I am looking at buying a 2002 WRX wagon with 70,000 miles on it. Manual tranny! I have only owned Honda's in the past so I am not too sure what to look for in a used Subaru or a Turbo. Is there any advice for me???

BTW, I am getting it for around $12k-$13k. Not too bad according to KBB.

Thanks in advance,

Brandon

 

Am I seeing a green S2k in that picture ?

 

Not familiar with them myself but I would on any turbo, I would look for signs of oil around the turbo.

Also, and don't ask me for the technical explanation because this is as technical as I can get, the inner seals in a turbo are stronger when it is spinning than when it is "resting". When you test drive the car and do a walkaround, leave the car idling for a few minutes. If it has bad seals it will sipp oil during long idle periods and you will start to see white smoke drift out of the exhaust. If you idle for a a few minutes with no smoke, and it drives fine, at least you know the turbo should be in good shape.

I blew two turbo's in my life and each time I would see white smoke start to trickle out at long stoplights right before it went.

 

Yes, that is a Green S It belongs to VintageMac on the PDX forums. Pictures do not do this car any justice. It is the nicest paint job I have ever seen. The green just pops and sparkles like crazy. He also has the OEM hardtop to match. Very nice car He bought it Black and painted it as soon as it came off the lot. Everything is shaved too!

 

Thanks for the heads up I will definetly do this when I check it out tonight.

 

transmission. it's not if it fails...it's when. And when could likely be around 75k miles! Not, like I can talk. I lost my S2000 tranny at about 50000.

 

I guess I will be the first to say this, watch out for your tranny. Dont upgrade your clutch without upgrading your gears, my friend did this and broke 2nd gear a week after, got it fixed and then broke 2nd,3rd,and 4th gears about a month after that.

With a Turbo-back Exhaust, Intake, and 15psi boost controller you could easily run low 14's all day. My friend had the WRX Sedan with those mods and bad tires and bad launch and ran a 14.1

 

second!!

 

GREAT CAR!!! Subaru's are very well built and solid.

With the 03's and under, the tranny is pretty week, so do absolutely no hard launching. For take-offs, you need to feather the clutch out.... For 04 and up, the WRX's tranny has been reinforced and is a bit stronger, but not as rock solid as say, an STI tranny.

Anyway, on a stock WRX, don't expect a huge boost when it comes in. With 3 cats on the WRX, the exhaust is very restricted and the 12psi of boost is very casual.

Having come from an 03 WRX sedan, I highly recommend this car! My fiance has the 04 WRX wagon, and I still love driving that thing!

 

Not being very familar with the Subu tranny, is there any indicators that it might be going? I know what a bad clutch feels like but is there any other way to tell?

Does anyone know what the cost would/should be to take it to a mechanic to check? Before I buy!