Subaru Impreza WRX

wayde

where did you get a copy of the 2003 model guide? are they available at dealers?
also, will the yellow only be available at the beginning of the model year? (i would think with such a limited production quantity, they would produce all of them at once)
i want to see it in person, but it sounds sweeeet!!

himiler

I have a friend who sells at a Subie dealership.

The yellow for 2003 is not a limited-run color, and according to the guide, it will be available for both the sedan and wagon.

swinga7

Why am i finding slightly used WRXs with low miles and no damage being sold for as low as $17 grand. Are there problems with these cars or is the resale value just awful? cuz if there are no problems I'm thinking about buying a slightly used one.

nschulman3

I am about to go to a synthetic motor oil. Does anyone have a recommendation as to what brand I should get? Does it matter? Any suugestions would help.

rexaroo

I've been using it since 1992 in all our cars and always had good results from it. It went in our WRX wagon at 640 miles and only have to add 1/4 qt. every 3000 miles, which shows the rings have a very good seal. There are other good synthetics out there--Red Line, Valvoline, etc., but Mobil invented the stuff and is the most trusted in racing and the most recommended by car makers (Porsche, Corvette, M-B). Just my 2 cents.

PS: The only one I'd definitely stay away from is the new Castrol Synthetic, which uses the cheaper "cracked molecule" method from dino oil, and many people feel is not a true synthetic. Yet they still charge the full synthetic price.

paisan

It's a used car that is a niche following, although it is expanding. This results in poor resale value. I'd snatch one up!

-mike

kevin111

$17K for a used (1 yr. old) is great! Make sure the transmission is O.K.. The manual transmission on the WRXs have been know to be abused heavily, and as a result, dammaged.

When I was looking two months ago, they were going for $21K to $22K for a used one.

robmarch

I agree with the advice to check the transmission, because many drivers are aggressively launching at stoplights or tracks by dropping or slipping the clutch at high rpms. Actually, make sure it's still under warranty, mileage-wise, and have someone really nit pick it, to find out what needs to be fixed under warranty, before it expires. This would alleviate my concerns about buying this type of car used, without much knowledge of how it was treated in its previous life.

dop50

Right or Wrong, here's what I'm going with...

I purchased two Fumoto oil drain valves, #F-105, one for our WRX and one for our Legacy Wagon.
They seem to be much better design than fram, plus the fact that fram don't have one yet with the correct threads for the subies.

I'm also going to be using Mobil 1 SuperSyn 5w30. I picked that up at the local Wal-Mart for only $17.88 per 5 quart jug.

Then I started checking out filters, I finally settled on BOSCH premium filters, #3310.
They have a really nice "O" ring seal and the return holes are fewer, but much larger than fram.

I don't know that any of this is usefull information, but it's what I'm going to be using. My REX just rolled over 7XXX miles so I figure it's time to make the switch.

BTW, there's no way I'd sell my REX for 17K, or even 22K for that matter!

Ken

qbrozen

Where have you seen them? Around here the cheapest I've seen is $21K. Just saw one yesterday for $22,9 with 1000 miles.

paisan

Should be able to get a new one for IIRC.

-mike

qbrozen

I didn't say it was a GOOD price. LOL

cptplt

Has anyone noticed little blue spots on the rims of their stock wheels? I was hand washing the wheels for the first time a few weeks back and noticed that on each wheel there is a small spot on the rim which looks like some light blue paint had been wiped off but not completely. Its actually part of the finish though. Initially I thought I had done something bad to the finish with my cheap wheel cleaner and it had destroyed the silver paint or something. Today I was at the dealer for my first service and I noticed the spots on several WRXs! I didn't check everyone on their lot (they must have over a dozen WRXs on their lot) but at least 4 had them! Every wheel has them, just like on my set. They did have one wheel in a showcase in the parts dept which didn't. Its obviously a manufacturing defect. Has anyone else noticed this on their WRX rims?

I guess that means I filled in my JD Powers initial quality survey wrong. There should have been 2 defects on my car not the one I had noticed, or is that 5 defects as its 4 seperate wheels???

The 17in Legacy Turbo 5 spoke wheels was also showcased in parts and in fact there was a 02 Legacy GT Ltd with them in the showroom - with KDW tires. Looks like they are in all the dealers now. On the GT Ltd the wheels themselves were priced at 1695 on the window sticker, phew, I saved a bundle at subaruwrxparts.com! They are so so looking on my WRX. Maybe I should have gone with P7s! They looked awful on the Legacy in the showroom. Hope that isn't the new wheel on the 03 Legacy.There isn't even a pic of a GTs wheel in the 03 brochure but it says its a 5 spoke. The L gets the present GTs BBSish wheel. The WRX rims look great on my 98 Legacy though! Even with the blue spots!

heyjude615

I live in Jersey and just bought a 02 WRX, well I am in the process of buying one. I have until tonight to decide if I want the Sedan or the Wagon. Still unsure!! anyway, I bought my car from Bell Subaru in Rahway, NJ. Their website is
bellsubaru.com. They still have a pretty good selection there. I know of at least 6 WRX's in stock. They have a really cool kid there named
T.J. He is honest and will do his best to get you what you want. He is my son's buddy and is a awesome kid. He is very honest. If you go there
tell him Judy sent you. Hurry though, they are going fast. They had 12 WRX's on Saturday, today they are down to 6. !!!

Good Luck!

raynger27

I also live in NJ and purchased my WRX back in May. Funny enough, I work about 2 blocks from Bell Subaru in Rahway. Naturally, I paid them a visit first when I was shopping around. Unfortunately, my experience was far different from yours. They had 0 (zero) WRX's available for me to testdrive. I spoke to the man TJ you mention and he said the only option was for him to drive the floor model for me (because it was stick and I was still learning and preferred to drive an automatic so as not to mess it up to badly). What good does him driving the car for me do? Even so, I would have had to come back in a few days for them to clear room to take the car out of the showroom. When I told him I would go somewhere else, he chuckled insinuating I would never find a manual WRX to test drive.
Well, I drove home (approx. 45 minutes towards North NJ) and found a dealer 5 minutes from my home with at least 4 or 5 automatic WRX's to test drive. The dealer is Liberty Subaru. I took the car out and ended up going back to the same dealer to purchase it because I was so impressed with their service and how little it took to get the car on the road (I was 22 years old and basically walked in asking for a drive right off the street).
So to all those in NJ, Bell Subaru has the potential to be a lemon. Perhaps Heyjude615, you are only having a good experience because your son knows the manager....

Just wanted to share my experience, but please visit and decide for yourself.

-Ray

rexaroo

Ken--thanks for the tip about the WalMart 5-quart jug of Mobil 1. That comes out to $3.58 a quart, and when you figure the $10 a year savings in gas and legitimately going 6000 mi. between changes instead of 3K mi, it actually makes the synthetic cheaper to use than regular dino oil (figuring you need only half as many oil filters too). The Bosch #3310 works great for both Forester and WRX --until Mobil makes a synthetic filter for Subaru, it's the best one around, way better than fram, I agree.

paisan

Just ask Bluesubie!

You guys should have bought from Mark Jerrick @ Staten Island Subaru. He always takes care of my Edmunds friends.

-mike

raynger27

What is your Bell story Bluesubie? Paisan, maybe you could shed some light on the subject for those (such as I!) who are not familiar with his story.

-Ray

paisan

They really messed him up on clutch replacements, and extra work that was unneccessary. It's very blurry, but I remember he was really torqued up about it.

-mike

cinosweive

I could never have imagined having trouble w/ a dipstick until this car came into my life. First off, the double right-angle twists don't exactly facilitate wiping the thing off. But more importantly, every time I use the thing the oil level shows up different. Even when I turn it over, one side indicates I am down 1/2, the other indicates it is overfilled. Has anyone else noticed that or am I living near a black hole?

robmarch

Hi, I've heard this several times before on cars with larger alloy wheels. The manufacturer puts a dot on the wheel to indicate a balance point to match the tires up to. The last time I heard this was on the Nissan Maxima's SE rims.

qbrozen

Well, since others are chiming in, guess I'll express my opinion of them. I really didn't care for them either. Not a real bad story. Just the typical experience many others had when the WRX came out. "Well, everyone else is selling over sticker, but we're the good guys and we'll give it to you for MSRP." Even after I explained I could get it cheaper elsewhere but thought it would be nice to get it from a dealer closer to home. No dice. So they'll never see me again.

paisan

My buddy bought his yellow WRX in Staten Island for $23.5 IIRC last spring!

-mike

ateixeira

C: make sure the ground is level where you're checking the oil, it can make a big difference.

-juice

cptplt

Thanks for that info Rob. The dots look like they are actually part of the finish and not "painted on" though. You'd think if it was for balancing they could have put it on a less obvious place!

ppek

I also have those damn blue dots on my rims. I hoped they would eventually wear off, but it does not look like it. I'm going to try to bring it up as a warrantee claim the next time I have my car in to see if they can clean it off or get me new rims.

In January I got a set of WRX take-off rims from Tire Rack along with snow tires, and these rims did not have the blue dots on them??

Paul

fxs

Wal-Mart has a 5-quart jug of Castrol Syntec for $14.88. I bought a 10W-30 jug of the full synthetic yesterday.

kevin111

FYI.

cptplt

Rob was right, its something to do with the balancing of the tires. I was back at the dealer today (getting my Legacy fixed this time) and went around their entire lot, they have 18 WRXs, all have the blue dotson the rim and all the dots are aligned exactly with a red dot on the tires! Checked my rims, the red dots are barely visible now but they are aligned with the blue ones too.

Kevin - maybe you have washed it enough times to get rid of the blue stuff!

Service manager says it should come off easily with a solvent! We'll see!

I was talking to a guy who had a SVX while I was waiting for my car about these stupid dots. He said " that must be what makes a WRX go fast" :-)

Do you think the WR blue colored ones should get a different color dot??

paisan

Most HP of any Subaru ever sold in America!

-mike

jregen7243

My father-in-law went to Staten Island Subaru last August looking for a 2001 Outback Sedan and the salesman (don't know name) told him that they were discontinuing it after the 2001 model year. Can you believe that?

Jon

paisan

It was probably not Mark the only African American who works there. The rest of the sales staff there is quite un-knowledgeable. I shall speak to the mgr cause it annoys me to hear stuff like that about them!!!

-mike

mgreene1

I agree that it's hard to get a consistent read, but my dealer's best mechanic said to always go by the side with the L and F markers, because of the weird curvature. If the engine is hot, it's okay to read above the F marker as long as it's below the notch.

wheeldog

I haven't had a problem telling what the level is, but I agree that the dipstick is fairly cheap and cheesy. The 90 degree twist and the material / surface finish make it annoying to wipe the dipstick off (never thought that would be possible). On the plus side, I did my first oil change recently and with the use of ramps I found the filter and drain plug to be pretty accessbile.

cinosweive

Does all of the old oil drain out with the front wheels on ramps?

8u6hfd

didn't the SVX make 230 bhp, but mated to a less fortunate automatic transmission?

paisan

The SVX has 230hp and 230lbs torque.

The AT is not bad at all. The big problem is that people didn't heed the 20K ATF fluid change cycle and wound up killing them due to overheating the trannies. My aunt has 70K on hers and no problems so far. Once I buy her's I'm gonna be putting in an ATF Cooler and doing a synthetic fluid swap on it. Eventually I may go with some level-10 tranny components too.

Hopefully down the line I'll do an SC or a TC on it. SOme guys have gotten over 100hp additional.

-mike

hunter001

The SVX with its 3.3L DOHC Boxer, had the most HP/Torque of any Subaru Engine sold in the US. A very good car, but a bit ahead of its times. I think the combined sales of all its model years, numbered a whopping 14K units or so.

Later...AH

paisan

It's roughly 14K over 5 model years. The biggest problem? The MSRP of around $30K+ in '92!!!

AH would be happy to know it only came in an AT as well

Long Live the AT!

-mike

hunter001

I don't really have any preference towards the AT or MT. Basically, it is the overall package that counts. Basically, the MT is around 4% more efficient than the Torque-converter equipped AT, along with an additional gear ratio, plus you can row your own gears. The Auto (in the WRX) gets much better AWD hardware (than the MT) with a rear-biased power/torque setup for better handling. So basically, it is the overall package that counts. What works for you may not work for me and vice-versa.

Of course, the best trans in my reckoning is the BMW SMG II (present in the M3), where you can set it to full Automatic (5 different settings varying in aggressiveness) or full manual (6? different settings also increasing in shift aggressiveness as we move up the scale). Either way, there is no clutch that the user can touch or feel. The clutch is automatically activated by hydraulics within. But in the aggressive manual settings, the car can shift way faster than any human can (shifts happen in a micro-second), and also there is no power loss through the torque-converter. Almost all the BMW M3s sold in Japan and Australia are with the SMG trans. 50% of the M3s sold in Europe, currently, are also with the new SMG Auto-manual. CVTs are also an option coming into vogue, but in the earlier versions, they could not handle the power/torque of higher powered vehicles....the Audi A4 with the CVT is changing that.

Later...AH

ateixeira

Fewer sold means more exclusivity. I mean, look at how much time and effort people spend to customize their cars, make them look unique.

The SVX is already that way. How many times have you seen two in one day? (Besides at a Subaru event)

-juice

8u6hfd

and the controversial "window in window" styling feature.

paisan

Yep we'll see how much I like em after I live with it for a while.

Side note, I've heard that the torque split on the SVX is 60/40. Not sure if it's 100% correct though.

-mike

wheeldog

I'm fortunate to have a turn-around area in our driveway with a slight incline. I set the ramps up toward the bottom of the incline and drove the car onto it, and it sat very level. I blocked the rear tires and double-checked the ramps - seems to be safe enough. You're right, though, I'd be a little concerned about getting all of the old oil out with the car inclined if I didn't have this setup.

Rob

kevin111

Manual - 50/50

Automatic - 45/55

Per Subaru and a whole host of car magazines.

paisan

I never argued that.

I know the torque splits on the WRXs. If you re-read my post is say the torque split on the SVX may be 60/40 making it closer to the torque split on VTD and MT versions.

-mike

kevin111

and end in an X.

Sorry.

8u6hfd

Maine Forest Rally this Friday and Saturday!!!

paisan

most of the I-club NESIC and Tri-state Area people are going.

-mike

hunter001

No, the SVX default power split is 90/10 like all other Automatic Subarus. It also has a rear viscous LSD.

Check the following link out (has detailed SVX specs with history):

http://www.cars101.com/subaru_svx.html

Another site for SVX enthusiasts is:

http://www.subaru-svx.net/news/

Later...AH