If your friend is buying the car before August 1, I would definitely consider the Saab 9-2X. This is a more upscale WRX wagon for $19.5K due to the $8K discount off MSRP from the GM Employee Discount.

 

its funny you mention chrysler tranny's! has anyone here had a high powered wrx? please tell us what happens to second gear!!!!

 

Of course if you have that much power and don't do something to protect from failures, you are going to get one. We were talking about stock components here.

 

please...who has a stock car

 

Probably about 2/3 of drivers who have these cars... not everyone buys these cars to mod the hell out of them into high hp race cars. On a daily basis I rarely see any of those cars that are highly modded. Most of them are just punk kids adding rims and a universal muffler, nothing more.

 

other than a brand new srt (less than 5000 miles) i have yet to see one stock. and i see dozens of them every week.

 

Thats just you're area.. weak arguement. I was talking stock vs. stock.. everyone already knows when you mod a car for high hp, there are going to be failures no matter what. Its just the frequency in which they happen and how good the car is made. For the most part, japanese cars are made and engineered to last significantly longer than american cars. They take pride in making a vehicle that will last. There have been plenty of studies you can google out there that show this. American cars are made to be affordable to all and pumped out to try to set record sales numbers based on quantity. Lately they have been realizing this hasn't been working well, and they are re-evaluating their car lineups and the quality in which they make their cars. I know this is true for chrysler because when I worked at a toyota/scion/honda/kia dealership, I would have to take toyota and honda cars&trucks to chrysler's R&D facility in Auburn Hills where they tear them appart and see how they make their vehicles for quality. I'm sure every manufacturer is doing this to see how everyone else is making their vehicle, in order to make theirs better.

 

the previous gen sebring/stratus is a rebadged eclipse. as i stated. meaning the tranny, engine, and most of the interior is an exact duplicate.

to Sum it all up for you. It was a MITSU Tranny that died at 78k. i knew someone that this happened to at 33k also with a stratus. flexplate basically shattered. cracked the tranny. and took a piece of his engine with it. i was fortunate it only affected my tranny.

 

SRT4 ALL THE WAY! They are a lot more nicer looking then a WRX and also SRT4 looks a hell lot more sportier then a WRX. I just don't like the looks of a wrx.

 

Personally i think my WRX is a lot sexier than any SRT-4. Bug eyes, useless hood scoops and that round *** on the Neon just doesnt do it for me.






Not sure if it was said here but a guy on the WRX boards posted, he has a Evo, and a kid in a SRT-4 was next to him in a left turn only lane. apparently the SRT-4 is showing off his BOV and the evo guy doesnt even pay any attention, well after about 30sec of straight BOV the evo guy gets annoyed. he yells to the SRT-4, "Hey!" points to the evo's rear windows and proceeds to make them go up and down (since the SRT-4 doesnt have power windows). The SRT-4 guy gets mad and peels out when the light changes. hahahha.

Sure the RS doesnt have power windows, but thats a track spec version. at least the GSR and MR have power options.

 

Gotta say WRX.

I mean, the SRT-4 is fast, sure... but I think they look goofy, and the WRX is all-wheel drive.

 

Shame they didn't make the SRT-4 look like a regular Neon. I'd buy one in a second. A real sleeper. Instead, they chose to put boy racer crap and a Viper wanabee front grill on it. Next years WRX is said to offer more horsepower. Although the styling is worse than ever on that as well.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM_(car)
It also depended on which model you had too.. but this is way off topic.
The two companies co-designed the parts and built them in american plants, for example, you'll notice that the 420a engine of the talons/eclipses is the junk one (I had one of those), and the 4g63 is the good motor and trans.

sigh, back onto topic.

 

Subaru Imprezza's are ranked on Consumer Reports for top 5 most reliable cars.. Dodge and the Neons (including srt-4) were ranked as "being improved, but are still not close to being recommended"
http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/08/pf/a...o_reliability/
http://www.consumerreports.org/main/home.jsp (need subscription)

 

SRT4 for power
WRX for everything else