Hey everyone i am looking to buy an STi in about a month or so. I am so stoked to get this car have been waiting forever, and so far i have heard wayyy more good about it then bad. But for experienced owners, i have some quetions to ask...

This will be my first car with a manual tranny... I am reading some posts about people saying they are having trouble with a bad transmission or "hard to get into reverse"... could any body give me details or specifics on these problems, and is it a big enough problem to keep me from buying this car?
Also, what year do you all suggest for most practical interior design?
Anything else i should know before purchasing this car... feel free to post.
Thanks! -matty d

 

if this is your first manual transmission car, you really should practice on somebody's POS beater before you get it.
The transmission issues mostly (not always, but mostly) come from heavily modded or beaten cars, but learning to drive stick on a high performance car will put a lot of wear on your clutch and tranny.
STi's and other high perfomance cars aren't the easiest to learn to drive on, and the last thing you want to do is snuff out your brand new STi pulling it off the showroom!

 

Most of the tranny issues you hear are from normal WRXs and from my experience the STi transmission is great. I've have had no problems (knock on wood) but at the same time I do not abuse my car at all. I would def. get the basics down on a beater because the STi tranny is not a cost effective one to learn on. As far as other compliants I don't really have anything significant. Brake dust totally sucks and being **** with parking spots gets annoying. Gas mileage can be a shocker if you plan on using it everyday but it's not to bad if you stay off boost most of the time. I am sure you will be totally happy with your ride. And when you get it, understand that it is powerful enough to slide and the curbs bite hard.

 

fom a performance standpoint, the easiest fastest way to add horsepower is with a chip/exhaust/intake setup to help the engine breathe better.

If you want to keep your warranty, that's pretty much all you can do (some dealers even get annoyed with any mods at all).

From there, it starts to get expensive, since at that point, if you really crave more HP's, you're looking at swapping intercooler, turbo, and fuel delivery (injectors, fuel pump, etc).There's some pretty in depth discussion on modification "stages" in some of the forum here, but since the STi's built to perform, a lot of the areas in other cars that require immediate attention (brakes, suspension, clutch) do not require as much, if any, modification on an STi. That's not to say that people don't upgrade them down the line, but the performance gains are much less, so it's not really cost justifiable to put even bigger brakes on unless you've made significant engine modification... etc etc. As with any car, there's really no limit to what you can do, except the thickness of your wallet.

 

An exhaust and reflash is generally the best and most cost effective way to go. Just remember this: the more air your engine gets the more fuel it will burn (hopefully, if not it will be sure to let you know) which means more powAR!!!!

 

Since this will be your first manual you really, REALLY should practice on a clunker that you dont care about. When i bought my first Wrx (02) i bought a $500 beater and just beat the freakin thing into the ground. Then i bought my 05 STi and i love it. then again a friends '97 M3 will do just fine. as far as getting into reverse thats a Wrx problem as far as i have found, Sti is easy to get into reverse. The 05 interior is also stepped up just a bit. i like the way the seats look and feel.

and a reflash i just a 'reset' on the ECU. Most ppl do it by disconnecting the battery and holding down the brakes till the charge dies (Brake lights go out) after that reconect battery and drive the car in different situations. Like on the highway around town, etc this will give the ECU different info from all of its sensors and allow it to ajust to any mods you put on the car. which means more power.

other then that get a test drive in one and you will almost instantly fall in love. its just one of those cars.

 

that is a good idea... i am going to look into that
by the way how much did you purchase your 05sti for?

 

you can "chip" or alter the ECU to perform higher by adjusting it for 93 octane fuel only, and adjust for any changes in boost, exhaust, etc. Look into Cobb tuning, they're one of the most respected subie tuners in the country.

 

whats the difference between tuning and reflash?

 

replacing the ECU with one that runs on a different "map" is much more effective (and expensive) than simply resetting your ECU and driving agressively to store more agressive settings in it. The car has a limited ability to adapt to the driving style of its owner, and by "re-flashing" you can adapt it to a more agressive style. But by replacing the ECU you can adjust the timing, and fuel delivery, which dramatically increases performance, especially with a turbo. Your best bet is to use the search engine on the forum, since there's probably dozens of discussions on this that are dozens of posts long, and you can get lots of opinions.

 

I will be looking into the WRX wagon but I had a few questions as to how it would really handle in the snow. I heard that the stock tires are bad and that a sway bar from a sedan would make it handle better. And what should the average price be for a brand new wagon if I could bargain it down. Any help would be appreciated.

 

replacing the suspension components (esp. the rear sway bars) helps a lot. The WRX is phenominal in the snow, it's AWD with a low center of gravity, but even the best car is no match for a bad or careless driver. Mine can handle about 8-10" of fresh snow before it starts to get in trouble with snow clogging crap up in front.

Consider a 9-2X. Extensive factory rebates make it a very attractive alternative that you can get in under 20K with the current incentives if you can find a M/T left!