston slapper.

Agree with the comments that the biggest change has been the type of owner that now buys the car.

 

Sorry to say, but the way the survey is run has changed. Now there are 100,000 survey forms sent out by JDPower in conjuction with the DVLA to owners of 3 year old cars. When JDPower started in the UK, it was reliant on viewers of Top Gear writing in and asking for a survey form. So it now covers a far wider range of owners, rather than just the enthusiasts who watched Top Gear.
Specifically regarding the Impreza, 3 or 4 years ago most owners would have been enthusiasts who put up with the "niggles" to enjoy the performance (mindset - "this is a 5.3 sec 0-60 car for only £20k, wow!", whereas a lot of current owners who were impressed with the 1st place JDPower rating are not so tolerant of these "niggles" (mindset - "this is a £20k car, and there's loads wrong with it"). They're comparing it against the £20k BMW/Audi they could have had, which probably wouldn't have had the same quality problems. It's all about expectations. They're not comparing it against other 5.3sec 0-60 cars which they'd have to pay at least £35k to own, or put up with only two seats and no roof.

 

JoeyD

The above should not enter into the equation. Surely you don't buy this type of performance car for the above. If you enter into the deal with open eyes you should not complain about what you knew before you bought it If you entered into the deal blind to the above then you should have done your research

I do agree with your other comments though. Bad workmanship, aftercare and dealer reticence to put things right should lop down the overall score. Do we actually know what the sample size was? If this was small \ minimal or not cross sectional it would squew the result

Steve

 

Steve 555 - sadly all of those categories are in the equation and are what JDPower scores the cars on. However, if you or did the survey, we probably wouldn't think that 20mpg was all that bad (compared to say 15mpg on other car with equivalent performance), or that servicing every 7500 miles was bad (compared to an EVO at 4500), or that £500 a year on servicing was terribly expensive (compared with Porsche/Ferrari). But it isn't just Scoobynetters doing the survey, it's all sorts of other people whose last car was a top-of-the-range Mondeo, and they're comparing these costs with that. They (stupidly, wrongly or whatever) imagine you can get near-supercar performance from a £20k car that returns 40mpg, needs no servicing but never goes wrong, and costs bugger-all to insure.

 

Steve

It does for JD Power! I believe that a year or so ago they changed the format to include such things as fuel economy - never an Impreza strong point! Since that time, the Scoob started to drop done the survey as the fuel economy had a heavy weighting against it.

Personally, I'm on my second Scoob. I've done a total of over 57000 miles in both cars with only regular servicing. I done a few track days, taken the old car to Nurburgring and the new car to Spain without any major problems (I had the clutch on the old car replaced under warranty).

I still rate the car as the performance bargin of the last two decades. I suspect a lot does have to do with people's perception. View it as a performance car and you can forgive it a few rattles. If you are stepping from a 20K BMW or similar then you might it see it differently.

I guess I've also been lucky that I have used to outstanding dealers - Cheam Motors and Lavender Hill

As with all surveys (good or bad) read them with a large pinch of salt.

Chris

 

Well, I have never used a dealer as I have always had an Sti, so my major gripe is that the short-sighted morons are missing out on a great revenue stream by refusing to service Jap imports. They should take a leaf out of Mitsubishi's book. Mind you, I don't really care as I get better service for less at specialists like Scoobysport. Kind of shows the attitude IM has though. Personally I have found the Jap cars to be better built too, weird.

 

Agree with Chuck also

 

Steve 555,

I would imagine that like most people I bought the car because it did 0-60 in well under 6 seconds and cost 20K. At the time it was easily the most performance for the money.

Who else had a test drive and as soon as they felt the turbo kick in had to have one?? The sensible part of my brain switched off and I bought one.

Once the Novalty wears off you start to notice all the little problems with the car such as rock hard suspension, crap interior, rattles, juddering clutch etc. On my 5 mile journey to work each morning I spent more time being annoyed with how harsh and unrefined the car was than being impressed by the performance.

After a little while longer the next thing that starts to niggle at you is just how much the car is costing to run. Worst thing I ever did was sit down and work out exactly how much the car was costing me to run (depreciation, fuel, insurance, servicing, tyres, interest on the finance) and the results really surprised me. I had been telling myself that it was worth it as I wasn't really sure how much it was costing me beforehand as it was all in little chunks. When I had a final monthly total I felt a little sick...

I bought the car because of all the brilliant reviews the car had received in magazines over the years. Of course if you lent me the car for a week and I could thrash it because it wasn't mine I would tell you that it is an excellent car and for the money nothing (at the time) could touch it.

It's only when you have to live with the car day in day out you realise what it is really like. This is just something I can't explain to people who have never owned a car like an Impreza and they think I am completely mad for getting rid of it.

I assume the JD power survey is now made up of a cross section of owners now. Before you had to actually volunteer to do the survey which ment only real enthusiasts (Hence the Imprezas good result), OAPs with very low expectations (Hence how the Corolla got such a good result) and p!ssed off rep drivers who were not allowed a BMW 318 (Hence why the Vectra did so bad) did the surveys. Unless you were really, really happy with the car or really, really p!ssed off with it you didn't request a survey.

 

Mungo \ Chris,

Point taken and well put. It just reflects then the flaw in the survey if they are trying to compare apples with pears!

Like you say, a pinch of salt springs to mind. However, from reading the thread there have been a few 'nightmares' with dealers. I would also be Pi$$ed given the same circumstance.

Good debate

Steve

 

Were can I get all the results from guys.

Daz.

 

Joey,

Accept what you are saying and watch this BBS. I pick mine up within the next 2 weeks (STi7). Give me 6 months and I may just be saying the same.

Take one for a test drive and just have to have one...LoL

Spot on. Thats what got me

No offence intended by your perception

Steve

 

I had a TVR before the Scoob (which I still love...) and the cheap servicing, comfort, economy & performance of a smooth riding STi V which has a rattle free interior and has had no faults in 3 years has been a complete pleasure. Damn even the wipers work, and it has aircon and ABS & airbags!

If you don't like something about the car you can always chuck some money at it (leather seats, flash dash, softer or harder suspension etc) and still end up with change from a comprable M3 type spec. Either that or just buy an M3 in the first bloody place!

Individual perceptions ehh...

D

 

As far as I understand JD Power measurers peoples expectations of a car. People might buy a Skoda not expecting much at all and be pleasantly suprised that it didn't break down every 5 minutes meaning the car would be rated quite highly. On the other hand a Ferrari customer who has just spent £150,000 would expect everything to be perfect and rate the car poorly for any minor shortcoming that many car owners would overlook or not even notice in their vehicles.

Anyway, the media has hyped up the Impreza so much in recent years that it has become literally a dream for many people to own. After a couple of years of saving they might have just got their hands on the car and become bitterly disappointed because they had built it up to be so much in their heads that it could never live up to their expectations.

Also all the competitor companies are getting much better I think and Subaru is basking in past glories with both its new designs and customer service.

 

SIDC says the first models were introduced in the UK 1994/95, I'm sure I read somehwere it was first introduced in 1992 in Japan (I may be wrong). So what we are talking about is an aging car.

I agree the whole dealer thing doesn't help, my garage BCL Gatwick in Crawley couldn't have been better, but the garage I used before was very poor. Add to the fact that the 3 year warranty is becoming more common and most cars now have a 10k service interval you can begin to see where the cracks appeared.

Certainly overall I was delighted with the quality of my old MY99. It was functional and comfortable and gave me huge amounts of driving pleasure..............

Until I got hold of an MY02 for a couple of days as a courtesy car! When I got back in my MY99 it was the first time I'd though to myself, this is all a bit dated and poor.

So now I have a shiny new MY02, and I think Subaru have gone along way to addressing the old pitfalls. It's a smoother less harsh ride, acceleration is less likely to upset the mother in law and everything inside is higher quality, things like map reading lights and an interior light that fades when you shut the doors. It's still not AUDI class, but my brother just paid £5k more (25%!!!) for a 1.8T and it aint as fun.

JD Power for the new shape will be interesting... especially if IM give the dealers a kick up the butt!!!
Dave

 

IIRC there are around 100 MY92 cars floating around. These were Japanese models.

The first UK ones were the 1994/95 models

 

I don't pay too much attention to JD Power.

I bought the Subaru because I like driving hard and although there are many 'apparently reliable' cars on the road, I would like to see the figures on how reliable these cars are when you thrash the bollox off them day in, day out. I have had my MY00 for two years and it is the only car that has remained problem free. The day-to-day Fords, Audis and BMWs (of a similar price) may be reliable, but if you drive them hard, most of them will start to suffer. At the moment I cannot afford an M3 or similar, so I have a choice of buying a 'pretty', 'boring' Mondeo-type car or I can have a Subaru with it's crappy interior, squeaks and rattles - oh and its devastating handling, performance and attitude, not to mention the fact it comes with four doors!

The Subaru Impreza Turbo satisfies a particular type of person. This type of person is not in the '£50K for a car' price bracket, but still wants to know what REAL performance feels like without compromising on practicality (4 doors, large boot).

I have not regretted buying mine because I did my research and I knew exactly what to expect.

JD Power - How can you rate all cars equally in any survey? It may be worth mentioning that Which? magazine only include Subaru Imprezas in some of their surveys - the one's which are relevant to that type of car.

I know let's compare the running costs of a VW diesel and a P1, I wonder, which will win?

My opinion - Pointless.