Hello all,

Just registered on the forum as I'm in the market to replace my 2 year old Civic Type-R. I've got a short list of 4 cars and 1 of them is a Impreza. I don't want a mountain of torque and BHP (thats a lie, but I'm trying to be sensible!) so am looking at a late WRX or maybe STi.
I've found a couple of 53 plates in local dealers and will be booking test drives this week. However, I've heard stories of 20-25mpg on everyday driving. I'm not bothered how much the car drinks when I'm raggin it - the Civic has done 40 litres in 150miles before now but I would like to know if I can expect reasonable MPG on a daily commute.

This aside, anything I should be paying close attention to when looking at late model motors? both have under 8k on the clock and one owner and look straight as a die, but this is only walking around them on the forecourt.

Cheers!
Stu.

 

That is the regular commute figure: you'd struggle to get to 28mpg no matter how careful you took it. Serious hooning will drop that to about 18mpg. Those are figures for my 02 WRX and it seems about right from what I've heard.


M

 

Would agree, we got 27-29mpg out of our WRX Wagon, when it was doing a 250 mile commute a week, of which quite a bit was on the motorway. At the end of the day, not only is it a performance car, it is a performance car hauling around a 4x4 system underneath and so you are never going to get great economy. I am sure the same would be said for your Honda, if it had the same gubbins underneath as an Impreza.

 

I had a CTR (and loved it) before geting my Scooby and I tested a few before I knew which one to go for.

You need to ask yourself what do you want from your next car. If you're not happy with 25mpg (at best on a daily commute) then no Turbo'd Impreza will be for you. If you want noticeably better straight line acceleration (when on the move) than your CTR then you will need to consider an STI as I don't think a WRX will 'do it' for you, but any Scooby will murder a CTR on the twisties especially in the wet.

If you want a nearly new car with warranty then you probably won't want to modify it either - which is what most people say they won't need to do when buying a Scooby, but inevitably almost everyone does.

I ended up going for a 2000 year P1 and have done quite a bit to it since I bought it. It is older than the CTR (which I bought new in 2002) but puts a much bigger smile on my face every time I drive it and gets more attention than you could ever imagine as a CTR driver.

Take your time and get into loads of test drives - but a scooby is not a cheap car to run.

Cheers

Terry

My car

 

I average 23mpg.
A long run sees 27ish

 

i average about an oil tanker a week in an sti

 

terry b . not a critisism m8 but why edit out your plate and then add it in as a mod , just thinking of your security m8 , regards the kazlo !!

 

First rule of Scooby club:

You do not talk about fuel economy

Second rule of Scooby Club:

You do not talk about fuel economy! ;-)

Basically, if you're at all concerned about saving pennies on petrol, the Impreza is the wrong car! :-)

 

I didn't edit out the plate in the pic - someone else did. At the end of the day, may car/ plate has been in 2 magazines and will adorn the wall of many people's houses as it was on a poster in Jap Performance magazine in 2001 - so hiding it now would be a bit late - plus I'm proud of the plate too.

 

Totally agree with the comments about poor fuel economy and not buying one if that's a top priority - but then you also need to drive one and then you might just find that you're prepared to live with the economy.

 

it was just a thought m8 , anyway nice motor

 

Cheers for the replies people!

Although I know what you mean about questioning fuel economy/buying a "fast car" I'm not rich enough to completely disregard it. I do have a CTR after all which is not exactly a 65mpg city run-around (easy! no jokes about cars with 200bhp being runabouts!!!) so whilst MPG isn't an issue, I still want to understand just how much its likely to drink for every mile of fun.

Keep the replies coming in though, especially as to what I should be paying close attention to on any test drives........

Cheers
Stu.

 

Stu - which area are you from? Was talking to someone in the Sheffield dealers on Saturday who was thinking about making the same move as you.

 

Cheltenham mate, so it definitely wasn't me. Owning a CTR is a problem when you come to sell and move on. Just what do you buy that gives you the same bang for buck motoring. Its a £16k motor that can hold its own with 20 or even 30k motors. I'm not surprised that you found someone else thinking of making the same move. Scoobies certainly are appealing

 

According to Ali-B one of the reasons for the scoob's poor fuel economy it that the engine runs very low compression when off boost, so the base level of fuel input needed to keep the engine from stalling is quite high. But I'm no engineer; that's just secondhand.

 

Bit far for S Yorks then mate...

Obviously a popular dilemma tho'.