Anyone help me? Failed MOT today as the OEM apart has clearly been modified apparently. Need the car for work and can’t afford another £700 on repairs right now 🤦‍♂️

 

It’s the one coming off the turbo apparently..

 

Have you got pictures of it mate. How do they know its been modified. i've noticed MOT places have gone insanely strict. Things that would go unnoticed or not be mentioned are now going down as advisories or whatever they call it now.

 

He said he will give me pics to show finance company, not that it’ll do any good, haven’t got them yet. But I had a feeling it was anyway. It’s been cut and welded and the internals smashed out: which will be why the car sounds like a drive-by on overrun. Problem is our other car is motability and I can’t use that for work so somehow I need to get it thru, legally

 

Cheapest option would be local exhaust place, weld in a cat. You might need a remap too. Depends on whats going on with the car.

 

The guy who did the MOT is giving me a number for someone he said could do just that. I’m not far off crying now, MOT has just cost 838 quid on a car that I’ve done 2000 miles in and it still can’t pass

 

Wow why it cost so much? Which part first or second cat? As 2 on ebay right now.

 

New calliper, rear pads. 2 wishbones as the bushes were knackered. 2 drop links. MOT. And 5 hours labour.
Thats on top of the timing belt, battery and the AVCS solenoid it needed when I first got it and they said Their ‘engineer’ (bellend who drove the car round the block and back) couldn’t find any evidence of. It’s the first cat mate. Seems like they’re all for different models to me or for STI, and I’m unsure whether they fit? If someone could point me in the right direction tho..

 

Here's a new one, but way over budget.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/233683040...Cclp%3A2047675

 

Massively over. Are there any cats for other models that will fit easily?

 

I checked the part number for you and the 07 wrx cat is only shared with forester 2.5 XT for 07 onwards

not even sure if you could use an STI cat on it

 

mid you don’t mind, what’s the part number please?

 

You should be able to pick up one. Guessing your not allowed to have a sports cat as on finance?

 

I don’t think the finance care tbh. It’s got a cosworth air filter, powerflow exhaust, etc and it came like that. They clearly just want their money. Haven’t helped me throughout any of this so I’m going down the route of “it’s illegal to sell a car without a cat” to try and force them to pay

 

http://opposedforces.com/parts/impre...ystem/exhaust/

item 23
http://opposedforces.com/parts/info/44612AA390

 

Oh in that case go for a sports cat, don't waste your time on OEM unit, you need 200 cell sports cat, we'll get better performance, and you can sell your old cat on eBay as a decat unit.

 

Speak to @johno01 he is up your way and may know a place to sort you out. You shouldn't have needed to change the wishbones to replace the bushes unless they have changed it on the hatch.

Edited to add @Gambit has cleared this up. Makes a lot of sense why the garage would have got you to change the wishbones on the car.

 

They did change on the hatch and are a known weak spot regarding the rear most bush on them

Replacement steel wrx wishbones with NEW bushes are probably as cheap to fit as replacing the bush itself

 

Wow didn't realise that. Thanks for explaining.

 

you can see the style of the wishbone here - rear bush has voids for comfort but ends up ripping the bush - (anyone who is fond of 90s VW will be very aware of those style bushes & solid TT rubber bushes where the upgrade back then)

https://partsouq.com/assets/tesserac...20202AG182.jpg

the bush itself can be bought cheap enough but the arms being mild steel are usually a rusted mess
https://partsouq.com/en/search/all?q=20202AG180
https://partsouq.com/en/search/all?q=20204AG011

STI got alloy wishbones, and then later MY10 STI onwards got a revised rear spherical bush setup