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Comments
maybe not for some brilliant code writing folks. but where interactions are important the image of an expensive car is often important.
not saying i endorse that. but i think it is true.
would you rather go to a lawyer or consultant driving a 5 series or one driving a toyota camry? even a well kept one.
Later...
Eric
-mike
Last summer I assisted in hosting a huge corporate software review for our parent company (a huge multinational Forbes 50) and we had engineers and vice presidents from corporate headquarters, several of our divisions, and from clients as well. Every day at lunch I had someone lined up waiting to go to lunch with me in my MG, and it is just an inexpensive 2 seat roadster (in its day it was more like a Miata compared to AH and Jags.) Not one VP had any qualms about "image" with the wind blowing through his hair!
Steve
Steve Avon, Ohio, USA
1958 MGA Roadster http://my.en.com/~smorris/mga
1997 Ford F-150 http://my.en.com/~smorris/ford
2001 Audi A6 (Deb's drive - no web page)
2002 Subaru WRX Wagon http://homepage.mac.com/subaruwrx
and, your MG is one beauty of a unique car.
Heck, if you'd brought in a camel, they would have rode it with you too :-D
I like to think of the WRX as unique.
-Dave
-mike
As for professionals driving fancy cars, as the son of a physician and the husband of one, never ,ever pick the surgeon with the fancy car and the good bedside manners, you want the guy who drives some "sensible" car and may not have been to charm school, but when your life is on the line, he/she will be there any time of the day while the other guy will try take care of it by phone from home! The other guy in the Ferrari and nice suits also has higher boat payments which is why you suddenly need an operation real bad and real quickly when every other surgeon in town doesn't think so!
I dont condone living beyond your means ever. My point was only made in the consideration of professional obligations. I am sure there are people in fancy cars who cant truly afford their lifestyle and their car is an extravagant luxury. But the majority of luxury and/or exotic car owners I know in my industry live within their means.
And if your client is a "car guy" (or car gal as the case may be), they will certainly enjoy your WRX.
At my last company, a software firm, most of our executives drove Mercedes, BMW, a few Lexus. My boss was a true car enthusiast...while I have known him he has owned several Ferraris, the latest a 360 Modena which he had been on the waiting list for since the day it was started, a Porsche Cabriolet, a Rolls Corniche, a Lexus LS400, a Navigator, a Beetle, and a Volvo station wagon. It was amusing to watch a guy pulling down seven figures drive around in a tiny little red Beetle like a teenager. He keeps cars only as long as they amuse him, and is always looking for a new acquisition.
If thats the kinda guy you are taking to lunch, then you are fine in your WRX. Now, on the other hand, our CFO was a curmudgeonly old geezer who never smiled and went around the office barking at people, and who drove a Camry to the office 4 days a week but on Fridays would drive his immaculate '65 Vette, his car from his "glory days". I honestly thought the guy was a real stiff until I got him talking about his car.
You just cant tell until you meet someone. So if you have a deal at stake, the best bet is to be "conservative".
What I'm curious about is what kind of reliability I could expect from a WRX. I have a vauge sense that Subaru's are supposed to be relatively reliable, but a turbo makes me nervous. I have had dealers in the past tell me engines with turbos are basically good for 60,000 miles, and not much more. My job requires that I drive lots of miles on rural roads in all kinds of weather. (Hence the feeling that I really want/need this car.) I need a car to be reliable and trouble free for at least 130,000 miles. Hondas and Toyotas have given me that.
Could I reasonably expect that kind of reliability from a WRX? I really love this car, but I have to face economic reality as well.
Never know what may happen with your particular car, but turbos certainly do last longer than 60K now. Besides, if it does go, you can replace it with something better.
-B
The more I drive it the more I appreciate its versatility: Practical, comfortable, roomy little wagon or a true sports car with an attitude.
Mike
-mike
I also had a Acura dealer tell me how the Turbo motor wouldnt be lasting near as long. Course he wanted to sell me an RSX.. There were some posts a couple months back done by Mr Shiftright (Host) and he quoted from a an authoritative book on turbo motors. Yes the general consensus was ( from the year that the data was collected) that the turbo motor had approximately 10%(If memory serves right) less life than a "normally" aspirated motor does.
So the 60,000 miles in a motor quote doesnt hold much water. Personally I like the power in the WRX. I dont take it to the track and I will keep mine stock except for some wheel and suspension stuff. I am probably a median WRX owner. IM having the expectiation of 120,000 miles with maybe a few expected repairs on it.......generalities really make up how we buy things. Wow having a job driving rural roads in a WRX. I could only imagine that your view on your job would change drastically
Stephen
I hope you didn't get that in Central NJ from an Acura dealer. My Subaru dealer had one that was used for test drives. When I drove it, it had a few hundred "hard driven" miles on it. I could barely shift it into "1". An Acura(?) dealer saw it and bought it.
-Dennis
Later...AH
-Brian
-mike
1) In third gear coming down from 4k to 3k RPM using engine braking the transmission makes slight grinding noises.
2) Our seats creak. We are not heavy people, yet they squeak and creak whenever we move around in them.
Can anyone shed some light on these?
BTW does anyone have any tips for cleaning the door and trunk sills. I always seem to end up spraying the inside when I try to clean them.
For cleaning your door sills, I suggest using clean slightly soapy water (car wash soap only!),
use a very soft sponge, wringe out most of the water, clean the sills, (after washing the outside of the car.) Rinse if desired with clean water and a sponge, dry with a soft cloth, or soft paper towel. (like Bounty) Wax if desired. Do not dry without rinsing if you are using a chamois, you do NOT want any soap in your chamois. It will leave streaks when you use it. Apply armor all or similar product to the rubber seals after you are done, to keep them soft.
Do this as often as you want, but I find that they usually only need to be cleaned about every 3rd or 4th wash. Of course, I wash my vehicles weekly, weather permitting, or whenever they get a little dirty. I find it a lot easier to keep it clean regularly than to have to scrub it if it gets too dirty. You also run the risk of putting fine scratches in the paint if you let it get too dirty.
Happy driving!
Ken
In my WRX, I have had numerous check-engine light problems, and the problem still hasn't been fixed - They've put in a new computer, and a new fuel pressure sensor (which is inside the fuel tank), and still the light is on. My car is due to be inspected by a subaru area rep next week, because I complained to them about my dealer's inability to fix the problem.
But tonight getting off the freeway I turned the stereo down and purposely downshifted a tad earlier to check for weird noises. Nope there were none. No squeaky seats either. The Cel came on once a month after I bought it. (october) it went off by itself in a few days.
The only other issue I have is me. I am constantly preocupied with seeking justifyable reasons to jump in the car and go somewhere.
Good, I'm glad to see someone else is having that trouble.
I get home from work. I eat dinner, and then I sit around trying to think "Hmm, do I need something else at the store" Or, "Maybe I need to go get some gas"
Constantly inventing reasons, i sometimes wonder who owns who.
I'm waiting for GM to start selling Corvettes with 0%!!
DjB
Thanks!!!
Now, I accidently stalled the car right after i left the grocery store, and then in panic accidently pulled out in second. Could that have done something to cause the CEL to come on ten miles later?
Also, it's worth noting, i JUST had my 3000 mile oil change at the dealer on Thursday. Could it be related to that?
When I parked the car for the night, I went and retightened the gas cap. Now I'm wondering what I should do. Should I drive normally and wait for it to go out? Should I go to the dealer ASAP? I was planning on driving home to my parents house tomorrow which is about 25 mile both ways. Should I take that trip if the CEL is still on when I start the car up tomorrow?
I didn't notice any performance degredation or anything like that, so I don't THINK it's serious. I appreciate any feedback.
The price of a new windshield in Sacramento was $240. According to the guy that ran the windshield company explained this vast difference. He said that Eureka was a area 4 and sacramento was an area 2. Therefore higher traffic volume= lower cost.
So the variable is area. Now insurance for me had a separate deductable for glass. $500.00 Progressive ins co. Perhaps your insurance is different I dunno......
CEL Light
my experience was (like many others who post on i-club) was that it is not anything to worry about. As you noted (no difference in performance)
mine went back off three days later. that was in october.. hasnt happend since. It could be a gas cap loose. Drive home your fine:)
-mike
Sometimes it pays to be an old f*rt :-)
Cheers,
-wdb
Some states require a $0 deductable for winshields - check w/ your insurance agent. Choose your glass replacer carefully. An improperly installed winshield, while unnoticible to you, reduces the structural integrity of the roof and can lead to fatality in the event of a rollover.
Stephen
Can't wait till the 1000 miles of break in period is over so that I can start having some fun.
To all that are lurking in this message board researching WRX, a word of advice.. Go Test Drive it. It only took me one test drive (without the sales guy) to win me over. Remember when the tach hits 3000 RPM, don't shift. Hold it until it gets near red line to really appreciate the turbo power.
It sounds like what they were describing was the VDC on the Legacy Outback VDC. That system uses a VTD, but it also uses a host of sensors including wheel speed indicators, yaw senors, etc to detect wheel slippage and other traction problems. Now if that is what the VDC consists of, and the WRX lacks the VDC system, how is the VTD able to do all these feats that are reserved for the VDC system?
The fact of the matter is, the only sensors that the VTD has are driveshaft speed indicators, throttle position, and transmission. No yaw indicators, no wheelspeed sensors, no brake sensors, no g-force sensors; these are reserved for the VDC only. It only takes basic data from those three places to base where to send the power. If you have a high throttle position and a lower gear, it will send power to the rear wheels, and vice versa. If the front wheels start to slip, the front driveshaft will spin faster telling the system to transfer power to the rear. It seems that all the VTD adds to the basical AT AWD system is the ability to transfer power side to side in the rear, which the MT LSD does just fine.
I think a few people either got an earful from an over zealous subaru rep, or just blurred the lines between the VTD and the VDC.
So yes, the VTD does use a different system to transfer torque, but no, it is not the all seeing VDC that can look into the future and modifies the torque to each individual wheel based on a whole host of sensors.
Basically, I think the AWD explination on the subaru page says it best.
"Power transfer occurs quickly and imperceptibly, just as it does with the continuous AWD in a manual-transmission. "
So, in a nutshell, the VTD adds the same ability to the AT WRX over the AT Impreza that the LSD adds to the MT WRX over the MT Impreza. The net result is EXACTLY the same whether you are talking about the VTD or VC + LSD.
Also, the only reason why the WRC WRX has a VTD instead of the VC + LSD is for the fact that it's manually adjustable on the fly through the electronics, a feature which is absent from the street WRX.
-mike
For the first statment, yes the VDC usues brakes and throttle control, it also has alot more sensors than the regular VTD has.
I realize there is an LSD in the rear of the VTD. I guess what I'm trying to get at is, what the is the difference between the Active AWD system on the regular automatic models and the VTD? If you read though the explinations on Subaru's site, there is is basically no difference between "Active All Wheel Drive" and VTD. Both use an electrically controlled hydralic transfer clutch to vary power to the front and rear wheels depending on what the TCM tells it. The only differences they mention are the planetary gear in the center diff and the default power split.
So, they use the same data inputs.
The both transfer power between front and rear based on that data.
What does the planetary gear do that is different on the VTD than the Active AWD? Is possible the only difference being the default power split? (notice they don't tell you what the default power split on the Active AWD system is, kind of implying that it may be 100% on one set of wheels by default.)
Back to my original point though, because of the amount of data the VTD actually processes, the only area where it would outclass the MT AWD system is in the transfer of power to the rear during acceleration and the transfer of power to the front while braking. Both would seem to do the exact same thing once wheels start spinning, therefore not making one superior to the other (though I subscribe to the KISS theory, TCM's and electriclly controlled clutches are just more things to break, but that's beside the point).
I'm just trying to make sense of the little bits of data that subaru provides.
We already know from SOA engineers that the torque split is 80/20 on the regular ATs As for reliability, my trooper has a similar system of clutches electronically controlled on it's TOD system and guys regularly abuse them off-road w/o a problem, as well as have used them several 100K miles w/o issue. Same goes for the AT version of the AWD system, 100s of K miles w/o problems on them.
-mike
So bascially you are saying the only difference is in the premptive nature of the VTD as opposed to the Active AWD system? I'm just trying to get a grasp on this.
So is it that the VTD has two ways to distribute power while the Active AWD system only has one?
What I'm saying is, the default power split for the AAWD system is 80/20 and can only be changed by the clutches. While on the VTD, the panetary gear sets up a power distribution (normally 45/55) and then the clutches make further adjustments on that depending on the data it's getting. Kind of like a corse tuning with the gear and then fine tuning with the clutches. Does that sound about right?
Well, I can see how this system can have an advantage over the MT system as far as learning the driver's habits, but I definatly think that the same effect is achieved by a driver getting to learn the car as well. As far as torque distrubution in low traction conditions where wheel slippage happens, I don't see how the VTD would hold any advantage over the MT system.
-mike