Have patience young one. not everyone is online waiting for your questions on a Sunday morning. Its only been an hour and a half.

 

I think I can help....

I have heard some talk about bad tranmissions and the warrenty not covering it - whats the deal?

There are a few cases of actual, legitimate transmission failure. The syncros in 2 are a little sensitive, and if you try to slam your car in gear, you'll likely smash the teeth. Solution: Don't slam your car in to second gear.

Some people have also had problems with 1 snapping. Generally, and I say generally because there are many fewer cases of tranny failure resulting from bad parts than abuse, 1 fails during or after someone dumps the clutch at high rpm. See, in a FWD or RWD car, dropping the clutch usually translates in to wheel spin and all of the excess power escapes there. In the WRX, or other AWD cars, the extra power translates to a huge force on the transmission, causing, or assisting failure. Solution: Don't do 5krpm clutch drops.

It's unfortunate that there have been so many claims for warranty repair to the WRX that were obviously caused by abuse or modification, because SOA is quick to deny warranty repairs if your car has been modified in any way, to avoid being taken. Your best bet here is to either arm yourself with knowledge of the law, or if you modify your vehicle extensively and like to beat it up, prepare to pay for repairs on your own. You have to pay to play.

How much power can the stock engine hold before I need to upgrade internals? What about the transmission? Axels? other?

Not too sure here. There is one guy in my area that is pushing >= 350hp with stock internals and transmission. His car is fine. He also doesn't beat the hell out of it at the drag strip...

I am making the assumption that it would be easier to get what I want from a factory turbo car...

Well, it all depends on what you want, but if what you want is a high horsepower four cyl then factory turbo is the way to go. It's far easier to modify a car that is FI from the start, than to make an N/A car FI and modify it from there. You just need to decide which factory FI car you want - the SRT-4 has tons of power, and the '04 has LSD stock, however it's FWD, but you're used to that, so it might not be a big deal. The WRX is a bit more refined, has a bit less power, but is AWD and has EXCELLENT safety ratings, and a very mature and fun community to be a part of. For me the choice was clear, but I have different goals. Good luck.

Oh, and yes this particular forum is a tad slow, however, WRX and suby drivers comprise only a fraction of total Honda drivers, so we have less people browsing at any given time. Besides, it is a Sunday morning and not everyone is sitting at home like me

 

Does the sti six speed have the same problems? Can I replace the 2002 tranmission with the sti one and be worry free?

Certainly the STi 6 speed will be a bit stronger than the WRX 5 speed, but I wouldn't think you'd be "worry free". If you beat your car it will break. It's a fact of life.

What is the cost of the sti transmission?

I believe the actual price simply says "Rob Bank"

Are there any after market options? cost?

As with any car that is popular with the, dare I say, "Tuner Crowd", there are multiple after market sites and options for the WRX. This site should help you find them..Clicky

From the looks of things, all I'm reading about is tranny failure and dealer BS. I was really set on buy a subaru, but if thats how they treat their customers I'll look to some place else.

See previous post about warranty claims and transmission failures.

 

Good all around car out of the box. High safety ratings, good reliability. As much as I want to mod the car, I rarely do modify my vehicles, and really, for me, the only thing I would definitely want to do for this car is suspension/wheels/tires. I have a hard time justifying dumping too much money in to cars because you rarely, if ever get it back. I'd rather put the money in to my house, or take a vacation or something.


I guess until my transmission breaks I'll continue to believe that most problems stem from abuse. I say most, because there will always be some legitimate issues. Look at the guy who started that thread: "we had snow, so I was doing donuts, and now my transmission is messed up". If he was doing donuts in the snow, who is to say he wasn't shifting hard and beating up on the car. There also might be some stuff he isn't telling you about. There are some people in there who do have REAL problems, but most of those guys seem to have '02 models. If what they say is true about SOA shipping replacement parts that had been redesigned, with the same part #, then the '03 should certainly have those updated parts. And like I said, there are people that I know PERSONALLY who have a ton of power and mods, take their car to road course track days, but don't drop the clutch and do drag strip stuff and their transmission is fine. It probably will develop problems down the road due to the increased hp though.

The car certainly can hold a launch without stripping. In fact, many people do clutch drops and don't have problems at all..until maybe the 10th or 11th time they do it. You never know. I've launched my car hard, but I feather the clutch out in the process - clutches are MUCH cheaper than transmissions

Basically, if you plan on modifying your car, plan on some problems occuring from the way you likely will drive your modified car, and from the extra power that is being channeled through the individual pieces. So far, I've got just under 9,000 miles on my '03, I've driven it VERY hard on many mountain passes and winding roads, and commute through heavy traffic daily. No problems to report.

 

um. The WRX is by no means the ULTIMATE street king car.

I dunno. sheesh Go buy yourself a skyline or something

Um. You're looking for horsepower. I can tell that a 1000 dollar blown up '90 eclipse GSX plus a fully built 4g63, a standalone EMS, a huge *** IC, a huge *** fuel pump and 850 cc injectors, and some huge *** turbo from www.forcedperformance.com , and a monster built invincible dogteeth gearbox would suite you a lot better than a 20 thousand dollar WRX.

The only reason i'd get a wrx if I were you was if you had money, wanted 5 seats, and wanted a new car with no hassles. Otherwise, the wrx's abilities can be had for SO much less.

my .02

 

saruman, check out SPD here. Lot's of good info on how to tune the WRX to high output as well as what is gonna stop you from doing it easily.