time to leave yet?

 

I wish...so do not want to be here today. Got weird feelings today...mainly about this place

 

So yeah...ummm working today = lame>

 

Stuck at work sucks. Luckily I'm on standby to do some testing if parts come in so hopefully UPS will be slow.

I've been looking for a used wrx on craigslist/cars.com/kbb.com and found a couple of em'. Mostly 04-05 models, but I'm new to turbo vehicles. Any suggestions on what I should look for? The ones I'm looking at are stock since I don't want to buy a pre-modded vehicle from someone I don't know unless its from nasioc or something. Right now the ones I'm looking at are around 10 grand, but they're all at about 100K miles on them... All manuals too.

 

i think if you just stick with an unmolested wrx (not modded) you should be fine. probably the only thing to watch out for with that many miles is the clutch, it might be close to death at that point. a stock subaru is about the most reliable thing on the face of the planet tho.

imo i would keep it stock tho.

 

Yea I know I should keep it stock but knowing me I'll change out the clutch for stock or something a bit stiffer since I'd be replacing it anyways. In addition I'll swap out the exhaust for the car. From there, I doubt I'd do anymore. I was driving the TR my friend has while the lancer was MIA and it was gorgeous. Thanks for the heads up on the clutch, I completely overlooked that.

 

100k is due for a timing belt, too...FYI

 

good call, thats a b!tch on the subie i think

 

Not sure if you have to pull the motor but if you remove the bumper and radiator it actually isnt too bad. You just need two hands to do it but it can actually be quite easy.

 

Yea that's one of the first things I asked him about the car, he's yet to respond. I have two that I'm looking at. I'd prefer a black one but I'll take a blue one, I just prefer not to have a flashy color car...

Also the black one has heated seats and is an 2004... seen below:
http://boston.craigslist.org/sob/cto/967003070.html
Did they come with heated seats or is his ad wrong...?

 

The 04/05 had a premium package with heated seats/mirrors and windshield. It's well worth looking for one with it.

As far as stock goes, if you are looking for an 04/05, you are almost better off finding one that has been tuned properly since the factory tune was abysmal for those years. The cars knocked from the factory, but there were a few simple changes you could make to the ECU to get rid of that.

If they had an Accessport that would take care of it as well.

Having a modified exhaust with out a tune or having a boost controller without a tune would be a big no-no and I would avoid those cars like the plague.

 

Bruce, if you are looking at the $10k range, why not search out some '03 Evo's while you are at it. I have seen quite a few selling for $11k-13k that did not need much as far as work is concerned. Just throwing that out there. An '04/'05 WRX would probably be fine for you anyways as mentioned...

 

Sweet heated seats would be mint!

I don't know if either of the cars have had a tune, I doubt it. The link I posted looks like the guy just did some audio work to the car, I'll take a closer look at it when I see it. But the other car was adult owned and driven so I doubt it was touched.

Is it safe for me to pick one of these up and then do the tune or should I go with a lower milage car and bite the cost... (I just don't think I want to shell out more than 10000 for the car after negotiating and taxes etc)

 

I looked for some evo's and found some great candidates but after thinking about it, I'd love an evo but I think for preference and even possible for resale a wrx might be a better bet. Technically the evo is geared for a specific crowd if you think about it, but that's just my opinion. I'd love an evo, but I'm thinking ahead this time. I mean with my car, even stock and clean I'd have a hard time selling it. The people who have called on the car offered 5,000 or I had one guy offer me a bicycle and 3500$... Their response was "hey dude, I'm not paying that much for a lancer" plus I had another guy (whom I hung up on) tell me that it was just a POS mitsubishi that his son wanted (he offered the 5,000). He wanted to get a toyota or something for his kid.
Sorry if i'm rambling, I'm bloody bored at work.

 

The right thing to do would be to do a compression test (albeit a pain in the ***) before buying the car. If the compression looks good all around, then you are golden. It really depends on how it was driven, so it's hard to make a blanket statement.

That being said, the ej205 motor is more stout than a lot of people give it credit for- it will honestly support just as much power as the sti ej257, without the bump in midrange torque from the additional 25% displacement.