Be Excellent To Each Other

I'm on the cusp of buying a late 2005 (facelift) Impreza STi Type-UK.

31000 miles, full service history (I had a thumb through it), has had a couple of little tweaks done like a dump valve and uprated air intake, but basically standard.

It's a private sale through the dealer, he's asking £11K, no warranty, that'll be another £450 for twelve months. (Price seems pretty good, if Autotrader and scoobynet are anything to go by.)

Pic attached (forgive the appalling quality of it, it's the only one the dealer has on their (circa-1994 design) website).

It's had the Subaru CD unit taken out and a decent Pioneer head unit put in its place, which is great for me as I love my MP3s and saves me a job. (MP3s in car = 100% essential.)

Taking it for a test drive tomorrow, and if that goes OK I reckon I'll go for it.

With it being Group 20 I've obviously got some insurance quotes upfront and was surprised to see the cheapest come in at £490 (especially with my speeding conviction three years ago, fuckers), then again we are the lowest risk postcode in the UK for theft and similar shenanigans.

I know it's awful on petrol, especially when driven 'properly', but I can live with that, I want a decent fast car before I get too old and/or the oil runs out, whereby it's an electric tram to get to work or nothing.

I've checked out my usual haunts for reviews and things to look out for (Parkers, honestjohn, Yahoo Cars), but they all just say that apart from obvious abuse and really pimped out ones, you can't go too far wrong.

I've had Mrs AE and AE Jnr sat in the back and they both found it agreeable enough, (if not as family friendly as the C-Max, but hey, this is my early mid life crisis and I'm having it, dammit!), AE Jnr cheerfully seatbelted her Barbie doll into the middle seat in the back and said 'Daddy silver car! Close door! Drive silver car daddy!' which we took as about the best endorsement we'll get off her.

So anyone got any experience with Scoobies? I know about the reputation they've got but that doesn't really apply so much over here, and to my mind generally only with the original 90s ones which are into chav-affordable territory now, often ragged stupid, and look (and sound) visibly abused.

Anything I should be looking out for on the test drive? (They'll let me take it out by myself, so I can give it a proper workout on derestricted roads )

I'm pretty much sold on it to be honest, so short of bits falling off it or the engine sounding like a bag of spanners, I can't imagine much will put me off now unless anyone can advise of problems with the car or stuff that might cause me to hate it a few months down the line.

And that said, is there a better car to go for in the category? (£10-£15K, works as family transport but also fun to drive.) Others I'm considering are the Focus ST, Mazda RX-8, Peugeot 207 GTi (175), Mk V Golf GTi, Honda Civic Type-R (the new space age looking one).

Cheers!

I'll stick my Burberry cap in the post to you, post haste.

Chav car!

Get the Golf but instead of the GTi look at the 170bhp TDi.

[mutters about why this isn't in the car thread]

I'd go for an Evo VI or VII, personally. That generation of Subaru is fuck-ugly. Although not as bad as the current generation

Doesn't look like there's anything wrong with the price, although £11K is the going rate for a 50K miler apparently, so for a 31K'er it seems a bit cheap. Is there a reason the front number plate is off? Have you HPI'd it?

If you have a icture of your numberplate on the Internet then bad things happen. Since a photo of my car has been on the Internet fuel consumption has gone down and the gearbox has gone gay. It would seem that I have not been scammed by fuel thieves though.

Yeah, but you're gonna have to service it every 4,000 miles. The guy wants an Impreza - they're extremely capable cars for the money and considerably cheaper to run than the equivalent Evo. Also, the Evo VI and VII are quite a few years older than the Impreza posted by the OP, therefore bringing possible reliability issues into play and the lack of toys/a decent interior is bad on the current models - the further back you go, the more laughable it becomes. Five years between an Evo and an Impreza = major differences in the kit you'll be getting for your money.

For the record, I prefer the Evo as well, but in this price range I'd take the Impreza. And they're both bloody pig ugly cars. But that's not the point even a little bit.

And Chinny, a Golf TDI, really?

Chinny isn't really the first person I'd go to for fast car advice - he burns the wrong sort of fuel for starters

That does seem like good money. Take the warranty, obviously - ask if it can be extended. Most of the things that can go wrong with ScoobyDoos won't have happened to that one yet, so look after it - the turbo's are apparently a bit delicate and will get in a right state if you push them before the car has warmed up.

Oddly, I was looking as Imprezza's the other day - I'd be interested to hear about this one if you do decide to go for it.

£2500 would buy you a semi decent Fireblade. It's the same running costs, 100x cooler, you don't have to listen to the wife saying "slow down" and buying the correct model will say "I might be having a mid life crisis, but at least I bought a toy for the right mid life crisis reasons".

A Fireblade?! Now that's the complete opposite! A motorbike versus a saloon that any spaz can put his foot down in and go round a corner at 120 are two very different things.

Hence the ultimate and antepenultimate reasons for getting one in my last post.

Yeah, but it's totally not what the OP is going to want/is interested in - I'm guessing. I mean, can he even ride a bike, and does he want to? The Impreza is extremely capable in the hands of absolutely anybody, it's comparably a fortress on wheels, and you can use it in the rain.

I had an enjoyable time outrunning what I think was a CBR600 around some country roads on Sunday night. He kept almost catching up, then they'd be a corner to brake for and the Mundano would leave him flagging.
When we got onto a dual carridgeway a few miles later (after taking the curving entry road far faster than he could) he stormed past like a fucking missile. We both waved at each other

Here is the route, if you're interested.

I've had a fast bike before (1985 Yamaha FZ-750), which I rode for a couple of years in my early 20s (1996-1997).

I've been round the TT course hitting 150mph, (which is legal on our 'national speed limit' roads i.e. unrestricted here as we have no national speed limit, it's the same black diagonal line through a white circle sign), wouldn't even dream of doing that kind of shit now

There's no way I'd ride a bike now like I rode one then, and it's very much a case of been there and done it - all I'm after now is a car that'll serve reasonable family use at the weekends but make me happy for Monday-Friday for the drive to and from work. (My drive to and from work takes in the mountain stretch of the TT circuit, 14 miles of unrestricted road, and as I'm in IT I tend to have early/late starts and early/late finishes so get a decent crack at the road and don't just have to sit in the line of cars.)

The GTi is about a second quicker 0-60 than the TDi 170. So the TDi is no slouch.

Did 58 MPG home tonight in my TDi 140. I have more torques than a GTI whatever the fuck that means. I my oil burner.

I did look into Evos, (as they are, of course, awesome), but despite having rear doors and seats, I believe they're massively unforgiving for passengers, wildly expensive to run as has already been noted (15mpg when you push them with 5000 mile services), and there's no way I'd get a late '05 plate (or anything close) for the same money.

The Impreza STi seems to be about as 'hardcore' as you can get whilst still using a car that works for normal daily use.

The number plates are off the Impreza 'cause the previous owner (personal friend of the dealership owner apparently) wants to take his reg with him, it'll be re-registered on standard Manx plates for whoever buys it.

Wasn't going to bother with a HPI check, we generally don't worry about that sort of stuff on the IOM (It also explains the low miles, 10K per year is high mileage by our standards.)

Then what are asking us for, then? Do it!

Diesel should be banned from a thread like this.

Reported to the moderators

FTFY

He always does it, get used to it

Last year he got a fucked bimmer cabriolet. He ended up with a nice car, though. I suppose that's going to be sold at a nice loss now?

FWIW I prefer the scooby to the Mits. The Mits feels flimsy and plastic. And the 6 bolt was notoriously fucking shit.

Let's do the crank walk again.

And before I get attacked for those comments I would like to point out that I have owned an Eclipse and had the crank walk and also seen a GSX Eclipse do exactly the same fucking thing.

Also this. For that sort of coin you are in Skyline territory. Infact a decent import would cost you less. I guess it's finance only though?

Edit. I am still an enormous fan of these.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1996-P-NISSAN-STA ... 35a55a7e91

Mrs Chinny's cousin rolled up in a 2.0 diesel Golf at Easter. However inexplicably he's got the non TDi version, so it does 0-60 in 16.7 seconds! Ouch!

But there are an awful lot of good diesels out there these days if you look closely. I'd only go back to petrol if I wasn't doing the miles.

The Beemer went after a few months, as nice as it was I couldn't justify running two cars (especially as Mrs AE failed her test for the five millionth time in spectacular fashion, thus blowing my cunning plan of having a 'spare car' ready for her out of the water), I did get a couple of fantastic runs over the TT mountain stretch out of it though, over TT period as well, when they make the whole 14 miles one way traffic, so I was able to mix it up with the crazy Germans who come over here on their bikes to 'enjoy the races' (and by that I mean, 'go fucking mental on their bikes').

Similar to Grim's tale a few posts back, there were a couple of guys I was having a really good race with one morning (we're talking 5:30am), they were clearly early risers to get the most out of the route (I was just on my way to work), I had the advantage of knowing the road intimately and through the corners, they had the advantage of being on bikes, quite nip and tuck most of the way until we got to the straight section coming out of Windy Corner and I didn't have a chance. (Ordinarily they'd have to tuck back in for the left hander at the end of the straight, but with it being one way for TT they could quite happily go into the end of the straight on the right hand side of the road (and indeed take the corner on the right hand side of the road) and adjust their velocity upwards accordingly.)

The dude on the back of the bike (they were riding 2-up) did give me a thumbs up as he finally got past me though

thought about an octavia vRS?

The petrol ones are pretty quick, great family car and very high quality.
the petrol is a TFSI VAG group engine 200bhp plenty fast

ive got the TDi (work car has to be diesel yadda yadda) and cant recommend a Octavia highly enough.
much better vfm than pretty much any other car I feel

*gives up*

I quite like the look of all the VAG 1.8T and 2.0T cars, (I had a Seat Ibiza Cupra a few years ago that used a slightly detuned version of the 1.8T unit they stick in the Audi TT, and that was a wonderful mental little bastard of a thing), but there's nothing going locally at the moment of interest.

There are a couple of suppliers locally who will source cars to order, so that's a possibility, but I'm not sure it'd yield anything better than the STi back in my original post. (The Octavia vRS is a nice car though, it has to be said.)

you'd get a lot more out of 11k from a octavia than a impreza id wager, apart from a 300bhp engine.

meh i guess im just a fanboy and should gtfo your thread.

That looks like a fucking hearse.

I'm with you on the (non-hearse) Skylines though, there are a few on the island and they're properly immaculate examples, truly awesome cars. I got chatting to some guy on the prom a few months ago - (I was in 'admiration mode' walking around his Skyline) - and he happily showed me around the car, opened the bonnet, fired it up and so on. I did, needless to say, really want one.

However, Skylines have to go into the 'Evo-box' I'm afraid, altogether a far too scary proposition to keep running on a day-to-day basis, especially given the age and mileage they have on them these days.

No man, this is what I started the thread for, to give me other ideas, so thanks for posting (And like I said, I've had a soft spot for the VAG petrol turbos for a while - but there's none round here for sale at the moment.)

Chinny and his diesels aren't permitted to take any further part though, I may as well get a fucking Bedford van

fwiw ive driven a civic type R (space age) and it was a hoot but the ride was very hard

I'll be the one having the last laugh when fuel is £1.50 a litre.

I fully accept that this will be an expensive car to run, I just want a bit of a last blast in something that's exciting to drive before peak oil hits home. (As it arguably was doing before the current global recession kicked in.)

Let's face it, when the worldwide oil economy collapses (as it will do in our lifetimes), most of us will be doing well if we can afford to run a petrol fucking lawnmower.

Also, I'm not so far off being 40 years old, at which point I'll become incapable of driving cars properly anyway - so may as well get it done now

HPI on a car like this is an absolute must, IMO. Imprezas of any age and any type, but particularly the STis, seem to attract knob-ends of all ages who are quite happy to thrash the car about to within an inch of its life at all times.

You're about to drop 11 large on a car that could quite conceivably have been in some sort of smash or prang. Even if it's been repaired to manufacturer standard, it's still potentially got a hidden past. Is saving the £20 for a decent HPI check really worth the risk?

I always thought the best thing about diesel was you could go down to Tesco of a weekend and get funny looks as you loaded up with 50 litres of economy brand sunflower oil. Dilute with a bit of diesel from the pump... and savings galore!

It's a different debate, but I wouldn't panic. Fuel economy has improved immensely over the past few years and continues to do so. Some of the latest VW petrol engines are remarkably efficient and have decent performance. Even your average BMW is remarkably efficient when cruising these days. There will still be cars around, and fast ones at that, but they will just be more efficient.

You need one of the bog standard diesels for that (having paid your duty) like the Golf I mentioned earlier. Mine wouldn't thank you for it. In fact it has a label inside the filler cap saying "no biofuel".

That's a reasonable point, but how does one go about getting a HPI check? I guess it goes off the car's registration?

I can ask the guy for the registration of the plates it had on it, but UK databases never work with IOM registrations as we don't share our databases with them (when we're getting insurance quotes we can never use the 'put in your car's registration number' thing), the car has been on the IOM since new according to the service history, so I really can't imagine there's anything dodgy going on, especially since it's being sold through a respectable local dealership.

I do agree with your basic point though, a background check of some kind is a good idea.

If you were to go for a space age Civic Type-R, I would happily give you £50 towards the purchase. All you'd need to do is remove the driver's side front fog light and sent it to me! Can't say fairer than that.

Well, umm, technically.

Probably, although I would imagine that it's possible to order a HPI check via the VIN.

Fast cars are my thing, not scoobys especially, but I certainly know the appeal

One thing that rung major alarm bells, was that this is a trader selling as a private sale, if I read your original post correctly?
If that is the case, then DO NOT BUY THIS CAR! there will be some very good reason why he isn't willing to put it through his dealership, and regardless of what he tells you, the reason is that he doesn't want to have to deal with any warranty claims, legal dealings or refunds when you find out what is wrong with it.

My advice is to either buy an enthusiast owned car from an owners forum or Pistonheads, or buy from a proper dealer with a warranty and right to return.

You could get a good E39 M5 or E46* M3 for that money.

* ie the one after mine, where pretty much everything was fixed.

I've got a Focus ST and I do love it, but a fast impreza is going to be more fun, and quicker too. The only Subaru I've been in was as a passenger in my sister in law's 22B (which she hardly ever uses) so I can't say too much from experience, but the focus may well be a bit more comfortable on longer journeys (it has very very nice leather recaros), even in the back. I don't know what the interior of new Subarus are like, but the 22B wasn't particularly nice.

I do think I'd choose a good impreza over an ST, especially if it's a mid-life crisis sort of buy.

Absolutely, this would be my recommendation.

Sans coca cola, obviously...

Milk floats don't count!

And don't dismiss the 350z. God, I'm such a fuckin ricer. My mates in the USA were right *edit*. God that was dumb seeing as it needs to fit the family. Ignore that, then.

Got rice?

Fuuuuck. Sorry man I totally forgot about finding you those sites. I haven't seen my friend at all. Turns out he has a load of drama going on and has had to move (witness protection scheme thing) so I haven't heard from him in ages.

Well I took the STi for a test drive and that was it really, I just had to have it

Point taken about the 'private sale through a dealer' thingy, but this is the IOM and we don't have nasty cons and stuff here. (Well, not many of them.) It's a long established local business and if the dude says it's a private sale as a favour for a friend of the owner then I'll take his word on that.

If there's something horribly wrong with it then it's very well concealed, I took it for a 30 minute drive including a proper blast halfway over the TT mountain circuit, and everything about it is absolutely spot on. (Well, as far as I can tell anyway, which probably isn't very far.)

It is, frankly, an absolute monster of a car, with acceleration that's borderline scary and handling that's practically unworldly in its excellence. I got up to 120mph without even realising it, and just to test the brakes did an emergency stop from that speed, I wouldn't have thought you could stop so much car so quickly

That said, burbling around town it was entirely agreeable, the turbo doesn't really kick in until 3000rpm so keep it under that and it's relatively tame - albeit the rumbling exhaust note gives it away a bit.

The fact that the fuel gauge had visibly moved by the end of the test drive I'll ignore for now.....

Should be ready for me to collect by the weekend (he still needs to get some plates on it).

Ah, didn't know you were in IOM, I assume life is a little different for a community that small

Which leads me to my next question, did you manage to get out of second gear before running out of island?

Yeah word of mouth is very powerful here, a business only needs to rip off a handful of people before they've fucked themselves, setting up under a different name doesn't work as everyone knows the faces. Similarly a good business can absolutely thrive without ever advertising, purely by people telling their friends and families about a good experience.

As for the roads to test drive on, in less than 10 minutes I was out of Douglas and then I was on the TT circuit, a road with no speed limit and very little traffic during the day - you can work out the rest

The IOM isn't that small, being about 32 miles long and 14 miles wide, plenty of space for good driving, although you never find much use for cruise control I have to say. (Remember we do host the TT races every year, which is generally reckoned to be one of the best road-racing events in the world.)

I'm not sure if this applies in ManxLand, but I'm fairly sure that a dealer punting a car through his dealership in the UK, even under a "private sale" would fall under a dealer's obligations under SoGA. But I guess if telling people this makes them believe it, rock on.

I'm sure (someone - Ed) will be along in a few to correct me