WRX 2.0 more reliable than the 2.5?

I didn't read through this, but I'll give my personal experience.

My 2002 WRX Wagon has around 182k and I don't think the motor has ever been cracked open. With "Stage 2" mods, the car takes a pretty good beating, barely uses any oil and gets great gas mileage. I have a buddy that also has a 2002 Wagon, but has modded his for straight line performance. The original bottom end made it over 230k before it popped, seeing numerous turbo upgrades and other mods and I believe making near or over 400HP. I've had other friends make it over 200k on 2.0's as well.

The 2.5 has been another story...

I have a friend that has a mildly modded '06 WRX, who barely drives the car hard EVER. Even with a good tune, the car blew the 4th cylinder rings right around 100k.

I have another friend that owned a 2004 Forester XT with the 2.5 and didn't have a pleasant experience. He bought the car with around 110k and it used a good amount of oil from the time he bought it. A newish TD04 helped somewhat, but it still went through it at a much higher rate than my 2.0 car. One day, he was racing something after work, when the plastic end tank on his radiator decided to blow (common issue). The temp gauge spiked for about a second, but even after replacing the radiator the car spewed white smoke as if the minor spike had blown a headgasket. He got rid of it before figuring out what was wrong, mostly because he was sick of working on it.

I've also had numerous friends blow rings in STi's even barely modded.

The other annoying thing about the 2.5 turbo motors, is the "air pump" issues they get. I can't remember exactly what they are for, but there are air pumps for something having to do with cold start emissions. When they go bad, they trip the CEL, which for some reason annoyingly disables the cruise control. Subaru recognizes the issue, and I believe there is a TSB. I know that back in the day Subaru would fix them free of charge, as long as you pay for the parts, which totaled a pretty penny IIRC (Maybe $600?). Otherwise, you can remove them and get block off plates, but then have to disable the CEL's with tuning somehow. It seemed like enough of a headache to turn me away from an otherwise nice 2006 Wagon that cost over double what I paid for my '02.

IMO, look for a nice unmolested 2.0 car, get rid of the catted uppipe and keep up on changing the trans fluid, and watch for rust on the neck of the coolant tank infront of the turbo and you'll have a solid fun car.

Also, the 2.0's trans issues seem overblown.

I make sure to toss in fresh Subaru Extra-S fluid every 15k, and it has seem LOTS of hard shifts and more than a handful 5500RPM "launch control" launches both on the street and the drag strip. My trans still shifts like butter everyday.

From what I've seen, the trans failures seem to come about once the cars exceed power levels that the stock turbo can make.

I would say that if you plan on keeping the car stock or doing minor mods, you won't have any trans issues unless the car previously was making a ton of power.

The Air pump issue on the 06-07 took all of 5 minutes to take care of. Just disable them closed and program the 4 OBD II codes to not activate. It's super easy and costs $169 if you don't have the Tactrix cable. Bonus is you can now upload tunes if you want.

It was the first thing I did with my Forester XT.

Matt B wrote: So we're seriously thinking about adding a WRX to the family (the wife wants one BAD, God bless her), but I have to admit the ability for them to pop engines doesn't give me the warm-n-fuzzies. I've read most of the recent threads on the subject, and it seems most of the horror stories come from the 06+ 2.5 motors. In turn, I'm wondering if the older 2 liters are a safer bet? The car will be used for commuting and maybe 4-6 autocrosses a year. Not planning on any real mods beyond a tune to ditch the crappy stock management and possibly some upgrades to the cooling system. Also, just to get it out of the way - I understand there's no guarantee that I'll have problems it seems pretty fair to say it's a crapshoot, especially when dealing with the typical Subaru PO's. I know there's some on this board who haven't had any issues, while others blew ringlands before 100K. Maybe I should have titled this thread, "How do I buy a reliable WRX?" As always, thanks ahead for the input.

OK here we go again with the Subaru debate. I feel compelled to jump in here with the positive. People either love them or hate them. I love them. Still waiting for my 15 WRX to come in which will be my 6th Subie. My son has a 13 WRX. We road race them and autocross them but also take care of them which means we change the oil every 5K miles, let the car/turbo cool down before shutdown and do required maintenance work when it's due etc. All have been completely problem free and reliable. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend one. The problem is with the previous owners. Poorly done mods and/or abuse being the culprits. I have been through this and posted many times before on this forum about this subject so I am not going to repeat it all again. Search well, do the required maintenance and good luck. Subaru ownership can be a good experience.

I had a 2002 WRX go over 200k on the stock, "glass" transmission. No, it never grenaded on me, because I was gentle with it.

So why my complaint?

Because I don't want to be gentle. I want the joy of an AWD burnout. I want to outlaunch that Mustang in the next lane. I want to hoon like a 16 year old. Driving in a way that ensured that the trans lasted ruined the rest of the car for me.

Matt B wrote: I'm pretty sure we're getting a WRX whether I like it not, so I'm just trying to walk in with my eyes open. Also, she won't be able to veto anything when it's my turn. edit - at least she doesn't want any number of boring, expensive, bloated automobiles that some of her friends seem to like. I realized I'm probably sounding a wee-bit negative about the whole thing, when in reality I don't consider this a bad problem to have. Maybe I'll even get her to dirty up in the garage.

Haha I actually met my girl friend because of my wrx. Although she drives a civic currently she dreams of the day we have a driveway full of STis.

But yea, as someone else stated previous owners and maintenance. Almost with any car if you have someone who never maintains the car or wants to do burnouts at every stop light your going to have problems. At my local rally cross I know people who have been through many motors and I know people who have lots of miles on the original motor.

They really are nice cars. In stock form you can win a rally cross one day and then change tires and win an autocross the next. I just did a 3,000 mile road trip in mine from san diego to canada in comfort (more than I thought actually) and even got 28mpg at times

ouchx100 wrote: They really are nice cars. In stock form you can win a rally cross one day and then change tires and win an autocross the next.

We're talking about WRXs, not 2.5RSs.

2.5RS is a much better rallycross platform. No turbo lag and much better gearing.

In reply to Knurled:

Rallycross really comes down to the driver. That's how I and others have managed to finish above 2.5RSs in WRXs.

Thanks for everyone's info and impressions, from both sides of "the great debate".

After all the online research, plus talking with some independent Subaru shops it looks like it mainly comes down to the most obvious thing EVAR.... how it was treated by the previous owner. Which is going to be a bugger if we go with one of the older models.

Here's what we're thinking so far:

02-03 bugeyes - Out due to age and the transmission issues.

04-05 - In, (big)IF we can find a super-clean unmodified example with low miles. If I have my facts straight, it's also the last years of the 2.0, but without the fragile transmissions.

06-07 - Out, because early 2.5 teething issues. Plus the grill greatly displeases both the wife and I. Subjectivity!

08-9 - Out due to early engine management issues. Also, we prefer the fender flares. Must be our inner ricer.

10-14 - In and most likely candidate because they're going to be less likely to be hacked up and most of the issues were supposedly fixed. Also, I wouldn't mind a warranty with this specific automotive endeavor. We're looking specifically for the hatch, because otherwise I'd just push to get the new '15 with the FA motor. This means we're going to need a lot more money saved up for a down payment, because I don't want a five year loan (I'm thinking 3yr). I've never entertained buying a car for more than $8k, so this is new territory for me. Just the thought of it give me shrinkage.

I was in the pool! I WAS IN THE POOL!

DILYSI Dave wrote: I had a 2002 WRX go over 200k on the stock, "glass" transmission. No, it never grenaded on me, because I was gentle with it. So why my complaint? Because I don't want to be gentle. I want the joy of an AWD burnout. I want to outlaunch that Mustang in the next lane. I want to hoon like a 16 year old. Driving in a way that ensured that the trans lasted ruined the rest of the car for me.

Don't 2.0 STX cars regularly spin 3-4 wheels at Prosolos (back when competitive)? They can certainly beat the Mustang to the 60 foot mark. I haven't heard of many transmission failures in the autox world (below *SP) either... as long as you slip the clutch on the launch they seem to be pretty good.

Anecdotal evidence: I used to codrive an '03 with the glass transmission. The owner could launch that car extremely hard and did so frequently. Never had a problem with it.

As much as WRX reliability scares me, I really did like that car.

Speaking of autocross - what have you guys heard about denied warranty claims based on autocross participation. Is it a sure-fire way to get screwed?

Matt B wrote: Speaking of autocross - what have you guys heard about denied warranty claims based on autocross participation. Is it a sure-fire way to get screwed?

A friend of mine just blew up a WRX engine with a "stage 2" tune he downloaded online and they honored the warranty. If they will fix that I don't see how they wont fix an autocross car.

Besides the additional blow'd up engine story, that's good to hear.

Getting "raced" cars fixed at the dealer under warranty: it all depends on the dealer.

I was fighting with both SOA and my local dealer to fix clutch issues on my 2009 that had the "Gold Plus" warranty. It was making some bad rattling and squeaking sounds and the throwout bearing was toast a little before 50k miles. It was stuff that was supposed to be covered under that extra cost warranty, and they wouldn't touch a thing unless I authorized $1400 in "exploratory labor" to see if the parts failed or not, and if they determined that the parts did not fall under the warranty, I would have to foot the bill AND pay for the parts and additional labor. Basically, they had to drop the transmission to look at the clutch and related parts. My car was never raced; not even one pass at the drag strip was made in this car. When I complained to SOA, they told me that it was "up to the dealer" and they wouldn't intervene or give me a guarantee that it would be covered under warranty.

So yeah, if you have a good dealer that is willing to warranty whatever you want, it's great. The local dealer and dealers in the area didn't want to help me in my case, and neither did SOA, and I paid EXTRA for that warranty, so YMMV.

Hmmm, I think I remember you reporting that lovely experience a while back.

Time to do some research on my local Subaru dealer...

In reply to SilverFleet: What kind of bullE36 M3 laws are being written that the manufacturer can say a dealer doesn't have to honor a warranty?

In reply to Mr_Clutch42:

I have no idea, but I got so disillusioned with the whole thing that I just went and traded the car in and bought a Mazda. And this time, I didn't bother with the extended warranty. And I was a diehard Subaru fanboy on his 2nd WRX, and I hand convinced many to buy them too.

The good thing about the pre-2008 cars is that they are pretty easy to work on. It was a pleasure to wrench on my 2002 WRX. The 2009 wasn't as easy.