first off I don't know if this is the right part of the forum to ask this.

Back-story I bought a 1996 ver3 WRX STi and had it a year before I decided to sell it.

I sold it because maintenance was somewhat expensive and hated that I really had no knowledge of cars yet I owned this type of car. I really don't know anything about cars and I felt like it made it harder for me to find parts and know what I was buying and I didn't know if parts from us models would fit on it.

So I got a honda civic dx and so far I actually really like it cheap maintenance and barely any maintenance.

I want to buy an evo now though, a rhd drive one version 4-6. I'm just concerned that I will run into the same issues that I had with my STi(the car didn't really have issues I just just had issues because of lack of knowledge). I still don't really know anything about cars, but now I'm more willing to learn and I'm a bit older so maybe I wont be as dumb. I'm just not sure if the cost of parts and maintenance will annoy me again. `

This might seem like a stupid question, but if you guys could give me some insight and some honest feedback I'd really appreciate it, thanks.

 

Bamp

 

stay away from evo 4...crank walk and weak rods

 

evo v or evo vi?

 

Parts for a car that was not sold in your market are going to be a pain in the azz to deal with. If you're not ready for that its going to be painful.
It sees that you're a just getting a car based on the cool factor and not other factors like parts, maintenance, availability of shops that would know or want to work on a grey market car, etc. These are non issues for car enthusiasts, but deal breakers for people that don't know anything about cars.

If you are set on getting an evo, I would go for the VI and learn as much as possible about it and be ready for parts hunting and a few other surprises. Not trying to be a dick or anything, just my .02 cents.

 

Evo 5 or 6 are fine....

Evo 4 though are junk imho unless you plan on forging, changing bearings and ect

 

It depends on your goals. If you want to mod it to the teeth, then a later one is a better base to start from. But for a fun daily driver, if you can swallow the increased maintenance efforts as the others said, any of them would be very rewarding.

 

Agree on staying away from the 4. Its the worst of all Evo's.

 

A car that's not sold in your country is going to be much harder to maintain. When you can find parts you'll pay more and wait longer to get them. Not to mention finding someone who's familiar with the car. The evo is expensive to maintain as it is. Most people that you see with RHD cars have another for DD and can do a lot of the work themselves. I wouldn't do it even if I had the money and time.

 

I've owned both an EVO IV and a V5 WRX, and now a EVO VI. The problems you had with the STi are going to be about 10x worse on an EVO. With the Subaru's there is a decent number of North American equivalent parts, and they are actually pretty reliable if you treat them well. The EVO's are higher maintenance and parts are much harder to find, and cost much more.

It depends what you value though. Even my EVO IV completely blew the Subaru out of the water when it came to being fun to drive. If it's worth spending a lot of time and money to find parts, etc to you then go ahead. Personally, I wouldn't DD a JDM EVO, just because if something breaks you are without a car for 2 months while you wait for parts. As a project though, they are great!

The problems with the IV are overblown. Yes, if you mod them the rods aren't the best. And yes, if you install a aftermarket clutch with high clamping pressure you might cause crankwalk. Mine had 160 000 km when I sold it and engine wise it still ran like a top, but it was completely stock all its life. That being said, the V and VI are definitely much sturdier cars, and better in pretty much every way. However, the IV is literally almost half the price of a nice V or VI.