v10cla

I am fast approaching 50 years old, and have had a few cars over the years, but have only had my first scooby for about 3 months, albeit a MY99, 40,000 FSSH, which has beem really well looked after.

Anyway, the basis for this mail is that it looks like my big ends are shot, and like very many people on here, my pockets will be a few grand lighter!
Of all the cars I have had , Quattro Turbos, VW GTI Turbo (210 hp), BMWs and the like, I have never known another make of car to have so many terminal engine problems.
People say.." ah, but it`s a 2 litre turbo lump producing over 200 bhp"...well my Quattros were only 2.1, produced as much bhp, and they never had a history of engine failures.

I know I am moaning, but, although I think the car handles,goes and feels great, I am quite frankly amazed that, in this day and age, Subaru are still going!

Surely the cars need to be "fit for purpose"?

I await your views............................

GrahamG

I think you will find there are a lot of peope on here that have impreza with well over 100k. all depends how the car has been looked after from the start.

Hopefully you sort it out and is not too much.

G.

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

I agree with Graham, you tend to hear of failures, but what about the non failures? my own car has done over 120000 and still going strong.
There were probably many quattro failures as well, probably just not documented as they aren't as common as scoobs.

pslewis

Indeed, like the last 2 posters say, you hear about the problems .......... very rarely do you get someone saying that my engine is still perfect or my brake pads have now lasted 65,000miles - except me, that is (but I'm a freak!)

I have never had a car with so few problems actually, its now 65,000miles - 6 years old and I have no reason for complaint.

Just out of interest, if you did the rebuild yourself ... it wouldn't cost £1,000's - would it??

Pete

320bhp

Sorry mate, but i have to agree the others . Iv had a M/Y94 wrx for nearly

two years now and have never had two spend money on mechanical

breakdowns. This has been the most reliable car iv had! You do have to look

after them tho, regular serviceing always helps. But im sorry to hear that you

have a sick scooby!

Castrol

We've had 7 new Imprezas and no hassles in almost 12 years and 250,000 miles. Owners I speak to outside Scoobynet, rave about the reliability. Even Clarkson does on Top Gear! It seems it's only in here that you come across the whingers.

pslewis

I think that may be a bit harsh ......

The main reason why the people on here moan is because they spend £££££'s modifying their cars ...... they think it's good fun extracting 500BHP out of the thing. Until it lets go, then it's 'Chocolate this and Chocolate that' !!

These cars are superb if you do not fooook about with them (but, ScoobyNet is full of those who want to tinker) ..........

Pete

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

Sorry to hear of your misfortune mate. I can completely understand why you're down on the marque at the moment. However, you do need to bare in mind that UK cars suffer relatively VERY few failures at unreasonable milage. It was still a worry to me when I got mine though, so I made a few enquiries.

"there are always going to be a few bad apples I thought".

Well, yes said the specialists I asked, but in their experience most engine failures are the result of misuse. It may have a ful service history, but how mnay previous owners has it had? Do you know for example that they've let the car warm up properly BEFORE booting it? You'd be amazed at the amount of people we get on here thinking it's perfectly ok to rag an engine from cold. Similarly, many people never bother to check their oil.

They are tough engines IF they are treated right; they don't like abuse though.

RE your rebuild. Speak to David at API, one of the UK's leading authority on Subaru engines- nice guy too.

NS04
NS04

flynnstudio

Yes, does appear that lots of people think that cars should go on forever and be able to take unlimited modificaitons.

Subaru have 30 odd years in the business of designing a car that will have an extraordinarily predictable 'mean time to failure'. They have to - it's their business - they would go bust if they didn't. So they know that regardless of driving style perhaps .01% of all their cars will fail prematurely before say 60K miles but they can 'cover the expense' because 99.9% run as 'predicted'.

When you start adding non-tested non-approved third party aftermarket elements and 'thrashing' into the mix you throw this stability of 'knows' out of the window.

I'm also very pleased to have read that the car was primarily designed for a market with a 112mph speed limit. Knowing this I shall now avoid taking my car over this speed since I know that although it may do it - it's not within the design brief or the 'MTTF' benchmark and so you are more than likely exceeding designed tolererances and therefore dramtically increasing the likelyhood of component damage.

Buy a 4 year old porsche if you want a 400bhp 160mph road racer for £30K - with £70K of engineering in it...don't buy a £25K scooby and assume that your can tweak it up there for £2K and have the same 'factory fresh' reliability...

Then of course you have 'banger' syndrome - ALL cars suffer from entropic reversion to base elements - it's a universal law - scoobies are bound by this same law.

Of course, your not in this boat but have apparently bought a car that needs a little more tlc than most...at least when it's done you'll be able to treasure it and it'll be nearly good as new mechanically


edit: 'for a market with a 112mph limit'

Castrol

Me? Harsh? You'll be accusing me of banging on about Boro going bust in '86 next...

Cheers

pslewis

Toonman??

Toonman??

Is that YOU my old friend??

Pete

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

not entirely true, japanese law dictates that all cars are limited to this speed.
Agree with everything else though

scoobfan

Your talking about the JDM variant, it's regulated because of Japanese law
nothing to do with the engine tolerences.

The engine that's in the UK variant is exactly the same, it just has a different
management system.

Either way, regulating the car to 112mph won't stop it being redlined in every
gear will it?, that's what does the damage!.

jaytc2003 - Beat me to it mate !!

Rob

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

To slow Rob

flynnstudio

My car has peak power and peak torque at about 5300rpm...I don't see any point in generally exceeding that...I've never redlined any car I've ever owned..

my point was that Subaru won't have specifically designed the car to do 160mph in the way that say Porsche or BMW will have...yes I understand it's a law but for that reason they won't waste time, money and resources in an area of performance that their target market won't be allowed to use.

I think this is part of the success of the scooby - in that it's so much fun below a 100mph because that's it's main area of play...

scoobfan

Your quite right, it's a sprint car and not a Autobahn stormer.

Perhaps i misread your post, i assumed you had a JDM car, therefore
you can't be sure of how it was treated (Serviced)before you gained ownership.

Rob

Paul3446

My MY97 was still going strong at 92,000 miles when I sold it and my current MY00 is going strong at 73,000 miles, both completely reliable, both completely standard.

RedScoob

It's bad news that the bottom end seems to have packed up at 40k, but I think it's the exception rather than the rule.
I also owned a Quattro before the Impreza, mine blew the shells at 100k miles. I know that many other owners saw more than 200k miles without problems, I think I just got a bad one (but it could also have something to do with tuning it and driving it hard every day ).