Daz-RSK

Good find and thanks for sharing! I didn't even know they were considering the change in name. So all we need now is for the lighter side of their industry to change so we can buy Subaru camera's. Unlikely to happen, of course - but to claim that you took pics of your Scooby on a Scooby camera would be a little novel.

Is a service required after 12 months and 1700 miles ? Well, there are 2 obvious ways here. Maybe it isn't required, although through the winter months, due to lack of use and standing in 0 degree temps for a lot of time, the oil would have a bit more condensation / moisture in and around it. Cause to have the oil changed ? Depends really on how fussy you are. Many people would say "So what - what damage can that do, the limited (if any) moisture that is about". Others believe that it helps for the longevity of the car. How anybody can tell which way out is best, I wouldn't know. It is personal choice on this. Probably leaving the oil change 5 years though because it's done 8000 miles would be a little excessive by most people's book. So that's one side of it. The other side is that if your transmission breaks and there is a bill of £1000 /1500 swilling around, companies don't like paying the money when certain conditions have not been met. In fact, they run to the hills and run very quickly. The companies normally are of the insurance kind of company and offer you Subaru warranty on your car. So your car has had a catastrophic transmission failure, the dealer has quoted £1250 for the job, the warranty company has run away - who is going to pick that bill up ? Now, obviously it's all about risk and the chances of this failure are slim at the worst chance. But whilst not 0% chance, there is some risk. Also, if you decided the bill was too steep to pay and just decided to hand the car in as it is, non functioning, as a newer car with broken transmission, you have a lot more to lose in ££ in car value than, say, a 6 year old motor with broken transmission long after the warranty has expired. Unfortunately, unlike cars that do what is asked of them, non functioning motors seem to be valued very much more closely and at bargain money

Ha ha. I'll check the form. A mate of mine has bought a 600bhp GTR (Lichfield tuned) to cover 70k miles per year. Already covered 25k since Christmas. Is that pure genius or ultra insanity ? It's such a fine line. I think on balance it could the latter - but I do see the brilliance of running around a 600 pony fleet motor.

12000 miles in 5 months in mine now. Probably need to join the head testing queue. Can someone show me where it is.

Yes it is a concern. Are you saying that yours hasn't had a service since 2015 ? If so, did the dealer explain why ?

I have the 2014 version but understand the 2018MY has a different nose, Recaro seats, (power operated - although I am not sure whether that is for the UK market as I know Subaru do different things for different markets). As for power upgrades, I have no idea. The dealer I bought mine from discouraged me from power packs as the 2.5L is a bit "soft". This is the same dealer that sells RS Focus with the 375 and 400 pack as part of their service as well, so I held their opinion as being true.

As what Tidgy said - just get it done at Subaru. I know it's a pain, having only done 5500 miles at that cost. BUT.....a Subaru service history adds a bit of weight when you come to sell. Also, being a new-ish motor, I wouldn't mess around taking it to Tom & Harry down the road, where you need to make they are using Subaru standard / Subaru quality parts. Insurance companies love a get out at the time of having to pay you out, if you did run into a bit of bother with the motor down the line. It is likely the warranty company may let you use somewhere else but as Tidgy also says, check the T&C.

That's fair enough Jonboy. You have had good experience with yours. So looking back, it probably was the right thing to do. Don't worry - I've been winding up an LPG installer on the other forum I am a member of. In fairness, I haven't been winding him up - but people "in the trade" don't like other people questioning the output of their trade. That is why he has been wound up. Let me explain myself a bit better, as it isn't the fact that you should never risk something. The purpose of an LPG conversion is just one. It certainly doesn't make the car go faster, it doesn't make it run better, it doesn't look good, it doesn't add any/much value to the car. It just has one purpose - that is to lower your operational costs (running costs). So it is a money saver. With other things like engine re-work for extra ponies, remaps for the same, different bodykit, better brakes and other mods - this have a completely different purpose. They personalise the vehicle and make the car more yours - more like you want it to be. They have that "grin" factor, if you like, as there is tangible benefit from the conversion which the sole aim is not to save you money at all. You could spend £1000 or more on some modification work. It'll be a total waste of money, agreed, but it provides you with (hopefully) self satisfaction that your car is better than it was when you bought it. Maybe better than most others. The purpose of that £1000 (or more) is more for the personal satisfaction. The purpose of a £1500 LPG conversion is purely to save money, based on the reasons I have said above. I would pay £1500 to modify my motor to make it look / run better over the top of £1500 towards LPG. That may sound daft, but hear me out. If I spend £1500 to modify the car, I not only get that "wow" factor, but I know that it is £1500 wasted and also, whatever goes wrong with the car next is just life. Hey, older cars go wrong. I spent £1500 and I now have to spend another £1000 to get the next issue fixed. When you buy an LPG conversion, you buy into saving money. Saving money on a 10 year old motor is like a lottery because one g'box failure wipes those savings out. One transmission failure as a consequence of the g'box failure blows all savings from the LPG conversion out of the water and some more. It's a bit like someone saying that if you invest in this product, you'll get twice the value back in 2 years - and then you find the product hasn't performed as well as they have promised and starts costing you instead. I am probably not conveying what I mean very well. I think I would sum it up that people buy an LPG conversion to save money and could be left disappointed when it doesn't because the motor becomes a bit of a headache. Placing a tuned lump in costs money, has onwards costs as well, but because the aims are different, the disappointment is lower of what could go wrong next.

I'll paint an alternative picture for you all to ponder. I see that with exception to l-systems with a new-ish XV, the rest of you on this thread are running 10yr old motors or older. Would that be a fair assumption ? Can you tell me what the next thing is that is about to go wrong on your car and how much it will cost to fix ? This has nothing to do with LPG - just your car as it stands today. What is the next thing to go wrong and how much to repair ? If you could answer this question, you would be some form of genius, unless you are aware of some gremlin that does need fixing and it is a matter of time and money to get to it. But if it was something serious, like g'box failure or the next major, you would be pretty good in the mystique world at forecasting that. So given you don't know what the next big bill is and the next big bill could cause you to have to find a bit of money a bit quickly, to get your car back on the road, what would be the feeling if you have the LPG conversion completed AND the gearbox goes bang within a couple of weeks of each other ? I am not saying the LPG has caused gearbox failure - I am saying you are about to embark on 2 hefty bills (one you were prepared for and one you weren't - but the sum for both could be in region of £2500). Might be something to ponder.

Just listening to that video through, when you reversed (similar speed to the forward motion, if you see what I mean), the noise disappeared ? If it was a rotational noise (bearing, driveshaft, brakes), I would have thought that it would be consistent whichever direction. When the car was up on stands, did you run it up in gear ? If you have an assistant drive it up through the gears (not madly so), you can nose around it - assuming you've not done this.

Not sure what I post here makes any difference to what you need but just some additional info - model years and registration dates are different things. MY are like build forecasts for a tranche of models. So using the example above, it is not uncommon for a MY 2015 to be purchased / registered in 2014. Your car is actually a 2015MY as there were no WRX STi 2014MY in this current shape (I believe). These MY changes sometimes coincide with pricing movements, sometimes with trim differences etc. It depends on manufacturer to manufacturer and model to model. The WRX doesn't really go through this stuff as quickly as maybe other Scooby models or even other manufacturers. Some manufacturers break down the MY into halves or even quarters. So you could buy a MY 2017.25 Vauxhall or 2017.75 Ford. When they release these MY's, it doesn't really coincide with the year we are in. So it could be that the 2018 MY may be released in the next couple of months. Why does it make any difference ? Unless you are a bit of a trim fanatic or like to choose a particular enhancement on the model that you know wasn't built until a certain MY, either as a new car or a used car, then this would have passed you by. In fairness, we tend to go on registrations to age our motors. That is both a good thing and a bad thing. Frankly, MY classification is a bit clumsy and, as said, unless you know what you are looking for with the enhancements between one MY and the next, it would make little difference to you. That all said, MY gives you a view of how long the vehicle has been sitting around before being bought / registered. That may concern you, especially if your car is 3 years older than the reg date. The US and Japan tend to work more by MY than reg dates because they don't have the change in plate to depict the age as frequent as us. So it is one of the key understandings as to when the vehicle MY is. They seem to be more particular on the extra's they may get for the next model year or what they may lose (as it sometimes goes that way as well). As said, we tend to go by the plate to age our vehicle.

It's a standard Home Fleet policy. My insurance is through Clegg Gifford but it is a spin off from a Tradex policy. The reason for this spin off is that it works under the same premise as a trader's policy but for people in the street. Therefore, you don't need to be a motor trader or a garage to have this. The way it works is simple, as I explained above. It is based on liability, not specifically what the vehicle is. OK, if you loaded some form of Ferrari on there, it would load the premium. But so would adding a £100k motor anyway, as it is liability driven - so both go hand in hand. They probably would get a little twitchy as well if you were running a fleet of Fiesta's and decided to switch them all to Skylines & Impreza's. So there is some risk with the car, but it isn't so significant. It is about you, the driver. I am an old git, live miles from any Crimewatch scene in the middle of nowhere and have a good driving record with full NCB. I pay £900. I pay that if I had 1 car or 20 of them, as said above. It doesn't matter how many I have, in reality, because I can't drive them all together. I can add and remove vehicles, just by a phone conversation and no fee attached for admin. Car insurance is money for old rope. All the car insurance industry places a risk on is that there are more safe drivers in the portfolio than unsafe drivers. If you are an unsafe driver, then you pay dearly, as some of you know. So it assists this balancing as well. Another piece of the scam, if you like. You could own a £1000 motor, insure it for £500. You then decide to buy a Scooby, worth £5000, and the premium doubles to £1000 because of the price of the car and its performance. Why does £500 premium stop you colliding with a £200k Ferrari and totaling it anymore than a £1000 premium ? It doesn't. They place the risk on you and your car, but not what you could hit. The cost to the insurance industry is cheaper if you hit another £5000 motor - but that isn't guaranteed and nor is the intent of the insurance. It does not exclude what you can and can't hit with / without being covered. So how does that work people ? So given that you pay variable amounts for the type / price / performance of the car you own, doesn't it give you a sense of unease that you could create a whole load of £££ damage that is immaterial in your insurance contract. All the insurance hike from the £500 to the £1000 is stating is that they are a little more uncomfortable with what you drive, not what you hit. If it really does boil down to that, then the insurance should be on the person and the variability in price between a 1.0L 100bhp Fiesta and a 300bhp Scooby should be negligible.

You see, this is the thing I hate about insurance companies. You have to pay a premium for each vehicle, but you can't drive both vehicles simultaneously. Some of us might be good behind the wheel -- but not that good! The insurance should be on you and you should be classed as to what you can drive. Apart from fire & theft, there is no reason for the vehicle to have the insurance. All vehicles should have F&T and rest of the insurance is on you. I am close to this concept now with what I have. I can have 1 car or 20 cars and it'll cost me £900 total for the year. They insure me, the driver, not the car(s) I drive. The only time that the premium goes up is if I add a higher value motor on there and that is understandable. My liability pot has increased.

Look at what this fetched the other day. Holy moly. 52 miles on it. Someone was on a mission to maintain its value and do more. http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24118/lot/10/

You're probably right there with the way we drive. At least yours in on the 1st gear. My JDM Legacy with an aftermarket Toad alarm had the same set up as your Dad's Skoda Tomas. When you came to a halt and turned off the ignition, all the doors unlocked. Now I liked that system!

Good summary Roger! I think I would agree with all of that. Mine spends its life on the m/way, hence the reason it has racked up 9000 miles since I bought it in early November. It is a bit noisy. But then I have come out of 10+ yr old motors into this one and perhaps I am not so sensitive. There are some annoying issues that you have mentioned. In the 2014 version, I don't know whether the early ones are different, there are some more. The central locking system. What on earth!! So the anti hijack system kicks in on depression of the clutch with ignition off and locks all of the doors before starting up. What is that about and why can't I turn that off ? The work around is to keep the door open until after you start the car. I don't want to be locked inside the car. If I need to get out, I need to open the door without faffing. If I need the anti-hijack locking, I'll do it myself, not on the clutch pedal switch. Driver door keyless entry - why does only the driver door unlock ? When you do the passenger door, all 4 unlock ? Again, if I want that set up, I would manually programme it in. But that is the Subaru default and can't be changed. To open the back door, you end up keyless the driver door and then clicking the button on the driver door card to unlock all 4. As you see, I am not getting to grips with the whole locking / unlocking system. I hope you guys with later ones don't have these issues as Subaru seemed to have rammed us lot with this and when I asked the dealer, they said " Sorry - that's how it is!" I bet it isn't and if I took it to an auto electrical place, they'd sort it. But it's not that bad for me to start getting someone to pull the electrics apart. Just one other thing - my mpg has now shot up. School boy error - never checked the tyre pressures. The 35 series tyres don't give too much away so it is an easy mistake. I have been running on 26psi. Now I have increased them to the book ~33psi, now we are seeing good mpg - 32/33. This is what i would have expected as running around in the few more thirsty variants over the years, I normally am able to get 30+ out of my leisurely commute.

Bit aligned to the other thread on Owner's age that Rkidder placed up and people chiming in when they got their 1st Scooby - would be interested to see what length of time people keep their cars on here. I'd imagine that there is a fast pace of switching around on here for most - but has someone met that magic 20 yr mark ? When I say long spell ownership, I don't mean tucked down the garden in a heap, with no insurance, no MOT, rotting away or spent years as a project off the road. I know they all add to ownership - but they quickly become a forgotten machine if they spend years off the road. Well, OK, place them in - but I do mean actually kept running year after year, MOT each year etc. For me, my 1st Scooby was a twin turbo Legacy RSK, bought in early 2003, sold late 2016 - 13.5 years ownership.

To answer both points - by 2027, there will be more new tech vehicles sold as new than pure ICE in the UK is what they are forecasting. By 2035, you will struggle to get hold of a pure ICE motor as new. Electric STi. I wouldn't say no. Knock the spots off the performance we have in ours today.

Yes, I am with you on that, with the frequent changing. I used to do that in a diesel motor I had 10 years ago and change every 5-6k miles when the service interval was a lot higher. The reason I am not so on board with that, myself, now is because my journeys are just a straight 50 miles out of the driveway and down the m/way. It does little in the way of town / shopping trips. So a huge % of its operating life with me is at normal temperature, not the stop/start stuff that is a killer. But that all said, I certainly see what you are saying because I used to do that, for sure. I then just figured for me, personally, it probably was a bit overboard, given this has been my routine of this type of usage for the last 20 years. But if your motor does do a bit more of the stop/start, absolutely, change the oil more frequent. A pot of oil is pretty cheap compared to other things that can go wrong.

I think people with these theories about not driving in the rain get precious about the underside, not the bodywork as such. I see what he was trying to do in 2013, not that I am a supporter of this - but that was not get the car wet underneath, kicking up dirt and crap. But he went about it all the wrong way. He dived out whilst the roads were soaking. I would waited for them to dry - and his car to dry off as well. In the July sun that then appeared after the storm, it all dried up quite quick. Anyway, I digress from the topic. It does depend on what you want the car for, Some people above, quite rightly said, what's the point of owning a car if you don't use it. That's a very fair point. That's what they are bought for, after all, and that is what they are good at. But if your ambition is to keep the car for a decade or longer, going out and piling on the mileage, you'll soon find 2 things:- 100,000 miles is done in no time The car becomes less enjoyable to drive. Before this WRX, I have a Legacy RSK. Bought in 2002, sold end of last year, completing 35k miles in it. So 2.5k miles per year. But it was all front loaded and when I bought it, I was doing near 6k miles p/a. In the last 10 years, I probably did on average 1000 per year. The good thing was that I washed it twice per year and it stayed clean all year. Also, driving was always fresh and like a new car. But the argument remained that it was a waste of a motor. Hence, I decided to get rid and buy I car I could use daily.

Mine has these on it. Not sure how much louder they are than standard as I have never driven a standard version. Bought the car with these on. http://www.subarupartsstore.co.uk/index.php/impreza/impreza2014-2015/prscva1000.html

I don't have an answer to your question Muziqaz. But FFS....what's the matter with people. Was he blind or something ? You just can't leave your pride & joy anywhere without the risk of someone smacking it.

Don't tell me - lives in W Highlands, Scotland where it stops raining for 15 mins during the day. No wonder it has low mileage. I love that quote "never been in rain". I wonder how that is substantiated ? I work for a car manufacturer - the competition (or enemy if you like) - and we have a day where employees can bring in their special cars in and show them out in the car park. Being a bunch of petrol heads in a professional capacity, you can see that there are some quite exotic stuff gets in. One guy brings in this Mk2 Jag in red - absolutely immaculate, with the wire wheels, 3.8L version. So the top spec thing. On the write up, he states that it was restored in the late 1990's and has never been in the rain or seen a wet road since the restoration. He brings this thing in every year. The only issue with this is we witnessed in 2013, it saw rain and a wet road.......at the show we all attend.....yes here at work, it poured down. But it was not for the want of trying to get his car out of a shoehorned, wedged in car park that the script of never seeing rain or wet road was going to still remain fact. The song and dance as he tried to get people out of the way! An absolute scene with all this shouting and swearing, as his pride and joy was getting wet for the first time in 20 years. Guess what the script said last year - yeap...never seen rain or a wet road since its restoration. So I took the trouble to remind him of the 2013 event, because I am nice like that. His face turned a bit angry. I am not sure whether he didn't like the reminder of that frantic year for him or whether it was that I was pulling his script apart as being dishonest because the clock should be now reset to never seeing rain/wet road since 2013. Perhaps that's not much of a statement with a 1960's motor that does 20 miles per annum.

Ha ha - sorry, not been on for a bit to get back to this. No, 4 months isn't my choice. 4 months is Subaru's choice. That's 12,000 miles for me.

Thanks for your responses people. You have all said what I thought. I wasn't so concerned about the 0W they placed in as that is your ambient temp viscosity. 0 degrees outside, your oil isn't going to be a whole lot higher in temp before it is started for the first time in 12 hours - maybe a few degrees due to being sheltered. The 0W is nice & thin at this temp. It was the 20 operating viscosity I was a bit alarmed at. In fairness, I don't rag it about and probably 20 is fine for my usage. But it's not the book guidance, therefore, it's a bit foolish to run against the guidance. So I'll have the inquisition at the dealers next time. I won't bother dumping it out now - I go through oil change intervals in 4 months and halfway through since the last. They or I can do it in March / April.