Hey there guys and gals,

I am the new kid on the Block. My father and I recently acquired a 2002 Impreza WRX, with a 5 speed manual with the Check engine light on. He and I both love the car and have loved them always. I my self have been into the Impreza since first watching it in rally races back in 1998. one of my all time favorite Imprezas will remain the 2000 Impreza STI RA. We purchased the car used with 140,000 miles (mint huh?). The car does have a stock top mount intercooler, a "different" turbo what ever that means, an HKS BOV, AEM CAI, Aftermarket black wheels, what we believe to be a turbo back exhaust (catted), aftermarket up pipe, and a "6 puck bronze clutch", stock spoiler, factory installed accessory Boost gauge.

The WRX had what I measured out to be a 3" drop (front ride height of 12.75" and rear of 12.55"), measuring from top of fender to center of wheel center cap. Versus "stock" ride height specifications. The car handled horribly, bounced all of the time. Very dangerous, we were told that the previous owner lowered the car the cheapest way possible. He cut the springs (wtf) so we ordered a cheap set of 1.5" DNA brand drop springs ($75) from eBay, (I know with a proper set of springs and shocks the car can and will drive even better but we were low on cash and needed an immediate fix) and installed them our selves. Bingo, drastically better handling instantaneously.

Next we scanned the codes that the check engine light put out, 1 code came up. P0031 (front O2 sensor) alright so we'll handle that soon enough we thought. Next the Upper rad hose sprung a leak. Bought a new hose, some coolant and voila fixed. we continue driving the car for a few hundred more miles, but the car would not run well at all, when you got on the boost the car seemed to "over boost" and putt very harshly. So we decided to change the spark plugs and see if that helped. After the old plugs were removed we found them to be crappy AC Delco's, We replaced them with NGK Iridium IX plugs, test drove it and once again Voila we were driving a completely new car. Though it still seems to hit a "fuel cut" when WOT at the upper RPM's of the 4th and 5th gears.

Next we jacked the car up again to change the oil because it was darker than Tar. Chucked the crappy fram filter and replaced it with an OEM subaru filter. New model OEM Magnetic Drain plug and Walmart 5 Quart jug (4.8 qts of which we used) of Mobile 1 5w30 Full synthetic motor oil and she had new blood running through her veins. While we were were changing filters we decided to change the fuel filter as well with an OEM unit :-)

So at this point we are very tired of seeing that damn yellow check engine light constantly on, so we bite the bullet and purchase the O2 sensor from amazon. A Bosch unit on sale for about $97 dollars (great deal huh?), get it in the mail a lot of PB blaster and some time later we were done. Checked the codes again before we cleared them and now we have 3 codes up (wtf?). P0031 (front O2 sensor), P0546 (EGT Sensor), and P0244 (Turbocharger wastegate solenoid A range/ performance) <~~ huh? To remedy the EGT code we did the 2.2ohm resister mod and solved that problem, I cleared all of the codes and the relentless check engine light was finally out. Hooray...

Just took the WRX to Glanzman Subaru today to handle a couple of recalls and was told about this site from the parts guy. So i joined and here we are, proud new members. Thanks for taking the time out to read this.

 

Welcome to i-club. Glad you got your CELs worked out. I just put some electrical tape over my Check Engine Light so I can't see it. J/K!

What is a "different turbo"?

 

Hello Queeg9k, Thank you for the greetings. We should have done the Black tape "mod" too, it would have saved us some money:-). I'd love to be able to answer the turbo question but I don't know. When we bought the car from the guy he was vague about the Mod's that "he" did to the car, one of the things that he said was that he put a "different" turbo in the car, not really knowing at the time, I misunderstood that as meaning a better turbo. But it isn't, we believe it to be the stock turbo from another WRX (we hope). But at this point have no way of knowing, what we believe happened is that either the cat in the up pipe broke apart and took out the turbo and that is why they "changed" the turbo and up pipe or the EGT sensor broke and that is why they "changed" the turbo.

 

Definitely love this car.. Further more I love all of our cars..

 

Welcome

 

welcome to the clubbbb

sounds like you are enjoying the car, glad to hear that. One thing, a lot of people recommend using rotella 5w40. I was using mobil 1 5w30 for the first 4 oil changes and just switched over to rotella and noticed my car isnt eating oil anymore. With the 5w30 I was burning about a full quart of oil every 2500-3000 miles. I had to put about half a quart at the 1200 mile mark. After switching to rotella, I check my oil recently at 1300 miles on the oil, and it looks like the oil is at the same place I left it. Just a thought, especially on a high mileage engine. Oh yeah, my car only has just under 85k

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

Shalom

 

Thank you very much

 

Hello, and thank you very much for your response to my post. I agree that the Mobile 1 wasn't the best choice, IAG Performance told me that I shouldn't use it for the very same reasons that you have described. They recommended I use; MOTUL 300V for the oil consumption problem and lubrication benefits (They sell it to customers and use it themselves).

The three reasons I ignorantly ignored their advice and used the Mobil 1 any way were that 1. It costs about $100 for the amount of oil I need per oil change 2. I had an extra new jug of the Mobil 1 (I use it in my Acura RSX and buy extra) and 3. I needed to get that old, burnt, tar colored oil out of that car asap (Don't know when it was last changed)

But if all goes well in the near future (next oil change) we will go with better oil; Rotella like you use, Royal Purple, or Motul. Thank you again..

 

Thank you very much.

 

Shalom aleikhem