DashingMax

I'm interested in purchasing a brand new STi. I've researched the vehicle and while Consumer Reports recommends it overwhelmingly (Top Pick 2005), I've noticed several current owners having warranty issues and general problems with the car.

Subaru's flagship that wins World Rally Championships should be able to handle normal tarmac roads with ease.

Assuming the I would do absolutely ZERO mods and never ever drop the clutch, will this car cause problems? Subaru dealers assume that STi's get "abused" & hence I feel like I'm buying a car with NO warranty!

Please advise...

buymeasti

If you think the WRC and the street version have anything in common at all, well let me just say I want whatever you're drinking...

What you read on the forums is representative of perhaps 10% of all owners out there. Even then it is the segment who are mainly enthusiasts and performance junkies -- the single groups most likely to push the envelope on the car (and break stuff).

Point is, the WRC has nothing to do with the road car, and what you read on the internet is not nearly representative of all the STi's out there.

Buy it, drive it, and enjoy it. If it breaks, and it is a legitimate defect, no company by law can deny you fixing it.

With that said, no company makes warranties easy. So don't think if you buy whatever else you are considering that it will be easy to deal with a failure.

Dodzilla

iTrader: (1)

If you're never planning on modifying the car then just buy the extended warranty and don't worry about it.

LUvikes29

As mentioned, a lot of people that are enthusiasts really do beat on their cars, and when it comes to an expensive repair, of course you're going to be upset when the company denies a warranty claim, but most (not all) of the transmission and turbo claims I see getting turned down are from cars that are modded, or beaten. Not that I don't drive my car hard, but when you come into my service department with 5000 miles on your STi and a blown transmission, and your tires are Vin Diesel bald, there's not a ton of things that can be inferred from that.....

zumnwrx

iTrader: (6)

i wouldnt buy anything subaru, cause damnit! i want a car i can buy take off the lot, put the dccd all the way to the rear, rev that sucker up to 6.5 grand on the tach, and f**ken just dump that clutch puppy, and spin awd figure 8s all day... and when it breaks i what my warranty to fix it ever damn time

untill the...ever again will i get another subaru
edgar,

meilers

No offense, but that's idiotic. There is not a car manufacturer or dealership in the USA which would honor a warranty for a car treated like that, and no mechanic (hopefully) dumb enough to miss obvious signs of abuse. Warranties are only valid for normal use of a car -- no matter who made it or where or when. I don't think "donuts" qualifies as normal use in anyone's book.

ShiroStee

iTrader: (1)

consumer report rates wrx/sti's fairly high for a reason. Sure, you'll see people saying they have problems with their cars, but more than often, it's not at the fault of the original car. If it was, warrenty takes care of it. Since you're not planning on dropping the clutch or modding your car, there's no worry for getting warrenty denied either. Although sti's reliability has been great for many of us, including myself(05 sti w/10k miles), it only came out 2 years ago. Unless you know someone who puts on 50k miles a year, it's hard to talk about reliability in the long run for this car. The closest you can compare are the wrx's. In the end, i'm sure all of us here would agree that if you take care of your car, have regular maintenance, you'll enjoy the car for many years to come.

wdb

Uhm, DUH.

zumnwrx

iTrader: (6)

thank you! seems not all know what the icon means

edgar,

slow04wrx

iTrader: (3)

What if my sti tranny has a defect or malfunction and I just like to corner hard so i wore my tires out?

I jetted threw my tires on my wrx, but thats just because i corner hard all the time, didn't have to do my burning out or abusing tranny.

i just think it sucks that subaru and other companies are so **** about warranties on a high performance car, while other companys like ford etc.. seem to do well with warranty on non high perf, like focus etc. A high performance car is made to be driven some what hard, subaru markets their car this way and should be prepared to fix things that break due to this (within reasonible limits). I mean if you dump the clutch all the time and your clutch goes out, obviously thats you being idiotic. But if i drove the car hard around turns a lot and my diff goes or gets worn out, well subaru damn well better fix it.

LUvikes29

it's a good point that you make, and in general, this market niche does a poor job of realizing that a non-zero percentage of these vehicles do have defects in parts which cause failure early in the life of the vehicle because of the high HP, and not driver abuse. And these parts really ought to be warrantied.

When I was with Mitsu, right after the EVO came out, one of our techs was "test driving" our second EVO (this is kinda a horror story, and is in no way representative of the way most dealers conduct themselves). Anyway, he dropped the clutch from about 5500, and the throw out bearing shattered like it was made of glass- 12 miles on the car. Now, you can tell me all day that you shouldn't abuse a car like that, but there's no way you can convince me that that part wasn't defective, regardless of the abuse. Perhaps under proper driving conditions, it would've lasted 5000 miles instead of 12, but still. And Mitsubishi absolutely refused the warranty claim.

So you do make a good point about your specific case, and in general, the policy of the company ought to be to accept all claims except when abuse can be PROVED, rather than to deny all claims if abuse is SUSPECTED. However, from the company's perspective, replacing expensive performance parts on modded cars is certainly not their responsibility, nor is is sound business practice.

Furthermore, the earlier point remains, which is that the frequency of such failures on cars which are not beaten, or modded is low. If you simply drive through corners hard, and don't put excessive wear on your tranny, you may get to know the guys at the Tire Rack on a first name basis, but you're unlikely to end up with a tranny problem, because the STi is, at some level, built to perform and handle that kind of stress.