Hi guys. I am the recent new owner of this WRX STI Type UK Prodrive (style pack not PPP....yet)

The paintwork is a little untidy though no nasty dents or bad deep scratches and I’m into a bit of correction/detailing so it will be a nice little project to get it looking like new again and hopefully increase its value a bit when I come to sell ;-) It has only 2 previous female owners and a stack of receipts for thousands spent on all sorts at the same Subaru dealer. The only work not done at a Subaru garage was a cam belt and head gaskets replacement done about 4 months ago.

Other than drilled and grooved discs and a stainless cat back exhaust it's standard. It's just what I was after as I prefer the bugeye with the prodrive bumper etc and I didn't want the potential complications of a modified car as it's sometimes hard to know exactly what's been done and if the car could have suffered for it. Also insurance companies take enough of my money as it is without having to deal with increased premiums and modified car reports. (I have a heavily modified Classic Mini and my heart sinks every year when the ins' renewal docs arrive and I have to fill in a new modified vehicle and agreed valuation report)

Anyway I've been doing a fair bit of reading mainly here on scoobynet and learned some interesting bits and bobs and explained some of the new car niggles and noises i hear that I wasn't sure are normal or not. For example the rear clunk noise when moving at slow speeds/parking being the pads moving about. Also the slight smell of fuel on start up on some of the colder days we've had lately being the fuel hoses (still a bit miffed that Subaru didn't think this was a recall issue).

There are some other things I’m not sure about so I was hoping for some advice from you guys:

It has a problem with a drop in power. It only happens if I give it a few full throttle blasts then it just loses that hit of power you normally get and is a bit flat. If I then pull over and turn the engine off and on again it will be back to normal for a bit then go flat again after a few blasts. I have plugged in an OBD2 reader and no faults have come up. I’ve read the common experiences with MAF sensors failing but it just seems weird to me that turning the engine off and on would fix the problem for a bit. If the MAF sensor was dead/dying and giving spurious readings to the ecu then I’d have expected the problem to be constant not intermittent. Also if the ecu was sensing something wrong due to the MAF or anything else and going into a reduced power mode then surely it would log something on the ecu right??? Could it be something else causing the problem or does this sound like fairly standard MAF problems?


I'm unsure about the gearbox. It’s a little noisy when you listen to the car ticking over and the noise goes when you put the clutch in. Just like when the transfer/drop gear bearings are getting a bit worn on Minis. It’s not extremely noisy. I’ve heard much much worse on other cars that are happily still driving around. I was just interested to know if this is to be expected on a 97k mile sti box or if I should start looking for a decent warranty ;-) Are they generally pretty strong boxes or are failures common on standard cars? This is also interesting to know as, if I decide to keep the car for some time, then I might be interested in something like the PPP for some extra gg’s.

One of the main reasons I bought the car is that my girlfriend and I are planning a driving holiday up in Scotland and we thought a scoob or evo would be the perfect car for the job. So now I have the right car I’d like to go about making sure it will cope with a 10 hour drive there, 6 days of hard driving then a 10 hour return journey. So I’d like to give it a full service and replace all fluids that are worth replacing with decent stuff. I’ve done a bit of reading about engine, gearbox and diff oils and it seems there are various different opinions on what to use so I’m not really much the wiser for reading. Don’t think there’s much point opening that can of worms again either but I was thinking of getting the various recommended oils from Roger Clark Motorsport or one of these service kits on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150276751710&fromMakeT rack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlinken
Opinions?
My oil needs may be slightly different for Scotland than my usual journeys as I will be using the scoob as my daily drive to work which is only a 15 min journey. I guess if there’s an option then when we’re back from Scotland it’s worth me using something that will protect the engine better for repeated short journeys???

Also I’d be interested to know if there is a sort of known mileage for wheel bearing failure as if they often need replacing around 100k for example then I’d prefer to inspect/replace them to reduce the chance of a problem on the long journey. If they’re normally good for 150k then I won’t worry about them. Is there any easy way of checking them? Obviously on a non 4WD car I’d just jack each corner up and give them a spin but that’s not going to happen on a permanent 4WD setup.

Well if you’ve read on this far and not nodded off, thanks! Any help and advice is much appreciated.

 

Nobody??? Do I smell or something? :-( At least let me know if I'm asking stupid questions.

 

looks nice mate as for the noises mine makes some strange ones but has never let me down. not too sure about the wheel bearings unless they are grinding they should be fine
hope this helps and welcome to the forum.